Why Instagram Removed the Following Activity Tab and What Replaced It

Instagram removed the Following activity tab in October 2019. The company announced the change on October 7, 2019, and the tab was gone from the app within a few weeks. If you remember opening the heart icon and swiping to a feed of what your friends were liking, commenting on, and following, that is the feature this article is about. It has not come back, and nothing inside Instagram replaced it.

The official reason was low usage combined with the fact that many people did not realize their likes and follows were being broadcast to everyone who followed them. The unofficial reason, which everyone who used it understood, was that the tab had become the app's most effective tool for keeping tabs on partners, exes, and crushes, and that was not a reputation Instagram wanted.

This explainer covers what the Following tab actually showed, why it was removed, what Instagram offers today, and how you can still answer the most common question people used it for: who did this person just follow?

What the Following tab showed

The Activity screen, reached through the heart icon, had two tabs from 2011 until 2019:

• You — likes, comments, follows, and mentions aimed at you. This tab still exists today as the Notifications screen.
• Following — a chronological feed of what the accounts you followed were doing across Instagram.

The Following tab listed three kinds of events:

1. Posts that people you follow had liked, shown as small thumbnails.
2. Comments they had left on other people's posts.
3. Accounts they had started following, shown as "username started following otheruser".

Everything in it was technically public. Anyone could open a post and see who liked it, or open a profile and check its following list. What the tab did was aggregate that scattered public activity into one timeline, with timestamps, delivered to you without any effort. That made it very different in practice from data that was public in theory.

Why Instagram removed it

The stated reasons

When the removal was announced, Instagram's head of product at the time told reporters that the tab was not used by many people and that users "didn't always know that their activity is surfacing". Both points were probably true. Most people used the You tab and ignored Following, and a large share of users were unaware the tab existed until someone confronted them about a like.

The reasons everyone understood

The Following tab was where relationships went wrong. It showed a boyfriend liking a stranger's photos at 2 a.m., an ex following someone new, or a friend commenting on a post they had promised to ignore. Publications at the time openly described it as a "stalking" feature. Removing it cut off a steady source of privacy complaints while costing Instagram very little in engagement, because the tab had never driven much time spent.

The strategic reason

By 2019 Instagram was pushing Stories, the Explore tab, and what would become Reels. Discovery through your friends' activity was an older model that no longer fit the direction of the app. The Following tab was a leftover of the early Instagram, and removing it was consistent with where the product was going.

What replaced it: nothing, officially

Instagram did not ship a replacement. The heart icon became the Notifications screen with only your own activity. Since then, Instagram has taken several further steps in the same direction:

• Like counts can be hidden on posts, which also hides the list of who liked them from casual viewing.
• The following list on other people's profiles has no date sort, so you cannot reconstruct recent follows from the order. Our explainer on the Instagram following list order goes into detail.
• There is no likes history, comments history, or follow history visible on any profile other than your own.

In short, Instagram has consistently chosen to make other people's activity harder to browse, not easier.

What you can still see today

None of the underlying data changed. What was public in 2019 is still public in 2026; it just is not aggregated for you. Here is the current state of each piece of the old tab.

The only category that can be fully rebuilt is the follow activity, and that is exactly the part most people cared about.

How to see who someone follows today

For public profiles, the modern equivalent of the Following tab is a follow tracker. It does not require any hidden access; it simply does what the old tab did for follows, by watching the public following list over time.

The Ick works like this: you type a public Instagram username on the home page, the app records the profile's public follower and following lists, and then checks again every hour. Any new account in the following list is reported as a new follow, and any missing account as an unfollow, each with the time it was detected. You get a push notification when something changes, a timeline of follower and following count changes, and a breakdown of the profile's recent follows. No Instagram login is required, and the person being tracked is never notified.

Compared with the old tab, there are a few differences to be clear about:

• The tab showed everyone you followed at once. A tracker watches specific profiles you choose, up to five with The Ick.
• The tab showed likes and comments. A tracker shows follows and unfollows only, because that is what public lists expose.
• The tab only showed activity of accounts you followed. A tracker works on any public profile, whether you follow it or not.
• The tab could not see private accounts you did not follow, and neither can a tracker. See can you track a private Instagram account.

For step-by-step instructions, read how to see who someone recently followed on Instagram, or go straight to the Instagram recent follow tracker page.

Will Instagram bring the Following tab back?

There is no sign of it. Every product decision since 2019, from hidden like counts to the lack of date sorting on other people's lists, points the other way. Instagram has also faced increasing regulatory attention on privacy, which makes a feature that broadcasts individual activity unlikely to return. If you are waiting for the tab to come back before checking on someone, you will be waiting a long time.

The takeaway

The Instagram Following activity tab was removed in October 2019 because few people used it, many people did not know it existed, and the ones who did use it mostly used it to watch other people. Likes and comments are no longer browsable for other accounts. Follows still are, because following lists are public on public profiles, and a tracker can turn that list into the dated timeline the old tab used to provide. Prices for The Ick are listed on the pricing page, and you can see a profile's first analysis before subscribing.

Frequently asked questions

When was the Instagram Following activity tab removed?

Instagram announced the removal on October 7, 2019, and the tab disappeared from the app over the following weeks. It has not returned since, and Instagram has not announced any plan to bring it back.

What did the Following tab show?

It was a feed inside the Activity screen that listed what the accounts you followed were doing: posts they liked, comments they left, and accounts they had recently followed. It was public-by-default activity, but many users did not realize it was being surfaced.

Why did Instagram remove the Following tab?

Instagram said the feature was not widely used and that people did not always know their activity was being shown to others. Its reputation as a tool for watching partners and exes also created privacy pressure that made removal an easy choice.

Is there any way to see what someone likes on Instagram now?

Not in a feed. Instagram does not offer a likes or comments history for other accounts. You can still see likes on an individual post if the owner has not hidden like counts, but there is no way to browse someone's liking activity as a list.

Can I still see who someone recently followed?

Yes, for public accounts, by comparing their following list over time. A tracker like The Ick snapshots a public profile every hour and shows new follows and unfollows sorted by recency, which recreates that part of the old Following tab.