How can I see how many Reels or Shorts I scroll in a day?
Updated:
Instagram, YouTube and TikTok don't show you the number of videos you scrolled — only the time you spent in the app. Android's Digital Wellbeing also reports time, not video count. To see the count you need a third-party app that counts it; Silverback does this through the accessibility service and shows the number live on top of the app you're scrolling. It isn't possible on iPhone, because iOS doesn't let apps observe scrolling inside other apps.
The short answer
The apps themselves don’t give you this number. Instagram, YouTube and TikTok show you how much time you spent, not how many videos you scrolled. Seeing the count requires a third-party app that counts it.
Why don’t the apps report it?
All three offer a “time spent” screen:
- Instagram → Settings → Time spent
- TikTok → Settings → Screen time
- YouTube → Profile → Time watched
None of them report a video count. There’s a reason: the count is a far more uncomfortable number than the duration. “43 minutes today” sounds reasonable. “187 videos today” doesn’t — and they can be the same session.
Why time and count differ
The same 40 minutes can be very different behaviour:
| Behaviour | Time | Videos |
|---|---|---|
| Watching one long vlog | 40 min | 1 |
| Picking a few videos | 40 min | ~15 |
| Scrolling Reels | 40 min | ~120 |
All three report as “40 minutes of screen time”. As habits they’re nothing alike. The scroll count shows how many times your attention was reset — duration hides that.
How counting works on Android
Android’s accessibility service lets an app you’ve authorised see which app is in the foreground and that a scroll gesture happened. It’s the same mechanism screen readers use.
Silverback uses it, and distinguishes three things:
- Which app you’re in (Instagram / YouTube / TikTok)
- Whether you’re on a short-video screen or the normal feed — browsing the regular feed doesn’t count
- Whether a scroll happened
The result is a live counter sitting on top of the app you’re scrolling. You don’t have to open anything to check it; the number is simply there.
Does it take screenshots?
No. The accessibility service is a broad permission, so the question is fair. Silverback takes no screenshots, reads no text you type and stores no content. It learns two things from the service: which app you’re in, and whether you scrolled. That data never leaves your phone.
Is it possible on iPhone?
No. iOS doesn’t let apps observe what happens inside other apps or draw on top of them. Screen Time gives you per-app duration but cannot give you a video count, and no iOS app can. That’s a platform decision, not a missing feature.
What happens when you see the number?
The most common reaction we hear is surprise. People guess well below their real count — because you don’t count while scrolling, so no number forms in memory.
Seeing the number isn’t a solution on its own, but it is the precondition: you can’t reduce what you don’t measure. We wrote about why the habit is so hard to break separately.