Where Are Followers and Following in the Instagram Data Export?

Your followers list is at connections/followers_and_following/followers_1.json. The accounts you follow are in following.json in the same folder. If your ZIP has no connections/ folder at all, you either downloaded the HTML version or you didn't tick "Followers and following" when you requested the export.

That folder holds eleven files in total, and most people only ever need two of them. Below is the exact layout, what every file contains, and why your followers list may be split across followers_1.json, followers_2.json and beyond.

Where exactly is the followers list in the Instagram data export?

Unzip the archive. Meta gives you one root folder named after your username and the request date. Inside it:

connections/
└── followers_and_following/
    ├── followers_1.json
    ├── following.json
    ├── pending_follow_requests.json
    ├── close_friends.json
    ├── blocked_profiles.json
    ├── hide_story_from.json
    ├── recent_follow_requests.json
    ├── recently_unfollowed_profiles.json
    ├── removed_suggestions.json
    ├── profiles_you've_favorited.json
    └── follow_requests_you've_received.json

Two things trip people up here.

First, the apostrophes in follow_requests_you've_received.json and profiles_you've_favorited.json are literal characters in the real filenames. They are not a formatting artifact of this page.

Second, files you have no data for are simply absent. A brand-new account with nobody blocked won't have a blocked_profiles.json. Missing ≠ broken.

What is each file in followers_and_following?

The name recently_unfollowed_profiles.json is the single biggest source of confusion in the whole export. It is your outbound activity — people you stopped following. Instagram does not ship a file listing who unfollowed you, and it never has. That list can only be produced by comparing two exports taken at different times.

Why is my followers list split into followers_1.json and followers_2.json?

Because Meta chunks large lists. Past a certain size the followers list is written as followers_1.json, followers_2.json, followers_3.json, and so on. Meta doesn't publish the threshold and it has moved over time, so there is no number worth memorising. Just expect more than one file if your account is large.

The thing to know as a user: all of those files together are one list. An account with 40,000 followers might get four of them, and a tool that reads only the first one has a quarter of your followers — with no error and no warning.

This is where cheap web tools and homegrown scripts fall over. The result still looks plausible, because it is a list of real usernames, so nobody notices until the "not following back" count comes out wildly wrong. If a checker gives you a number that feels far too high, an unread chunk is the usual explanation.

Is there a following_1.json?

Usually not. The following list is almost always the single file following.json, because most people follow far fewer accounts than follow them. Very large accounts can see it numbered too. Either way, a tool that reads your whole export handles it without you doing anything.

Where are Threads followers in the same export?

Different tree entirely:

your_instagram_activity/
└── threads/
    └── …

If you use Threads, its follower data ships inside the same ZIP as your Instagram data, in its own folder. Both the free checker and UnfollowPeek recognise it on import and keep the two platforms apart, so you never have to tell them which one you handed over.

Threads results go wrong in one recognisable way when a tool wasn't really built for them: you get people's display names instead of their usernames, and because display names change whenever someone feels like it, the next comparison invents unfollowers who never left. How to see who unfollowed you on Threads covers what that looks like.

Should I choose JSON or HTML?

JSON. Always, if any tool is going to read the file.

The HTML export contains the same names, wrapped in a browser-friendly page you can click through. It's fine for reading with your eyes and useless for analysis — Meta gives no stability guarantee on that markup, and every parser that has tried to scrape it has broken within a release or two. Our own analyzer detects an HTML export on upload and tells you to re-request rather than guessing at the markup.

If you already have an HTML export, you don't need to delete anything: just request a new one and pick JSON. Go to Accounts Center → Your information and permissions → Export your information (older builds say Download your information), tick only Followers and following, and set the format to JSON. A connections-only export usually comes back in minutes — see how long the Instagram data export takes.

One nuance worth knowing: start_here.html sits at the root of every export, JSON or not. Its presence doesn't mean you picked the wrong format. Look for .html files named after followers or following instead.

What can you actually work out from a single export?

From one export, with both followers_*.json and following.json present, you can compute exactly one meaningful thing:

Not following back = the accounts in following.json that don't appear in your followers files. Set subtraction, nothing more.

You cannot get unfollowers from a single export. "Who unfollowed me" is a comparison between two points in time — the accounts present in an older export's followers list and absent from a newer one. Same for new followers, and for broken mutuals (a two-way follow that has since collapsed). One export is one snapshot; a snapshot has no history in it.

That's the honest ceiling of what Meta's file gives you, and it's why the export is a starting point rather than an answer.

Read your export without uploading it anywhere

Drop your ZIP into the free Instagram unfollow checker and see who doesn't follow back right now. The export never leaves your browser — the file is parsed on your own device, there's no login, no password, and nothing is uploaded to a server.

For the part a single export can't answer — who actually unfollowed you, and when — UnfollowPeek keeps your snapshots on your iPhone and diffs them for you. Import an export today, import another next month, and you get unfollowers, new followers and broken mutuals without ever handing your Instagram password to anyone. Free on iOS.