How to sort Instagram Reels by views

Open any Instagram profile and the Reels tab runs newest first. The view count sits on every tile, but Instagram gives you no way to rank by it. Finding the best Reel means scrolling and comparing numbers in your head.

Sort Feed is a research tool that adds the missing control. It reorders the grid on the page you already have open, most viewed first, and leaves the profile itself untouched.

Why Instagram has no sort

Instagram is built for watching, not for research. A profile is a timeline, and the app assumes you want the latest thing a creator made.

That works for a fan. It fails the moment your question is about performance: which Reel carried this account, which format keeps working, which idea is worth borrowing. Those answers are in the view counts, and the view counts are in no order at all.

Pinned Reels do not help either. They are the three the creator chose to show you, which is a statement about taste and not about numbers.

How to sort Instagram Reels by views

You need Chrome, or a browser built on it, and the Sort Feed extension. Install Sort Feed covers adding it, and it takes under a minute.

1. Open the Reels tab

Go to the profile on instagram.com and click Reels. Instagram only publishes view counts on Reels, so this is the tab where a views sort works. On the Posts tab you can rank by likes or comments instead.

2. Choose how much to sort

Click the Sort Feed icon in your toolbar. Under Filters, pick a number of recent Reels or a stretch of time. The free plan covers the latest 25 or one week back, which is enough to see how an account behaves.

3. Click Views

The page dims and a banner counts the Reels as they are collected. A few seconds later the grid comes back in order, highest first, with the view count on every card.

What you get back

The same Reels, rearranged. Nothing was posted, liked or followed, and the creator has no way of knowing you looked. Refresh the page and the original order returns.

The banner across the top of the sorted grid is where the work happens next.

• Sort by re-ranks the same Reels by likes, comments or outlier score, instantly.
• Filters narrows the grid to a range, such as only Reels over 100,000 views.
• Copy and Export send the list to a spreadsheet with links, dates and counts.
• Download saves the clips, and Select lets you pick a handful first.

Click any card and it plays in the player over the grid, so you can watch the top ten in a row without losing your place. The arrow keys move to the next one, and Escape puts you back on the grid.

Views is the start

A views sort tells you which Reel is biggest. On a large account that can be ten ordinary Reels, because everything that account posts clears a high floor.

Run the same sort with Outlier score and the grid changes shape. It measures each Reel against the creator's own usual numbers, so the one that broke the pattern rises above the ones that were merely big. Both sorts are on the free plan.

Likes and comments are worth a look too. A Reel that ranks tenth by views and first by comments started an argument, and that is a different kind of success from reach.

Going further back

Twenty-five Reels answers most first questions. When you want the whole history, Pro sorts up to 1,000 Reels or the entire profile, with custom date ranges. Pricing has the details.

The same steps work on TikTok, Facebook and YouTube, with small differences on each. What works where lists them.