How to See Who Unfollowed You on Instagram
Instagram doesn't tell you when someone unfollows you. No notification, no alert, nothing. Your follower count drops by one and that's it. You're left wondering who it was.
Most people find out by accident. They notice a name missing, or they check a profile and realize the "follows you" label is gone. It's annoying. Especially if you care about your Instagram follower tracking or you're growing a brand account.
That's why we built this free Instagram unfollow checker. Upload the data export Instagram gives you, and we compare your followers list against your following list. Done in seconds. No login, no third-party app access, no risk to your account.
How This Instagram Unfollow Tracker Works
It's dead simple. Instagram lets you download a copy of all your data, followers, following, messages, everything. We only need the followers and following part. Here's the step-by-step:
How to download your Instagram data
- Open Instagram and tap the ☰ menu in the top right
- Tap Accounts Center
- Tap Your information and permissions
- Tap Export your information
- Tap Create export
- Select Export to device
- Tap Customize information
- Check only Followers and Following
- Set the Date Range to "All time"
- Tap Format and select JSON
- Tap Start export
Instagram will email you a ZIP file within a few minutes to a few hours. That's the file you upload above.
Once you upload it, our tool reads the JSON files inside and cross-references them instantly. No data leaves your browser. Everything runs locally on your device.
What You'll See
The Instagram unfollowers tool shows you three things:
- People who don't follow you back, you follow them, they don't follow you. These are your non-followers.
- Your fans, they follow you but you don't follow them back. Loyal audience members.
- Mutual follows, you follow each other. The healthy ones.
That first category is what most people are here for. You can also use our tool to see who doesn't follow you back in one clean list. The data doesn't lie.
Why Other Instagram Unfollow Checkers Are Risky
There are dozens of apps on the App Store and Play Store that claim to track Instagram unfollowers. I've tried most of them. Here's the problem.
They ask for your Instagram password. That's it. That's the red flag.
The moment you hand over your login to some random app, you've broken Instagram's rules. Meta doesn't care why you did it. They'll restrict your account, shadow ban it, or just kill it entirely. Go read the reviews on those apps. Same story every time: "got banned," "locked out of my own account," "lost everything." I've seen it happen to friends. Not worth it.
We never ask for your Instagram login. Period.
Instagram can't flag you because we never touch your account.
Your data stays on your device. We don't upload or store anything.
Uses Instagram's own data export feature. Nothing shady.
This is the same approach used by tools like FollowBuddy, rely on Instagram's official data export instead of scraping or logging in. It's the only safe way to check who unfollowed you on Instagram without risking your account.
Who Unfollowed Me on Instagram? The Real Answer
Here's something people don't talk about enough. The question "who unfollowed me on Instagram" has two different answers depending on what you actually mean.
If you mean "who recently stopped following me," this tool shows you that by comparing your current export against who you follow. If you run the export periodically, you can see exactly who dropped off between checks.
If you mean real-time unfollower notifications as they happen, that's what The Ick App does. It tracks follows and unfollows on public profiles automatically. Push notifications. Hourly checks. No manual exports needed.
This free web tool handles the first use case. The app handles the second. You can also check recent follows on Instagram for any public account. All three methods work without your Instagram password. All safe.
Want Automatic Unfollow Tracking?
The Ick App sends you push notifications when someone follows or unfollows. Real-time updates. No exports needed.
Start Tracking NowFrequently Asked Questions
Want to know more about us? Learn about what is the ick and why we built this in the first place.