Finding Instagram Users without Knowing Their Username

Step-by-Step Guide

More than 1 billion Instagram users is a huge number of people, and finding one particular person among them without knowing their name seems unrealistic. However, there are methods that allow you to do it. For example, by nickname. However, if you don’t have a user’s nickname either, use one of the following methods.

Method 1: By city or location

Most online users do not hide their city of residence and actively mark their location. Thus, you can use the geo-tagged search.
To do this, open the search page by clicking on the icon with a magnifying glass, go to the ‘Locations’ section located in the upper control panel under the search bar, and enter the name of the country, city, street. When the location is found, you will see a map with a corresponding mark. Below the map you will see photos that are somehow related to the specified geodata.

Method 2: By phone number

 can also find a user on Instagram or any other social media accounts by phone number. This can be done using a people lookup tool (such as this one) or even by tweaking some Instagram settings. Most of the accounts of this social network are linked to the user’s phone number. And if you link your Instagram account to a contact phone number, you can see all the contacts on your phone with an Instagram account. Now all that’s left to do is to find the person you want on the app. This is possible if he has also linked his number to his Instagram profile.
The algorithm of your actions is simple:

• go to your Instagram page;
• select ‘View All’ next to ‘Discover People’;
• click ‘Connect’ next to ‘Connect Contacts.’
• browse through your contacts’ accounts.

After that, you should be able to find the person you need. If this method didn’t work for you, choose the next one. You can find a phone number with Batch Append.

Method 3: Among your friends’ followers

If you have mutual friends with that person, you can try this method. Go to a mutual friend’s Instagram page and scroll through the list of followers. You may find the person you were looking for among them.

Method 4: Among the likes of your friends’ posts

If this method also fails, the person you are looking for may have deleted their account. However, there could still be traces of it online in the form of likes. To find the person, scroll through the posts of mutual friends and see who liked them by clicking on the number of likes under the photo. Then you need to scroll through the list of people and find the right person. This may need to be repeated for other posts as well. You can also reread the comments under the posts of mutual friends.

Method 5: Search using Facebook

If a person provides the same email address for logging into Facebook and Instagram, they can also be found. Connect to Facebook via your Instagram page in the ‘Find people’ section. After that, you need to allow the app to share information about you. This way, you will find the Instagram accounts of your Facebook friends. By scrolling through the list, you can find the person you are looking for.
And finally another way: manually. You have to browse through hundreds of accounts, filtered by location or hashtag, and search by profile picture. You can add filters such as ‘category’ or ‘location’ when searching. 
It’s quite possible that sometimes you won’t be able to find a person on a social network, no matter how hard you try. There may be several reasons for this:

• the account of the person you want to find may be blocked or deactivated;
• your account may be blocked by the person you are looking for;
• the social network may have technical problems and you need to repeat your search later;
• Instagram may block certain posts to prevent them from being tracked by other users;
• the person you are looking for is found, but you didn’t realize the account belongs to them.

That’s why it’s important to gather as much introductory information as possible before you start your search. There are many different ways to find people on social media, including X-ray contact person search. Most of them do not require specialized knowledge and skills.