How to Find Outlier Videos on Instagram (Step by Step)

A creator averages 20,000 views. One Reel does 300,000. That video is an outlier, and it is the most valuable thing on their whole profile, because someone already tested an idea at their own expense and published the result.

Instagram will not help you find it. Profiles have no sort by views, and the "most viewed" filter the platform tested was removed, so the best Reels stay buried between hundreds of ordinary ones in date order. There are two ways around that: a slow manual one and a fast automated one.

Use 2x the account's average views as your threshold. Anything at or above it deserves attention, because the account's size cancels out of the comparison and what remains is the idea, the hook, and the format.

The slow manual way to find outlier videos on Instagram

Two versions of this, both free, both painful.

Build a sheet. Open the profile's Reels tab, then record every video's view count in Google Sheets along with its link. Calculate the average, add a column that divides each video's views by that average, then sort by the new column. Now you have real outlier scores. You also just spent an hour on one profile.

Or scroll and judge by eye. Move down the Reels tab and watch for a video whose view count is obviously larger than its neighbors. This is faster, and much less reliable, because your eye anchors on big absolute numbers instead of big ratios. A 900K Reel on a huge account looks like a discovery even when it sits below that account's average, and a 40K Reel on a small account can be a 15x monster that you scroll past without a second look.

Either version works once. Neither survives contact with real research, which means ten or fifteen profiles refreshed every week. Most people quit within a month, not because the method fails but because it is tedious.

The fast automated way to find outlier videos

Two options here as well, and they solve different problems. The free extension ranks a profile the moment you want an answer. The tracker watches creators continuously so you never have to ask.

Option 1: sort Instagram Reels with the free ViewRank extension

The free ViewRank Chrome extension does the same math as the spreadsheet method, on the profile page, in seconds.

Install it, open any public profile's Reels tab, then click the ViewRank icon in your Chrome toolbar. Keep the mode on Videos, choose how deep to scan under Recent (50, 100, 200, 300, 500 reels, or all of them), and press Rank Now. For an unfamiliar account, 100 to 200 gives the math a fair baseline without a long crawl.

What you get after Rank Now. The overlay covers the profile with a clean grid, sorted by Views by default. Along the top sits a Rank by row: Views, Likes, Comments, Outliers, Newest. Click Outliers and the grid reorders by outlier score.

Every card then carries a colored multiplier in its corner, such as 24.5x or 2.7x. Green means the video reached 2x the account's average or better. Below each thumbnail you see views, likes, and comments, plus small buttons for the link, a download, the Date it was posted, and its Caption. Old pinned Reels get a pin badge and stay out of the ranking, so a two-year-old viral video cannot distort the numbers.

Two buttons in the center give you context on demand. Avg Views prints the account's average, median, minimum, and maximum across its recent 30 videos, and Avg Length does the same for the duration of its 10 most viewed videos. Ten seconds there tells you what normal looks like for this creator.

Click to enlarge

Saving what you found. On the right sits the Export row. The first dropdown chooses the scope: Top 10, Top 20, Top 50, Top 200, your Favorites, or Only Outliers, which keeps every video at 2.0x and above. The second dropdown chooses the shape, either For Sheets or As List. Press Copy, paste into Google Sheets, and you have the table the manual method would have cost you an hour to type.

Next to Copy is a ViewRank AI button, which sends the same selection into the workspace when you want more than a table. More on that below.

Option 2: track Instagram outliers automatically with ViewRank AI

Ranking a profile is still something you have to remember to do. The Viral Tracker inside ViewRank AI removes that step.

Add a creator once, by handle or profile link, and choose Instagram as the platform. ViewRank then measures that account's baseline from its recent videos and re-checks it every few days. When one of their new Reels reaches 2x their average, it appears in your Outliers we found feed with its score attached, a "New" pill, and its views, likes, and comments. Videos younger than 48 hours are held back until they have settled, which prevents a fresh post from being called a hit too early.

Click to enlarge

You can sort that feed by Newest or Highest score, filter it by creator, and hide anything irrelevant. Each outlier card carries Transcribe, Visuals, and Scripts buttons, so a video can travel from "the tracker noticed this" to "I have a script" without you opening Instagram at all.

Tracking runs on the paid plans: 2 creators on Starter, 5 on Pro, with a 7-day free trial and no card required. The same setup works for finding outliers on TikTok, and our competitor research guide shows how to run this across a whole list of accounts. Pick your closest competitors, and the research happens whether or not you remember to do it.

What to do with the outlier videos you find

Finding them was the easy half.

Watch the first three seconds of each one repeatedly, until you can quote the opening line and describe what appears on screen while it is spoken. Hooks are where outliers are made, and they are the most portable part of any video.

Name the format next. Talking-head rant, before and after, silent b-roll with captions, myth versus fact. A format with a name is a format you can rebuild around your own topic, and formats travel across niches far better than topics do.

Then read the comments, which almost nobody does. An outlier's comment section fills with questions, and every question is a video idea your audience has already requested in writing.

If you want the deeper layer without doing it manually, that is what the ViewRank AI workspace handles. Import an outlier and it returns the full transcript, a scene-by-scene breakdown of the visuals, a read on why the video likely worked, and ideas plus scripts that apply the same pattern to your niche.

Common mistakes when hunting Instagram outliers

Scanning ten videos and calling it research. Outlier math needs a baseline. Give it 50 videos minimum before you trust any score.

Studying a single account. One creator with three outliers in one format has a habit. Three creators with outliers in the same format is a pattern in your niche, and only the second is worth building a content plan on.

Treating old outliers as fresh signals. A video that succeeded two months ago reflects the current algorithm. One from 2023 is history.

Copying rather than adapting. Take the structure, the pacing, and the hook style. Leave the words and the clips. A copy competes with the original and loses; a new video built on the same skeleton belongs to you.

FAQ

What is an outlier video on Instagram?

A Reel that receives far more views than the account's typical video, usually 2x its average or more. It signals that the topic or format reached well beyond that account's existing followers.

Can I sort Instagram Reels by views without a tool?

Not reliably. Instagram tested a "most viewed" sort for Reels and then removed it. The Reels tab is ordered by date, so finding top performers manually means scrolling the entire grid and comparing view counts yourself.

Does outlier detection work on regular Instagram posts too?

No, and the limitation is Instagram's rather than the tool's. View counts are not public on regular posts, so no baseline exists to score against. ViewRank still sorts a profile's posts by likes and comments, while outlier scores stay on Reels and videos, where views are public.

Is the ViewRank extension really free?

Yes. Sorting, outlier scores, the account stats, favorites, notes, and exports are free, with no cap on how many videos you scan. The paid product is ViewRank AI, a separate workspace for the tracker, transcripts, visual breakdowns, ideas, and scripts.