Instagram unfollow checker for iPhone (no app needed)

How it works

1. 1

   Request the export inside the Instagram app

   On your iPhone open Instagram, go to your profile, tap the menu (☰) in the top right, then Settings and privacy → Accounts Centre → Your information and permissions → Export your information → Create export. Pick your Instagram profile, choose Download to device, tick only Followers and following, set the date range to All time and the format to JSON, then tap Start export.

2. 2

   Wait for the notification or email

   A followers-only export usually takes 10–20 minutes. You get an Instagram notification and an email from Meta, and the download link stays valid for four days. If you're still waiting after an hour, see why an Instagram export can take longer.

3. 3

   Download the ZIP in Safari

   Tap the download link. Instagram may ask you to confirm your password first — that's Instagram asking, on Instagram's own screen, not us. Safari then shows a Download sheet; tap it and the ZIP lands in Files → Downloads. A blue arrow appears next to the address bar when it's finished.

4. 4

   Upload it on this page

   Open unfollow-checker.com in Safari, tap the upload area, choose Choose File, then Browse at the bottom, open Downloads and tap the ZIP (its name starts with instagram- and your username). Your non-follower count appears in a second or two.

The App Store route and what it costs you

Search the App Store for "unfollowers" and you'll find dozens of results, nearly all built on the same template: a free download, a three-day trial, then an auto-renewing subscription of roughly $4.99 to $9.99 a week. The paywall sits exactly where you'd expect — the count is free, the names are not — and a single week of that costs more than UnfollowChecker's one-time $2.99.

The money is the smaller problem. Every one of these apps works by asking you to sign in with your Instagram username and password, then logging in as you from the developer's servers to read your lists. Apple's review checks how the app behaves on the phone; it has no way of checking what a server does with your credentials afterwards. Instagram, meanwhile, sees a login from a datacentre IP it has never seen you use, which is the classic trigger for a suspicious-login email or an Action Blocked warning. We go through the reports in is it safe to use Instagram unfollow checkers.

Doing it from Safari instead

UnfollowChecker is a web page, so there is nothing to install and nothing that outlives the tab. When you pick the ZIP from the file picker, iOS hands Safari a copy of the file, Safari hands it to the page's JavaScript, and the comparison between followers_1.json and following.json happens on the phone's own processor. The ZIP never goes to a server, which is why there's no upload progress bar and why it works just as well with Wi-Fi switched off once the page has loaded.

This also works in Chrome, Firefox or Edge on iPhone. Apple requires every iOS browser to use the Safari WebKit engine, so the file picker and the on-device processing are identical; only the download location differs slightly, which the next section covers. You can read more about how the site is built and paid for on the about page.

Where the ZIP goes on an iPhone (and how to find it again)

Safari saves downloads to the Downloads folder in the Files app. Whether that folder lives in iCloud Drive or On My iPhone depends on Settings → Safari → Downloads; if you can't find the file in one, look in the other. The export is small — usually a few hundred kilobytes for a followers-only export — so it won't trouble a phone that's low on storage.

• Downloaded from the Mail app instead: Mail opens the ZIP in a preview rather than saving it. Tap the share icon, choose Save to Files, and pick Downloads so the upload step can find it.
• Chrome on iPhone: Chrome keeps its own Downloads folder in Files under On My iPhone → Chrome. Use Browse in the file picker and look there.
• Screen Time limits on Instagram: the email link opens in Safari, not the Instagram app, so a daily limit on Instagram doesn't stop the download.
• The file picker shows Recents first: the ZIP is usually at the top, but if not, tap Browse and navigate manually.

What the free view shows and what $2.99 unlocks

Once the ZIP is read you see the exact number of accounts that don't follow you back, a blurred preview of the list, and buttons to download your full followers and following lists as CSV files — all free, no account required. The full list of non-follower usernames, sorted by the date you followed each account, is a one-time $2.99, and we email you the CSV so it's easy to open on a Mac later. There is no weekly plan and no renewal to cancel.

If you'd also like the other two directions — who follows you that you don't follow back and your mutual followers — there's a $3 fans & mutuals add-on at checkout. And if you only want your raw lists, exporting your followers list is free on its own.

Unfollowing from your iPhone without getting blocked

The results page links each username, so tapping one opens that profile in the Instagram app where you can unfollow by hand. That manual step is deliberate. Instagram counts unfollows per hour and per day, and mass-unfollowing from a tool is the second most common cause of a block after password apps; the figures we've seen are in our guide to the Instagram unfollow limit. Work through the list over a few days rather than one sitting.

Keep the ZIP in Files. If you request another export next month and upload both, the free who unfollowed me comparison shows exactly which accounts left in between.

What this tool can't do

It only reads an export from your own account, so it can't tell you who doesn't follow a friend, an ex or a competitor back. It won't unfollow anyone for you — you do that in the Instagram app, at your own pace. And it isn't live: the list reflects the moment Instagram generated the file, so a follow that happened after that won't show until you request a new export. If the export still hasn't arrived, our guide on exports taking too long covers the usual causes.

Frequently asked questions