How to See Pending Follow Requests on Instagram (Sent and Received)

Requests you received

If your account is private, every follow has to go through you. Open the app, tap the heart icon at the top of the feed (Instagram calls this Activity or Notifications), and the first row of that screen is Follow requests with a count. Tap it to see each requester with Confirm and Delete buttons. On a public account this row is usually empty, because follows are accepted automatically; the exception is when you switched from private to public, in which case old requests may still be sitting there.

The export has a copy of this list too. In the same folder as the followers file you will find follow_requests_you've_received.json (older exports call it recent_follow_requests.json). Its top-level key is relationships_follow_requests_receivedand each entry has the requester's username and a timestamp. It is handy if you want to see when a request came in, which the app does not show.

Requests you sent: no screen, only the export

When you tap Follow on a private account, the button turns to Requested and that is the last the app tells you. There is no list of outstanding requests anywhere in Settings, Activity or your profile. People have asked for one for years; it has never been added. The sole record is the export file.

1. Request your export: Settings and privacy → Accounts Centre → Your information and permissions → Export your information → Create export. Tick Followers and following only, format JSON, range All time. Step by step instructions are in how to download your Instagram data export.
2. When the email arrives, download and unzip the file. Open connections/followers_and_following/.
3. Open pending_follow_requests.json in a text editor. The top-level key is relationships_follow_requests_sent. Inside is a list; each item has a string_list_data array with href (profile link), value (username) and timestamp (when you sent the request, as a Unix number).
4. Convert the timestamps if you want dates: paste one into a Unix time converter, or in a spreadsheet use =A1/86400+DATE(1970,1,1) formatted as a date.

If you picked HTML format, the file is pending_follow_requests.html and opens in a browser with the dates already readable. A tour of every file in the folder is in what's inside your Instagram data export.

Why old requests pile up

Most people are surprised by how long the sent list is. The reason is that private accounts almost never decline. Declining takes a deliberate tap; ignoring takes nothing. So a request you sent to a classmate in 2021, or to a business that later went private, is still pending today, and Instagram counts it. These requests also count toward your following activity, which matters if you are close to the 7,500 following cap or trying to keep a tidy ratio.

There is a second, quieter effect. Each pending request is a standing invitation: if the account accepts years later, you suddenly follow someone you had forgotten about, and their posts land in your feed. Clearing the stale ones avoids that. It also keeps the export file honest: the next time you check it, every name on the list will be a request you actually still want answered, rather than a decade of accumulated clutter you have to read past.

Cancelling requests you no longer want

Instagram has no bulk cancel. The process is one account at a time:

1. Search the username from the export file, or tap its link.
2. On the profile, tap Requested. It flips back to Follow and the request is withdrawn silently; the other person is not notified.
3. Tick the row off in your copy of the file and move on.

Cancelling a request is a follow-type action, so if you have dozens to clear, pace them as you would unfollows: batches of 20–30, breaks between, and stop if you see an Action Blocked message. Accounts that have gone inactive or been deleted will show a blank profile; those requests resolve themselves when the account is finally removed, and you can leave them.

What tools can and can't do with this file

The pending-requests file is small and simple, and a text editor is genuinely the fastest way to read it. The Instagram data export analyzer takes the same ZIP and turns the followers and following files into sortable lists with dates and a CSV, but it does not display the pending or received requests files at the moment. For the question most people have alongside this one, who you follow that has never followed back, upload the ZIP to UnfollowChecker and the comparison runs in your browser. Note that pending requests are not in that list: a private account that has not accepted you is not yet someone you follow, so it appears in neither file. The companion file for accounts you have let go is covered in how to see who you recently unfollowed on Instagram.