How to set up iLS: from sign-up to your first reading

To set up iLS, you create an account, connect your own Instagram account once on the IG Account page, add a contact you already have a DM thread with on the Tracker, and turn on browser alerts in Settings → Notifications. After that iLS checks on its own schedule, and you don't need to keep the page open.

This guide walks through each step in the order you'll meet it in the dashboard, and ends with what iLS can't do, because that matters just as much before you pay for anything.

What do you need before you start?

Check three things first. If one of them isn't true, iLS can't read that person's status, and no setting on our side changes that.

• An existing DM thread. You must already have a conversation with the person on Instagram, one where you've sent at least one message. iLS reads their status from that conversation.
• Activity status on, for both of you. Instagram only shows the green dot or "Active 25m ago" when both people have Show Activity Status turned on. If you turn yours off, Instagram hides everyone else's from you too.
• A plan. Tracking is part of a paid plan; there's no free tier. You choose one on the Billing page before you add your first contact.

For the alerts at the end, you'll also want a desktop browser or an Android phone. Notifications don't work on iPhone yet.

How do you create an account?

Open the dashboard and choose Create account. Enter your Full name, Email and a Password of at least six characters.

Below the form is a checkbox confirming you agree to the Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy and have read the Privacy Policy. You can't create the account without it, so it's worth opening each one in its own tab first.

If your address needs confirming, you'll get an email with a link. Open it, then sign in.

How do you connect your Instagram account?

Go to IG Account in the sidebar. This is where iLS gets permission to look at your DMs page as you, and you do it once.

1. Enter Your Instagram username and Your Instagram password. This is your Instagram password, not the one you just made for iLS.
2. Under Where you usually use Instagram, pick the country your account normally signs in from, not where you happen to be today. iLS connects from that country so the sign-in looks like your normal activity. Changing it later means reconnecting.
3. Press Connect account and keep the page open. Signing in can take up to a minute.
4. If Instagram sends a verification code to your email or phone, enter it under Enter your verification code and press Verify and continue.

When it works, the status reads Session active and the page shows "Connected as @yourusername".

Your password is used once to sign in and is never saved. What iLS keeps is the logged-in session, encrypted, and it uses it for one thing: reading a contact's activity status. It never posts, messages, follows or changes your settings. Disconnect deletes that stored session and stops every check.

How do you add your first contact?

First choose a plan on Billing. Checkout opens in a new tab with Stripe, and the page updates by itself once the payment is confirmed. A plan includes at least one contact, and you can add more later with a one-time payment, up to 10 per Instagram account.

Then open Tracker:

1. Type the person's exact username into Instagram username to track. The @ is optional.
2. Press Start tracking.
3. The card shows "Waiting for the first check" until iLS has looked. After that it shows their status: Active now, Last active 25m ago, or Last seen recently, whichever Instagram shows you.

You can close the page. iLS keeps checking on its own schedule, around the clock. Each contact card also has Pause, Mute and Stop tracking if you change your mind later.

If the card says "No presence to show yet", Instagram gave iLS nothing to read. That almost always means one of you has activity status off, or there's no earlier conversation between you.

How do you get an alert when they come online?

Go to Settings and find Notifications.

1. Press Turn on, then allow notifications when your browser asks.
2. The section now says "This browser is set up to receive alerts."
3. Press Send a test and look for the notification.

From then on, you get a browser notification when a check finds a contact online after a check that didn't. Alerts are per browser, so turn them on in each browser you want them in; they're listed under Registered devices. To silence one contact without stopping the checks, use Mute on their Tracker card.

If your browser says notifications are blocked, allow them for the site in the browser's own settings and reload the page. Brave blocks push by default until you enable "Use Google services for push messaging" in its privacy settings.

Where do you see their hours?

Open Report. Every check iLS has made is saved here:

• Readings taken, Contacts tracked and Online now at the top.
• By contact, which splits each person's readings into online, last-seen, no-signal and failed.
• Presence timeline, one lane per contact and one dot per check, so a pattern shows up across days.
• Recent activity, the latest readings as a list.

Refresh and Auto-refresh reload what's already saved. They never check Instagram; the tracker does that on its own.

What can't iLS do?

Be clear on these before you set anything up:

• It never shows messages. iLS reads one line, the activity status Instagram shows on a conversation. It can't tell you what someone did, who they talked to, or whether they opened your message.
• It needs the DM thread and both activity statuses. It can't read anyone you've never messaged, anyone who has blocked you, or anyone with activity status off.
• Reading a status opens the conversation. That can mark their messages to you as read.
• It breaks Instagram's terms. Using iLS goes against Instagram's Terms of Use, and your Instagram account can be restricted. The 10-contact cap exists because every contact is another automated check on your account.
• Checks are periodic. A short visit between two checks can be missed, and a gap in the timeline means no reading, not that they were offline.
• No alerts on iPhone yet. The dashboard works in a phone browser, but push notifications don't on iPhone.