I spent most of last week at home, sick. Somewhere between the cough and the boredom, I got curious about my own Instagram. I follow a few hundred accounts. How many of them actually follow me back?
The moment you go looking for that answer, every app promises to give it to you. And every one of them wants the same thing first: full access to your Instagram account. Your login, your DMs, permission to follow and unfollow on your behalf. I build automation for a living, so I know exactly what that access can do. I was not handing it over for a follower count.
There is a cleaner way. Instagram already lets you download your own data, and any AI assistant can read that file and tell you exactly who does not follow you back. No password sharing, no app permissions, no risk to your account. Here is the exact process, step by step.
Why not just use a follower-tracker app
Most "who unfollowed me" apps work by logging into your account and reading your data from the inside. That is the part worth pausing on. You are giving a third party standing access to an account that, for a lot of us, is tied to a business. Meta has also been restricting accounts that connect to unofficial tools. The method below uses nothing but a file that Instagram hands you directly. The only data in that file is public usernames and the dates people followed. No password, no account access, nothing sensitive.
What you will need
The Instagram app or instagram.com in a browser, any one AI assistant (ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, or Claude), about five minutes of setup, and a short wait for Instagram to prepare your file.
Step 1: Open Settings and activity
From your profile, tap the menu in the top corner and open Settings and activity. Everything to do with your data lives under Accounts Center, Meta's shared hub for Instagram and Facebook. You can tap into Accounts Center, but there is a faster route in the next step.
Step 2: Search for "export"
Rather than dig through menus, tap the search box at the top of Settings, type export, and open Export your information. On older app versions this is called Download your information.
Step 3: Create the export and pick your device
Tap Create export, choose your Instagram account, then pick Export to device. This keeps the file on your own phone or computer instead of sending it to an outside service.
Step 4: Uncheck everything, keep only Followers and following
Choose to customise the information. Turn everything off, then under Connections tick only Followers and following. That one file holds both lists, which is all the comparison needs, and a smaller export is faster to prepare.
Step 5: Set the date range to All time
Set the date range to All time. This is the step almost everyone skips, and it is the one that quietly ruins the result. On the default window, Instagram may hand you only the last twelve months of followers while your following list goes back further. The comparison then shows people as non-followers when they actually follow you.
Step 6: Set the format to JSON
Set the format to JSON, not HTML. JSON is the clean, structured version an AI reads accurately. HTML is built for you to look at, not for a machine to parse. If you already exported HTML, request a new one in JSON.
Step 7: Confirm and start the export
Before you start, the summary should read Followers and following, All time, and JSON. If all three match, tap Start export and enter your password. Your password stays with Instagram here. You are not typing it into any third party.
Step 8: Wait for Instagram to prepare the file
Instagram now prepares the file. The request shows up as being prepared, and it will notify you when the file is ready. For a Followers and following export this is usually quick, often within the hour, though Meta allows up to a few days.
Step 9: Download the file when it is ready
When it is ready, the export appears under Available downloads with a Download button. Note the expiry date. You have four days to download it before the link is gone.
Step 10: Save the file to your device
Tap Download to save the ZIP to your device. For a two list export it is tiny, usually under one megabyte, so it downloads in seconds.
Find the two files inside the ZIP
Unzip the file. Inside, open the folder connections, then followers_and_following. The two files you want are following.json and followers_1.json. If you follow a lot of accounts, followers may be split across followers_1.json, followers_2.json and so on, so take all of them.
Hand the files to an AI
Open your AI assistant, upload those files, and paste this prompt:
These are my Instagram following and followers files. Using code, give me every account I follow that does not follow me back, with their profile links.
Within a couple of minutes you get the full list: everyone you follow who does not follow you back, each with a link to their profile. Your password and your account were never part of it.
Which AI tools can do this
Any assistant that can take an uploaded file and run code will work. I have used it on Claude, and ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok all do the same job. Two small notes. On the free version of ChatGPT, upload the JSON files directly rather than the ZIP. And Grok added file uploads more recently, so if you do not see an upload button, update the app or use one of the others.
One setting to double-check
If your list comes back far too long, it is almost always the date range. Confirm you selected All time, not the default window. That single setting is the difference between a real answer and a misleading one. It is exactly what caught me out on my first export, where the followers only went back a year and made a large number of real followers look like they had never followed me.
I am a real estate broker in Dubai, and most of what I publish is property, by the numbers. This was the same instinct pointed at my own account, and it cost nothing but a file and five minutes. If you want more of this kind of thing, follow along. And if you are looking at Dubai property, you know where to find me.