In theory, finding someone on their social media platform of choice should be pretty straightforward.  After all, the whole point of social media is to connect and socialize, right?  In practice, though, it might not be as straightforward as you might hope. 

On Instagram, for example, you need to know an individual’s username — as opposed to their real name — in order to search for them that way.  Alternatively, you can search by Phone Number, which is sometimes the better option.  Here’s how to find someone on Instagram by phone number, and where to turn for help (spoiler: Spokeo!) if you run into complications. 

How to Find Contacts on Instagram

If you’ve already tried searching for someone you know based on their actual name and come up blank, your other option is to search by phone number.  Unfortunately, there’s a catch: You can’t just pop a phone number into Instagram’s Search field and tap (or click) for results. 

Instead, you’ll need to have that person’s phone number in the Contacts list on your device, and sync the device with your Instagram account.  Instagram will then match the people in your Contacts list against its database of registered users.  Here’s how it works: 

Step One

Tap or click your profile picture (or the Profile icon, if you don’t have one) to go to your own profile. 

Step Two

Tap or click the “hamburger” menu (the three stacked bars) located in the top right of your screen. 

Step Three

Tap Settings. 

Step Four

Tap the toggle switch next to Connect Contacts to turn the feature on. 

Step Five

Instagram will provide you with a list of registered users who a) are in your Contacts, and b) you currently aren’t connected with. 

It’s just that simple. 

…Usually. 

There are a couple of complications that can sometimes keep you from connecting, however.  Most obviously, if you don’t have the person saved in your Contacts, you’ll need to do that first.  Another is that the phone number you have for this person might not be current, or might be a landline, or might not be the one they used to set up the Instagram account.  A third is that you might not know their phone number at all. 

Use Spokeo’s People Search Tools

So the next question is how to find someone on Instagram if you don’t have the username or a phone number.  The answer, of course, is Spokeo.  There are a couple of ways you can approach this, such as the following: 

1. Enter the phone number you do have into Spokeo’s Reverse Phone Lookup tool.  That will give you a name and sometimes additional phone numbers associated with the same person. 
2. Type their name into Spokeo’s Name Search tool.  This will bring search results for people with that same name, along with their location, associated phone numbers and email addresses, and lots of additional information.  With that, you should be able to quickly determine which search result corresponds to the right person, and therefore which phone number as well.  If you don’t find the person you’re looking for, try variant spellings or other forms of the name (i.e., “Jack” instead of “John,” or “Maggie” or “Marg” instead of “Margaret”). 
3. Enter their email address, if you have it, into Spokeo’s Reverse Email Lookup tool.  Again, you’ll get back a full suite of details about the person associated with that email account, including their full name and phone numbers. 

Once you’ve found the right person (and corresponding phone numbers), you can save them to your Contacts and follow the method given above to search for their Instagram profile.

Instagram, Contacts and Privacy

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you may be just a bit more privacy- and security-conscious than the average person.  In that case, the idea of giving Instagram access to your Contacts, and allowing them to be synced to the company’s servers, may not appeal to you: Instagram is owned by Meta, Facebook’s new parent company, and shares data across all Meta/Facebook properties, and potentially with third parties as well. 

For one thing, syncing your Contacts list means that everyone in your Contacts can now potentially see and connect with you, as well.  For another, it means that you’ve compromised the privacy of everyone on your own Contacts list, and some of them might be a bit sensitive about it. 

Recognizing that this isn’t for everyone, Instagram offers you the option of deleting your synced contacts. It’s just as easy as syncing them in the first place, such as the steps below make clear: 

1. Click Profile. 
2. Choose Edit Profile, and then Manage Contacts. 
3. Click Delete All. 
4. Click Delete to confirm that you want your contacts removed. 
5. Finally, on your device, go to your app settings and change the permissions for Instagram’s app to revoke its access to your Contacts list.  If you don’t do that, your Contacts will be right back on Meta’s servers as soon as it syncs again. 

The steps required to manage your permissions will vary with the OS and (sometimes) manufacturer of your phone, but should be easy enough to look up. 

Bypass Syncing Your Contacts

If the idea of syncing your contacts to Instagram has given you second thoughts, we have good news for you.  It’s entirely possible (if not 100% guaranteed) that you can skip the syncing and still find the person you’re looking for. 

How? Why, with Spokeo, of course!  The searches you run on the various people search tools provide a lot of information, and if you were just looking for a name or a phone number, you may have skipped over a lot of details.  One of those details is that Spokeo will retrieve social media accounts and profiles known to be associated with the name, phone number or email address you’ve searched. 

This typically includes the person’s (elusive) username, the crucial piece of information you were missing from the start.  With that at your disposal, you don’t need the phone number at all: You can simply type the username you want into the app’s search field.

There.  Wasn’t that easy? 

Sources

• Instagram Help Center: Search and Explore
• Instagram Help Center: Syncing Contacts and Finding People to Follow