How to see who someone recently followed on TikTok

The short answer

You can see who a public TikTok account follows, but TikTok doesn’t show when any of those follows happened. We found no recently followed view or sort for other people’s lists in the app. That leaves two honest ways to answer the question:

• Read the list newest first. TikTok doesn’t publish the order of its in-app list, but a newest-first lookup like the one above shows the latest follows. Quick and free, but without dates.
• Compare the list over time. Whatever appears between two checks is a new follow. This is the only method that produces dates, and it’s what the TikTok follower tracker in Peekd automates.

Neither works on a private account you aren’t approved for, or on an account that hides its following list.

Method 1: TikTok recent following checker (what it shows)

In the TikTok app, open the profile and tap the Following number to open the list. On tiktok.com you need to be logged in: when we opened a profile logged out, clicking Following brought up a login prompt instead of the list.

The catch is order. TikTok doesn’t document how the in-app following list is sorted, so the first few names are a hint, not proof of the latest follows. What is documented: TikTok’s own research API returns following lists newest first, by the time each follow happened, but without a date on each entry.

The lookup at the top of this page reads the list in that newest-first order and shows the most recent follows, up to 12, without a TikTok login. It’s the fastest way to see who they followed last. For a full walkthrough of the list on the app and the web, see how to see who someone follows on TikTok.

Method 2: write it down and compare

1. Note the top 20 or 30 accounts on their following list, or take screenshots.
2. Note the following count shown on the profile.
3. Check again a few days later and look for names that weren’t there before.

If the count went up by three and three new names sit near the top, you have a good answer. This works, but it is slow, and it misses unfollows: an account that drops off the list is easy to overlook. You also only learn that something changed between your two checks, not on which day.

Method 3: track the account daily

Peekd does the comparison for you. Add a public TikTok username in the Peekd web app and it saves who the account follows and who follows it, then checks once a day. Each new follow, unfollow, new follower and lost follower shows up with the date Peekd first saw it.

Limits apply: TikTok tracking runs in the web app only, is part of Peekd Pro (up to 3 TikTok accounts), has no push alerts yet, and doesn’t support private accounts, verified accounts or accounts with more than 10,000 followers. Nobody can show follows from before tracking starts.

When the following list is hidden or private

TikTok lets people hide their following list, even on a public account, and about one in four public accounts Peekd checks does. On a private account, only approved followers see the lists. In both cases no outside tool can show recent follows, whatever it promises. Our guide on seeing a hidden following list on TikTok explains why the “viewer” sites don’t work and what you can still see.

A hidden following list still leaves the following count visible, so you can tell that the number went up, just not who was added. Peekd can still track the followers side of such an account.

Checking a partner’s or ex’s recent follows

Most people asking this question have one person in mind. A few things are worth knowing before you start:

• Your visits can show up. If you open their profile from your own TikTok account and you both have profile view history turned on, they can see that you visited, for 30 days. It only applies to people aged 16 or over with fewer than 5,000 followers. Details in does TikTok show who viewed your profile. Peekd uses no TikTok account of yours, so its lookups aren’t expected to show up there.
• A follow is thin evidence. People follow creators, brands, old classmates and accounts TikTok suggests. A new name on the list rarely tells the whole story.
• Look at both directions. Who started following them is often as telling as who they followed, and TikTok shows neither with dates.

The same questions come up on Instagram, where the list works differently. Our guide to checking who your boyfriend follows on Instagram covers the conversation side of it.