Is He Still Following His Ex on Instagram? How to Check (2026)

To find out if he is still following his ex on Instagram, open his profile, tap Following, and type her name or username into the search bar at the top. If she shows up, he follows her. If she does not, he does not, at least right now. That takes less than a minute, works whether her account is public or private, and does not notify either of them. If you also want to know whether that changes later, whether he unfollows her or follows her back, a tracker such as The Ick can watch his public profile hourly and tell you.

That is the practical answer. The harder part is what to do with it, because the follow itself rarely tells you much. Plenty of people keep following exes out of inertia, politeness or because unfollowing feels like a bigger statement than staying. The signals worth paying attention to are changes: an unfollow, a refollow, or a follow that comes with steady engagement.

This guide covers how to check the follow from both sides, how to confirm whether they interact, how to know if the situation changes without checking every day, and how to think about what you find. Throughout, the honest caveats apply: Instagram hides most activity, list order is not chronological, and no tool can see inside private accounts or private messages.

Step 1: Check his following list

This is the direct check.

1. Open his Instagram profile.
2. Tap the Following count.
3. Type her username in the search box at the top. If you only know her name, type that; Instagram searches display names too.
4. If her account appears, he follows her.

One caveat: if her account has blocked you, it will not appear in anyone's following list from your view, so you would see "not following" even if he does. If you suspect that, ask a friend to run the same check.

Step 2: Check from her side

Open her profile and tap Followers, then search for his username. If he appears, that confirms it. If she is private and you do not follow her, you will not be able to open her followers list, which is fine; step 1 already answered the question from his profile.

While you are on her profile, look at the "Followed by" line under her bio. It lists people you follow who also follow her. If you follow him and he follows her, he can appear there. Our guide on how to check if two Instagram accounts follow each other at /blog/how-to-check-if-two-instagram-accounts-follow-each-other covers the edge cases.

Step 3: Check whether she follows him back

Now reverse it. Open his Followers list and search for her. Or open her Following list and search for him. The combinations tell you different things:

None of these rows are a verdict. They are context.

Step 4: Look for interaction, within limits

A follow is passive. Interaction is not. Here is what you can and cannot see:

• Likes on her public posts: visible. Open a post and tap the likes to search for his username. On some posts Instagram hides the like count, but the list of likers is often still visible to viewers.
• Comments: visible on public posts.
• Story views, DMs, saved posts: invisible to everyone but the account owners. No tool can show these.
• Likes he has given: Instagram removed the public activity feed years ago, so there is no list of his likes. Our article on why Instagram removed the Following activity tab at /blog/why-instagram-removed-the-following-activity-tab explains the history.

Be careful with the like check. Tapping the heart by accident while scrolling her posts is a classic way to make this awkward.

Step 5: Know if it changes without checking daily

The follow status today is one thing. What people usually want to know is whether it changes: does he unfollow her, or worse, follow her again after having unfollowed. Instagram gives you no way to be told when that happens.

Manually, you would repeat step 1 every so often and hope you catch it. The alternative is an hourly tracker. With The Ick:

1. Type his username into the search box on theick.io and see the analysis of his public profile, including his most recent follows sorted by recency.
2. Subscribe to keep tracking. His profile is checked every hour.
3. If he follows or unfollows anyone, including his ex, you get a push notification and the change appears in your feed with a timestamp.
4. The history timeline keeps the record, so you can see whether a follow was recent or has been there for months.

This works because the tracker compares his full following list snapshot to snapshot, which sidesteps the problem that Instagram shows you the list in a non-chronological order. It uses only public data, needs no Instagram login, and never notifies him. It requires his profile to be public; her account being private does not matter, because the follow lives on his list. Details are on the Instagram recent follow tracker page at /instagram-recent-follow-tracker and pricing is on /pricing.

What a follow does and does not mean

Some grounding, because this is where people go wrong:

• Still following an ex is the default. Unfollowing takes a deliberate action and a lot of people never get around to it, or avoid it because it feels petty or dramatic.
• A refollow is different. If he had unfollowed her and her name reappears on his list, that was a choice made recently. It still may be innocent, but it is a fair thing to ask about.
• Regular likes and comments matter more than the follow. Engagement is ongoing; a follow is a leftover.
• Timing matters. A follow that predates your relationship is history. A follow that starts after an argument is not.

And the most important point: whatever you find, the next step is talking to him. Monitoring can give you a fact. It cannot give you his reason, and the reason is what actually decides whether this matters. If you find yourself checking repeatedly and feeling worse each time, the follow is not the real issue.

Where the limits are

• If his profile is private, no tracker can see his following list; only the manual search works, and only if you follow him. See can you track a private Instagram account at /blog/can-you-track-a-private-instagram-account.
• If her account has blocked you, the manual check will give a false negative.
• Nothing shows DMs, story views or saved posts. Any service claiming to is either lying or asking you to hand over his password, which you should never do.

For a broader look at watching a partner's follows rather than one specific account, see how to see who your boyfriend recently followed on Instagram at /blog/how-to-see-who-your-boyfriend-recently-followed-on-instagram.

Frequently asked questions

How do I check if he still follows his ex on Instagram?

Open his profile, tap Following, and type her username into the search bar. If she appears, he follows her. Then open her profile, tap Followers and search for his username to confirm it from the other side. This takes under a minute and does not notify anyone.

Can I find out if he refollowed his ex?

Instagram will not tell you, and his following list does not show dates. A tracker like The Ick records his public following list every hour, so if her name reappears you get a notification with the time it happened.

Does following an ex on Instagram mean anything?

On its own, usually not. Many people never unfollow exes because unfollowing feels like a statement, or simply because they forgot. A refollow after a period of not following, or a follow paired with regular likes and comments, is a stronger signal, but only a conversation gives you context.

Will he know I checked whether he follows his ex?

No. Searching a following list, opening a profile and viewing followers are all invisible to the account owner. Instagram only notifies people about likes, comments, follows, story views and messages.

What if his ex has a private account?

You can still see whether she appears in his following list, because that list is on his profile, not hers. What you cannot see is her followers list or her posts unless she approves you. A tracker can also still detect a follow or unfollow of a private account from his side, as long as his own profile is public.