Best Instagram Spy Apps for 2023 | Top 10 Reviewed

With the best Instagram spy apps, you’ll be able to keep a close eye on what your loved one is doing on the platform — from gaining real-time insight into their Instagram DMs, stories, and even their feed; these apps give you 360-degree insight for complete peace of mind.

With a market flooded with spy software, finding a reliable one for Instagram spying that fits your need and budget can be a challenging task. Here we explore the best Instagram spy apps — from the almighty mSpy to some leading free options to give you a rundown on your leading options, plus everything you need to know to make an informed decision. Let’s dive right in.

The 10 Best Instagram Spy Apps | ShortList

Based on criteria like ease of use, Instagram spy capabilities, user reviews, security, and overall value for money, we’ve ranked the market’s leading Instagram spy apps:

1. mSpy – Best App to Spy on Instagram | Try it Now Risk-Free with the 14-Day Money-Back Guarantee
2. uMobix – Great App to Spy on Instagram stories | Also Offers a Solid 14-Day Guarantee for a Risk-Free Signup
3. EyeZy – Best Budget-Conscious Instagram Spy Tool | Take Advantage of the 14-Day Money-Back Guarantee
4. Cocospy – One of the Best Instagram Spy Tools With Remote Posting Capabilities | Also Offers a 14-Day Guarantee
5. XNSpy – Versatile Instagram Story Spy App
6. Spyic – Great Generalist Social Media Spy App 
7. Mobile Tracker – Free Download Instagram Spy App
8. Hoverwatch – Screenshot-Based Instagram DM Spy App
9. Spyera – Extremely Powerful but Expensive
10. iKeyMonitor – Free Download Instagram Spy App with Expensive Premium Version

The best Instagram spy app is one that allows you to Instagram DM spy, spy on Instagram stories, and, ideally, see their feed itself.

Outside of this, the best spy apps for Instagram also have peripheral functionalities like WhatsApp spying, Facebook, and Tinder monitoring, as well as GPS tracking.

Eager to learn more? Read on as we dig into all the nitty-gritty details of our top 10 Instagram spy apps.

The Top Instagram Spy Apps in 2023 | Reviewed

We place a high emphasis on consistent, intuitive features that let you Instagram DM spy, story spy or see the user’s feed.

With that said, let’s explore each of the best Instagram spy apps in more detail — including their core capabilities, compatibility, pricing, and leading pros and cons, as expressed by customers.

1. mSpy – Best App to Spy on Instagram

mSpy is a mainstay of the spy app industry. It has Instagram-specialized features letting you spy on Instagram stories and DMs with ease. It’s an extremely well-designed spy app managing to package a robust and lengthy set of functionalities into an easy-to-use and intuitive package.

You can also use it to spy on Instagram and all other social media. mSpy allows remote access to your loved one’s Instagram activities without rooting or jailbreaking the phone. You can also see all multimedia files they’ve shared through Instagram DMs alongside the text messages.

It does all of this in an extremely secure format, encrypting all of your data.

mSpy is also the best spy app in general. You can do a lot more than simply spy on Instagram through mSpy. You can easily monitor all social media applications, their GPS location, as well as incoming and outgoing phone calls.

You can also read all of their messages even if they’re deleted, which can be a crucial feature in case you’re busy or sleeping when a critical event happens. It also has functionalities that allow you to take screenshots, allowing you to see their Instagram feed while using the app.

A great part of mSpy is that it stays completely hidden while on the target device. It’s one of the most resilient to removal, and it’ll take either an extremely tech-savvy individual or an extremely sophisticated antivirus in order to find it.

mSpy also has a flexible pricing scheme, ensuring you don’t have to pay for features you won’t be using. All of these factors, put together, make it easily the best Instagram spy app on the market today.

2. uMobix – Great App to Spy on Instagram Stories

If your loved one is a child, uMobix might be just the app for you to spy on their Instagram or Facebook accounts. While the app doesn’t provide quite the robustness and reliability of mSpy, it does give you a great degree of control over what your children can actually do on Instagram.

You can block users, configure their Instagram settings, or unfollow inappropriate content directly from the app. uMobix is equally effective for TikTok, making it one of the best TikTok spy apps in the industry.

uMobix allows you to instantly read Instagram messages, spy on Instagram stories, and receive notifications whenever your child opens up Instagram. Outside of this, uMobix serves as a great all-around mobile spy app.

It’s capable of monitoring your child’s online activity, browser history, and other online activities with ease. The app also has a customizable alerts system so you can get notified immediately if they start doing something impermissible.

Outside of being one of the best spy apps for Instagram, uMobix easily takes care of other social media as well, allowing you to monitor them with ease. You can also look at all multimedia files shared through social media or stored on the phone.

This can be especially important for teenagers, who will sometimes hide illicit videos or pictures in their gallery. Throughout this whole process, uMobix stays hidden from the tracked phone’s user.

3. EyeZy – Best Budget-Conscious Instagram Spy Tool

When it comes to Instagram spy apps on a budget, there are few better tools out there than EyeZy. It’s quite easy to use and comes with a suite of features to help you track Instagram activity and the phone’s physical location.

The tool allows you to look at all DMs and stories on the target phone, in addition to letting you monitor stories. EyeZy is also excellent as a general spy app for its price tag. It keeps itself hidden and your data safe while maintaining a solid list of features.

While it might not have all the flashy features more premium apps have, what EyeZy does, it does solidly. This is one of the best Instagram spy apps for non-tech-savvy users, as not only is it quite simple, but it features multilingual customer support.

Their customer support is excellent, with knowledgeable personnel being pretty much always available to help you with whatever issue you might need help with.

The tool also supports having multiple devices on the same subscription and sends you information about the target phone’s activity every 5 minutes.

4. Cocospy – One of the Best Instagram Spy Tools with Remote Posting Capabilities

Another of the best spy apps for iPhone and Android is Cocospy. it offers an excellent balance of sophisticated features, reasonable pricing, and a relatively simple UI.

It also has some fairly rare features, such as supporting group chat monitoring and allowing you to remotely update the Instagram page on the tracked phone.

Much like the above tools, it comes with a keylogger, albeit Cocospy’s is one of the best, with extremely consistent, precise performance across the board. Although Cocospy isn’t capable of Instagram monitoring on iOS devices, it makes up for this with excellent Android features.

For example, it gives you the ability to update and post from the monitored account. It’ll also allow you to spy on stories and DMs on Instagram with ease.

Outside of Instagram spying-oriented features, Cocospy is just an all-around solid spy app with some unique features specializing in Android device monitoring. It also easily monitors other social networks, SIM card changes, SMS messages, and more.

5. XNSpy – Versatile Instagram Story Spy App

XNSpy is an excellent phone spy app with a plethora of Instagram-focused features. The tool is in constant improvement, receiving updates every couple of months.

Just recently, it added a screen-recording feature that allows you to record and watch the user’s screen — perfect for monitoring Instagram stories and feeds. You can also check IGTV and spy on it using XNSpy.

Naturally, this comes with all the usual features, such as time-stamped DM monitoring. Outside of this, XNSpy is one of the best phone spy apps in general.

It features social media monitoring across a variety of platforms, including being used as a Facebook spy app and to monitor WhatsApp, Snapchat, and more.

XNSpy lets you track the GPS location of the targeted phone, as well as monitor their incoming and outgoing calls. It also has features that allow you to remotely take control of the target phone and take a picture or record their surroundings.

While this might seem a bit overkill, it can be extremely handy when securing evidence of wrongdoing or determining your child’s exact location.

6. Spyic – Great Generalist Social Media Spy App

Spyic is a great app for spying on all social media, including Instagram. It’s extremely swift to set up and has a robust keylogging feature, making it great for finding out the user’s Instagram password.

Once you’ve set the app up, all you need to do is open up the Instagram tracker and look at Instagram DMs. You can also favorite conversations so you can quickly navigate to the chat threads that interest you the most.

In case your target is prone to deleting chats or their messages, you can download entire chat threads through Spyic and print them out if need be. Spyic is a great app if Instagram monitoring is only one of the spying functionalities you need.

The app has excellent general spying features, being capable of monitoring pretty much any commonly used social media platform as one of the best WhatsApp spy apps. Outside of this, Spyic can track GPS location, calls, SMS messages, or any changes made to the phone’s SIM card.

7. Mobile Tracker – Free Download Instagram Spy App

Mobile Tracker is the best answer to the question, “How to spy on Instagram DMs for free?” While it has a paid plan, its free plan is an excellent stepping stone into the world of Instagram spy apps.

Although Mobile Tracker doesn’t have any features specifically geared toward Instagram, its generalist capabilities are enough to make up for that. Mobile Tracker’s free version does a great job of monitoring other social media with ease.

In addition to this, it features GPS tracking to ensure the phone is where you think it is. It also allows you to browse through all SMS messages, calls, and notifications. It also allows you to take remote control of the phone and record surroundings or take a screenshot.

8. Hoverwatch – Screenshot-Based Instagram Spy Tool

Hoverwatch is a simple but extremely effective Instagram spy tool. It can be a bit expensive when subscribing for 1 or 2 months, but the yearly plan is extremely cheap, at just $3,99/month.

This is a screenshot-based tool, meaning it periodically takes screenshots of on-screen activity and sends them to you. This is great for monitoring Instagram stories and feeds.

Most apps will struggle to monitor these factors due to how they operate, while Hoverwatch simply takes screenshots and shows you what they’re doing. Naturally, this feature’s usefulness applies to things outside of Instagram spying, letting you spy on all of their activities.

Outside of this, the tool is capable of call recording, SMS tracking, and more. It also lets you take control of the target phone’s camera and take a picture of their surroundings. Hoverwatch will even show you where the location in the photo is on the map.

9. Spyera – Extremely Powerful but Expensive

Spyera is a big name in the spy app industry and the bar of quality many apps attempt to reach. However, it’s also quite expensive, costing $33/month, even with an annual subscription. Each subscription comes with an excellent keylogger which persists even if you go offline.

Spyera allows you to read all messages and DMs on Instagram in real-time, and you can even view the entire chat thread fully equipped with the date and time stamps.

It also allows you to read deleted messages and shows the username and account name for each individual your loved one is chatting with. Meanwhile, the app stays completely hidden and encrypts all of your data to keep you safe and protected.

Outside of this, it has a plethora of advanced spying features, all of which are extremely reliable. If you’re looking for reliability and ease of use with no regard for price, Spyera might be just the tool for you.

10. iKeyMonitor – Free Download Instagram Spy App with Expensive Premium Version

iKeyMonitor is renowned for being one of the best free spy apps. However, the best features are unfortunately exclusive to the premium plan.

On the free version, you can track the target users’ call history and do SMS message spying. Still, besides this, you’ll also be able to view any notes or calendar entries entered on the device, and you’ll get GPS and geo-fencing capabilities.

For Instagram spy features, you’ll need to pay $16.66 to view everything typed across Instagram, plus you’ll get screenshots for live insight into what they’re engaging in and who they’re chatting to.

Besides Instagram, iKeyMonitor lets you spy on activity across all leading social media and messenger apps. This includes Facebook, WhatsApp, and even Skype, Tinder, and Telegram, to name a few.

Plus, it’s also worth noting that although the free version is a very solid introduction point to spy apps, the Premium version is worth the price tag.

Not only do you get the above, but you’ll also get call recording, live screen video, and the ability to tap into the devices surrounding through the microphone or camera — incredibly rare features with spy apps that’ll give you complete peace of mind.

Best Instagram Spy Apps | Compared

With our reviews done, we’ve compiled the table below as seeing a clear head-to-head comparison can help make comparing the ones best suited to your needs and budget easier:

How Do Instagram Spy Apps Work?

Instagram spy apps generally require jailbreak, rooting, or iCloud credentials to operate properly.

This is because they disguise themselves as system apps, then, through a combination of screenshots, keylogging, and notifications, create a combined picture of what the target is doing on Instagram.

This is why it’s nigh-impossible to monitor stories or feeds without a screenshotting feature.

What Can You Spy on with an Instagram Spy App?

There’s ample that these spy apps can tell you. Here are some of the main things that you’ll be able to see with one of these apps:

1. Direct Messages

Direct messages, or DMs, are messages that are sent between two Instagram accounts. All Instagram spying apps will share DMs with you. However, where they differ is in whether there’s any delay and if they can see deleted messages.

The best Instagram spying app — mSpy, does both of those with ease while showing you the messages almost in real-time.

2. Instagram Stories

Instagram stories are short videos or pictures that last for 24 hours. There are few spy apps that can accomplish Instagram story spying. However, those can usually rely on taking a screenshot when a story is opened or simply sharing the phone’s screen with you.

3. Instagram Feed

The Instagram feed is Instagram’s “Homepage,” where you can browse others’ pictures as they post them. To monitor Instagram feeds, you’ll need an app that routinely shares with you screenshots of the user’s phone activity.

4. IGTV

IGTV is Instagram’s way of allowing users to upload long-form videos. It’s notoriously difficult to spy on, and there are no apps today that completely monitor all content on IGTV.

However, some spy apps will allow you to see if the spied phone’s user engages with any content on IGTV, as well as what video they’re watching.

Can I Spy on Someone’s Instagram Messages without Target Phone?

Unfortunately, Instagram spying requires a lot of privileges, and because of this, it’s not possible to Instagram spy without access to the target phone. Some apps will allow you to Instagram spy without the target phone if you have their iCloud login.

However, that’s usually more difficult to obtain than the target’s phone. And even then, you can only see what Instagram shares with the cloud, which is usually very little.

Free Instagram Spy Apps

“How to spy on someone’s Instagram?” and especially “how to spy on Instagram DMs for free” are common questions. There are free Instagram spying apps out there, such as Mobile Tracker.

However, these apps are usually inferior in terms of performance when compared to their paid counterparts. Even some free spy apps like iKeyMonitor don’t actually offer Instagram spying in their free version.

If you end up using a free Instagram app, note that they’re often much less reliable and have weaker features when compared to the best Instagram spy apps your money can buy.

They’ll generally have higher latency, some features might not work, or they may even be a scam. The free Instagram spying apps that promise an abundance of features actually don’t work and might even be malware.

How to Use an Instagram Spy App

How to spy on someone’s Instagram might seem like a difficult question. However, mSpy makes the process very simple. Just follow these steps:

For iOS Devices

Step 1 — Setting Up the Download

1. Make sure The iPhone is Jailbroken and has Internet Access
2. Make an account on mSpy.com

When account creation is complete, do the following:

1. Select “iOS” when asked about the operating system of the monitored device
2. Pick 1of the 3 subscriptions
3. Open up the email from mSpy and remember the link to your registration code, Control Panel, Username, and Password, and the download link.

Step 2 — Download mSpy

Step 3 — Go to mTechnology Repository and Begin Spying

1. Navigate to “mTechnology Repository”
2. Tap “iPhone Internal Service” — this is how mSpy presents itself to the target phone
3. Tap “Accept” and fill out the prompts that pop up
4. On your homepage, tap the “mSpy” icon
5. Accept their license agreement
6. Input your registration code
7. Restart the target phone

For Android Devices

Step 1 — Setting Up Downloading mSpy

1. Make an account on mSpy.com
2. Select “Android” when asked for the target device’s OS
3. Pick one of the three subscriptions
4. Navigate to your email and save the link to your registration code, Control Panel, Username, and Password, as well as the download link you’ll need

Step 2 — Make Sure You’ve Disabled Play Protect

Step 3 — Download mSpy

Next, you’ll want to download mSpy. Simply click the box below to get started.

Step 4 — Open mSpy and Start Spying on Instagram

1. AcceoTap “Open” then “Settings” then “Allow from This Source”
2. Tap “Next”
3. “Tap “Open”
4. Press “Agree” on mSpy’s License Agreement
5. In case a prompt pops up, allow permissions
6. Input the Registration Code you got via email
7. Tap “Complete Installation”

Instagram Spy App FAQs