Next, locate the timestamp as the “datetime” element. To find this element, click Ctrl + F and type “datetime” into the search box that pops up. You will now see the timestamp for the original post:

Note that Instagram displays the time in the source code in Z-time or zulu time, which correlates to Greenwich Mean Time. Depending on daylight savings periods, the timestamp will either be four or five hours ahead of US Eastern Time. In this example, the Instagram timestamp is “2021-02-21T16:59:02.000Z.” Check if the date of the timestamp (“2021-02-21” in the example) falls into daylight savings time. Since February 21, the date of this post, is not during daylight savings time, the timestamp is five hours ahead of US Eastern Time. Next, subtract those five hours (or four if the post was made during daylight savings time) from the original timestamp and you will get the exact date and time the post was made: 2021-02-21T16:59:02.000Z = February 21, 2021 at 11:59am US Eastern Time. The same method can also be used to see the exact time a comment was made. To find the timestamp of a specific comment, type “datetime” into the search box and press the Enter key as many times as needed to see the timestamp you’re interested in. For instance, after typing in “datetime” and pressing the Enter key twice, you will see the timestamp for the second comment:

Here are some other interesting things you can see in the source code:

• Type “user-avatar” into the search box to scroll through the users that commented.
• Type “jpg” into the search box to see the source code for the picture itself.
• Type “mp4” into the search box to see the source code of a video.