followers_1.json Missing From Your Instagram Export? Where It Should Be

Where it should be

Extract the ZIP and you get a folder named after the export. At its top level there is a connections folder, and possibly others such as personal_information or your_instagram_activity if you included more categories. Inside connections is followers_and_following, and that is the folder every follower-related file lives in. The followers list is never placed anywhere else, never at the top level, and never renamed by Instagram, so if it exists at all, this is where it is.

A quick way to check on a computer is to search the extracted folder for “followers_1”. If the search returns nothing, the file is absent and you can move on to the causes. If it returns a .html file, you have the format case. The followers_1.json page describes the structure of the file in detail if you want to confirm what you found is the right thing.

One thing that trips people up on a phone: both the iPhone Files app and Files by Google on Android show the extracted folder with the same name as the ZIP, sitting right beside it. Tapping the ZIP a second time doesn't open the folder; it either re-extracts or shows a preview of the archive listing. Tap the folder icon, not the archive icon, and the path above becomes visible. On a computer, a search for the filename inside the extracted folder is the fastest confirmation, and it also reveals any followers_2.json and later chunks you might otherwise miss.

The other files in that folder

Seeing the neighbouring files helps confirm the category was exported. With Followers and following ticked, the followers_and_following folder can contain any of the following, depending on what your account has actually done:

• followers_1.json — accounts that follow you, with timestamps.
• following.json — accounts you follow, with timestamps. See the following.json page for its layout.
• pending_follow_requests.json— requests you have sent to private accounts that haven't accepted yet.
• recent_follow_requests.json — requests you received recently.
• recently_unfollowed_profiles.json — accounts you unfollowed in the recent past.
• close_friends.json — your close friends list.
• blocked_profiles.json and restricted_profiles.json — accounts you have blocked or restricted.
• removed_suggestions.json — suggested accounts you dismissed.
• following_hashtags.json — hashtags you follow.

Files for things you have never done are simply omitted, so a folder with only two or three of these is normal. The point is that if following.json or any of the others are present, the category was exported, and a missing followers file narrows the cause to format or an empty follower count. A wider tour of the export is in what's inside your Instagram data export.

Why it's followers_1

The suffix confuses people who expect a single followers.json. Instagram writes the followers list in chunks: the first chunk is always followers_1.json, and larger accounts continue with followers_2.json, followers_3.json, and so on, each a self-contained array of entries. An account with a few hundred followers gets only the first file; an account with tens of thousands may get a dozen. Any tool reading the export has to merge every numbered file, which is one reason to use a checker that handles the split rather than opening files by hand and counting the first one.

Following is not split. Instagram limits every account to 7,500 follows, which fits in one file, so following.jsonhas no number. If you see a numbered following file, the export is not from Instagram's current format.

Three causes and the fix for each

1. The category wasn't included. If there is no followers_and_following folder at all, Followers and following was unticked under Customise information. Request again: Accounts Center → Your information and permissions → Export your information → Create export, choose the profile, Export to device, tick only Followers and following, set Format to JSON and Date range to All time, then Start export. The broader symptom of an export with no followers anywhere is covered in export not showing followers.
2. The format was HTML. The folder exists and holds followers_1.html. The data is all there; it is only the wrapper that differs. Upload the ZIP to a tool that reads HTML, or re-request with Format set to JSON. The trade-offs between the two are in HTML vs JSON.
3. The account has zero followers. The folder exists, following.json is there, but no followers file appears in either format. Instagram does not write an empty followers file. This is the only legitimate reason for the file to be absent, and it applies to brand-new accounts, test accounts, and profiles whose followers have all been removed.

What UnfollowChecker needs

You do not need to find, extract, or rename the file yourself. Upload the ZIP exactly as Instagram delivered it and the checker walks the archive looking for followers_1.json, every numbered continuation, and following.json, falling back to the HTML names if that is what it finds. If the followers file is truly absent it tells you which of the three causes applies rather than reporting a misleading result. The comparison runs in your browser, so the archive never leaves your device.

If you have already extracted the export and only have the folder, that works too: re-zip the connections folder, or just the followers_and_followingfolder, and upload that. The checker only cares that the followers and following files are somewhere inside the archive, not about the exact folder depth or the ZIP's name.