See Who's Not Following You Back on Instagram

How it works

1. 1

   Request a Followers and following export

   In the Instagram app go to Settings and privacy → Accounts Centre → Your information and permissions → Export your information → Create export. Pick your Instagram profile, tick only Followers and following, set the date range to All time, the format to JSON, and choose Download to device.

2. 2

   Collect the ZIP when Instagram emails you

   A followers-only export is normally ready in 10–20 minutes. Instagram sends an email with a download link that stays valid for four days; the same file is also listed on the Export your information screen.

3. 3

   Upload the ZIP on this page

   Pick the ZIP in the uploader above. Your browser reads the followers and following files locally, compares them, and shows the result straight away. Nothing is sent to a server, and you can close the tab whenever you like.

Three ways to find who's not following back

Instagram shows you two separate lists and never draws the line between them, so every method for finding who isn't following you back comes down to doing that comparison somewhere. The three options differ mostly in how long they take and what they put at risk.

Why the export method wins on accuracy

Scraping a followers list means paging through it a screen at a time, and Instagram rate-limits that paging. Apps that hit the limit either stop early or fill in from a cached copy, which is why two login apps can give two different answers on the same afternoon. The export is produced by Instagram itself from the same tables that draw your profile, so it contains every follow relationship your account has at the moment the export is generated, including private accounts and accounts that have blocked you from searching.

The one thing that can make an export look wrong is the date range. If you pick the last year instead of All time, follows older than a year are simply absent from following.json, and the comparison will report fewer non-followers than you have. Deleted and deactivated accounts show up as placeholders; the tool skips those and reports how many, so the figures reconcile. The step-by-step guide has screenshots if you'd rather see each screen first.

Step-by-step from Accounts Centre

From your profile tap the menu, then Settings and privacy, then Accounts Centre. Under Your information and permissions choose Export your information and Create export. Pick the Instagram profile you want checked, then narrow the request: under the types of information tick only Followers and following. Set the range to All time, the format to JSON, and pick Download to device rather than a cloud transfer.

Instagram queues the job and emails you when the ZIP is ready — typically 10–20 minutes for a followers-only request, though a full-account export can take days. Download the ZIP, return here, and upload it. If the email seems slow, the export taking too long guide explains what normal looks like. The result appears in a couple of seconds; the file never leaves your browser.

What you see for free and what $2.99 adds

Free, with no account on this site: the number of people not following you back, a blurred preview of a few of those usernames, your fans and mutuals counts, and CSV downloads of your full followers and following lists with follow dates. The complete list of who's not following you back — usernames, profile links and the date you followed each one — is a one-time $2.99, and a CSV copy is emailed to you. Nothing is stored server-side; if you want a fresh answer next month, you request a fresh export and the count is free again.

If what you actually want is who used to follow you and stopped, that's the unfollowers diff: upload two exports from different dates and the tool lists who left and who joined, free, including the full lists.

Before you unfollow anyone

A list of people not following you back is information, not a to-do list. Brands, celebrities, news accounts and old friends who barely post were never going to reciprocate, and following them costs you nothing. The useful question is whether you should unfollow people who don't follow back at all, and for most accounts the answer is "some of them". Sorting by follow date helps: the ones from years ago you don't recognise are the easy calls.

If you do prune, pace it. Instagram's unofficial ceiling is somewhere around 100–200 unfollows a day for an established account and far fewer for a new one — the unfollow limit guide has the detail. Clearing 300 non-followers in one sitting is the second most reliable way to get an action block, after giving your password to an app. The follow back checker page covers the reverse view if you also want to see who's waiting on you.

What this tool can't do

It only reads an export you downloaded from your own account, so it can't tell you who isn't following back a friend, a competitor or an ex. It won't unfollow anyone on your behalf — automating that is what gets accounts restricted. The result is a snapshot from the time Instagram generated the export, not a live feed, and it doesn't include likes or comments, so it can't say which non-followers are at least watching your stories. Everything else about the comparison is exact.

Frequently asked questions