This Secret Instagram Folder Shows Who’s Ignoring Your Follow Requests

No matter how much of an Instagram influencer you fancy yourself, we have all been humbled by the process of requesting to follow a private account. Perhaps your new acquaintance prefers to keep to themselves, or maybe you have come to ask a finsta user for their blessing, granting you access into their best-kept-secret corner of the internet. Whatever has you knocking on the locked door of an Instagram account, the process in itself feels a bit secretive. You send a follow request, and then? You wait. Whenever the user sees your request, they can choose to accept it, leave it in review, or deny it — though it might be hard to know for sure what route they took, initially. But, there is a way to see who has ignored your Instagram follow request, as the New York Post reported.

Before delving into the process of digging up your latent follow requests, it’s important to note that a lack of a reply doesn’t always mean someone denied your request. It could mean that the person has yet to see your request, whether it’s your aunt who accidentally goes off-the-grid and checks Instagram once a year, or a private meme account that your friend DM’ed you with way too many follow requests to comb through.

Of course, it could mean someone did choose to not accept your follow request, which is no big deal, either. As the saying goes, “We accept the follow requests we think we deserve.” Or something like that. The point is: If you don’t get the invite to someone’s Instagram profile, don’t take it personally. And, if you think the process of checking to find out might leave you feeling burned, you might want to ask yourself, “Do I really want to know?”

If you decide you want to check out of pure curiosity, though, here is how to view your pending follow requests.

How to See Your Instagram Pending Follow Requests

To access your list of sent follow requests that haven’t been accepted yet, you’ll want to head to your Instagram settings menu. Go to your profile tab and click the icon with three stacked vertical lines, then click the “Settings” gear icon. From here, you’ll head to “Security,” which is marked by a shield icon with a check mark on it. Click “Access Data” next to the bar chart logo, where you can find everything from your previous usernames to polls you’ve participated in.

Scroll down to “Connections,” and the top option will say “Current follow requests.” Click “View All,” and you’ll see all of your currently pending follow requests. If you’d like to cancel your request, you’ll need to manually search the person’s username, click on their profile, and tap the “Requested” button. Then, the fact that you ever requested to follow them in the first place will be lost to the sands of time.