How to see who someone follows on TikTok
To see who someone follows on TikTok, open their profile in the app and tap the Following count under their name. On tiktok.com you have to be logged in first.
It opens if the account is public, or private and you follow it, and the list isn’t hidden. TikTok shows no follow dates and doesn’t publish the list’s order; a TikTok follower tracker adds the dates.
Also for Instagram: Following list order →
How to see someone’s following list in the TikTok app
- 1
Find the profile
In the TikTok app, search for the username or tap their name on one of their videos.
- 2
Tap Following
Under the profile name you see the Following and Followers counts. Tap the Following count to open the list.
- 3
Scroll the list
Read from the top down. If the list is hidden or the account is private and you’re not approved, it won’t open.
On tiktok.com (web)
TikTok’s website shows the Following and Followers counts on every profile, even when you’re logged out. When we tested it logged out, clicking the Following count opened a login prompt instead of the list. So on a computer, sign in to TikTok first, then open the profile and click Following.
If you don’t want to sign in, the free TikTok following list viewer shows the newest follows of a public account without a login. It doesn’t show the full list, but it answers the usual question: who did they follow last?
Is the TikTok following list in chronological order?
TikTok doesn’t say. It publishes no statement on how the in-app following list is sorted, and people who have tested it reach different conclusions. Treat the top of the list as a hint, not as a timeline.
What TikTok does document is its Research API, the official data access it gives researchers. That API pages through a user’s following list by follow time, newest first. So TikTok stores when each follow happened, but it doesn’t show that date in the app or return it per account.
Peekd’s data comes back in the same newest-first order, again without dates. That’s why Peekd dates follows by comparing a snapshot taken every day: a name that wasn’t there yesterday is a new follow, dated to the day Peekd first saw it. The TikTok follower tracker does this in the Peekd web app.
What you can and can’t see
| Account | Can you see who they follow? |
|---|---|
| Public, list visible | Yes (in the app, or on the web when logged in) |
| Public, following list hidden | No, only the owner. The following count stays visible. |
| Private, you’re an approved follower | Yes, unless they hid the list |
| Private, not approved | No |
Even on a visible list, TikTok never tells you:
- When each account was followed.
- Who was unfollowed. An account that leaves the list simply isn’t there anymore.
- Past versions of the list.
If the list is hidden, our guide on whether you can see a hidden following list on TikTok covers what still works. To stop others from seeing your own list, read how to hide your following list on TikTok.
Mutuals: who are their TikTok friends?
TikTok calls followers you follow back “friends”, meaning a mutual follow. To find the mutuals on someone’s profile yourself, compare their Following list with their Followers list: anyone on both is a friend in TikTok’s sense. On big lists that takes a while, so start with the names you care about.
Seeing who they followed recently
Because the in-app order isn’t documented and there are no dates, the following list alone can’t tell you what changed this week. Two things help:
- Use a newest-first source. The following list viewer loads the list newest first and shows the most recent follows, up to 12.
- Compare over time. Save the list and check again later, by hand or with Peekd, which checks once a day and dates every new follow and unfollow.
The full walkthrough, including a section on partners and exes, is in how to see who someone recently followed on TikTok.
How it compares with Instagram
Instagram has its own rules for how a following list is ordered. If you also check Instagram, our guide to Instagram following list order explains how that list is sorted. Peekd tracks both networks in one timeline: up to 5 Instagram accounts and, in the web app, up to 3 TikTok accounts on Peekd Pro.
Peekd’s TikTok tracking has limits of its own: public accounts only, no verified accounts, no accounts above 10,000 followers, and checks once a day without push alerts. If an account hides its following list, Peekd tracks its followers only and tells you before you add it.
Frequently asked questions
How do I see who someone follows on TikTok?
Open their profile in the app and tap the Following count. On tiktok.com, log in first: logged out, clicking Following opens a login prompt.
Is the TikTok following list in chronological order?
TikTok doesn’t publish the order of the in-app list. Its Research API returns following lists newest first by follow time, but no follow dates are shown anywhere.
Can I see who someone follows on TikTok without an account?
Not on tiktok.com, which asks you to log in. Peekd’s free following list viewer shows the newest follows of a public account without a TikTok login.
Why can’t I see someone’s following list on TikTok?
Either the account is private and you aren’t an approved follower, or the owner hid the following list in their privacy settings. Only the owner can see a hidden list.
Does TikTok tell someone when I look at their following list?
Opening their profile from your account can appear in their profile view history, but only if you both have it turned on, you’re both 16 or older and you each have fewer than 5,000 followers. Peekd’s viewer uses no TikTok account, and TikTok’s rules only list visits from accounts with profile view history on, so a lookup isn’t expected to appear (TikTok doesn’t state this outright).
