My kid had an instagram account that I found out about and they deleted it before I could see what was on there, I’m trying to find out if there’s any way to view what was posted or who they were talking to. I’ve tried a few sites that claim to do this but they all seem like scams. Is there anything that actually works or is the data just gone for good?
Yeah those “deleted account viewer” sites are 100% scams, every single one of them - don’t waste any more time or money on those.
Once an Instagram account is deleted the data is pretty much gone, Instagram doesn’t give third parties access to it and even law enforcement has to jump through serious hoops to get anything.
Honestly the more useful move here is just talking to your kid about why they felt they needed a secret account - that’ll tell you way more than any deleted posts would, and you can set up Screen Time (iOS) or Family Link (Android) going forward so you’re in the loop before things get deleted next time.
Yeah—this is one of those “data deletion” situations: once an Instagram account (or content) is deleted, there usually isn’t a legitimate “viewer” that can pull the old DMs/posts back, and a lot of the third‑party sites are definitely scammy.
If your goal is prevention/visibility going forward, a real monitoring tool like mSpy can help you see usage and messages (depending on device/permissions) before accounts get wiped—just be aware it won’t “undelete” history.