How To View Instagram Story Without Anyone Noticing

Instagram is a medium for sharing photographs and small videos. The medium is most known from the pictures or videos that are posted in the normal way and appear in the feed of users. The other much used used for sharing is Instagram stories. This is a way to share a photograph or video for a limited time. Also, the format is in portrait mode contrary to the square photo format used for the common Instagram posts. 

Sometimes you are very curious about the story, but don't want to show the poster of the story your interest. You don't have to choose anymore! You can combine both you wishes. Many methods described on the internet do not work, are malicious are very complicated. This method is easy and does not need other websites or tools. You can even download the story with this method, see this post!

1. Open Your Instagram Page In A Web Browser

The first step is simply to open the Instagram page in a web browser. You need to open the page where you can find the desired story. So, this can be you start page or the page of the user who has posted the story you want to download. It is important to do this step on a personal computer and not a mobile device. This trick is very complicated on a mobile device, but it is easy on a personal desktop computer or laptop.

2. Turn Off Internet / Turn On Airplane Mode

This is a very important step to make this method private. You don't want the poster to notice you are viewing its story. Therefore, there should be no internet connection. Turn off you internet. A good and convenient way to do this is by turning on the airplane mode. The airplane mode can be enabled in Windows by opening the message center and by selecting 'Airplane mode'.

3. Open The Story and Put to Pause

Just click on the story your are interested in. If needed, click through the different posts until you have the right photograph of video. Click on the pause button in the top left corner. If you do not pause the story, Instagram will slide to the next post before you had the chance to perform the next steps. Because there is no internet connection you should not see the story itself but only a black screen where you normally would see the media. If it fails to load the story, you may need to retry. Turn on the internet connection again, wait for a while, turn off the internet connection and try again. If it still does not work you can try it another time or try another browser. In addition, it may help to first watch a story that you don't mind if others see you viewed it, so that the story environment can pre-load before you turn off the internet connection.

4. Click 'Inspect' on the Story

This step may differ a bit between different browsers. You need to right-click on the story and find an option like 'Inspect' or 'Inspect Elements'. Do the right-click between the username + date and the pause button. If you right-click just in the middle of the photograph probably nothing will happen. Now click on the inspect option.

5. Find and Copy the Link From Elements

This is maybe the most complicated step. A new window should have opened after you clicked de inspect option, probably half-page. By hovering over the lines of codes you can see what code belongs to what element on the web page. You should click on the lines that highlight the picture or video when you hover over the code. By clicking you can expand the code. You may have to search a little to find the right code. When you expanded the code enough you will find a series of long links. For images you need the element that starts with <img class. For videos you need the element that starts with <video class. The image class has a lot of links, usually the last one is the best. Copy the link within src=" and ", without copying src=" or the last " . 

Copy this link to the address bar in a new tab. Navigate to it by pressing enter. It should not be able to reach the page since there is still no internet connection.

6. Close The Instagram Page

Now close the Instagram web page where you opened the story and found the link in the elements. 

7. Turn On Internet Again

Now it's time to turn on the internet again. If you disabled the internet connection by airplane mode just turn off airplane mode.

8. See The Story

Refresh the page where you pasted the link. It will navigate to the media of the story in full resolution! And what's more, nobody will notice this! You will find the story still unopened in Instagram!

Are you happy with our method or did you like the article? Please share this article with other people. Also, you can use the comments to share your happiness. If there are still questions you can also use the comments to ask, of course!