How to Export Instagram Followers to CSV (2 Ways)

Two ways to export Instagram followers

Instagram has no "export to CSV" button on a profile. What you can do depends on whose list you want and how big it is.

If you only need a backup of your own lists, the data download is enough. If you want a spreadsheet you can sort right away, or a list from another account, use the extension.

Method 1: Instagram's Download your information

This is the official route. It works on the app and on instagram.com (menu names may change, as of October 2026).

Steps

1. Open your profile, tap the menu, then Settings and activity, then Accounts Center.
2. Go to Your information and permissions, then Download your information.
3. Choose Download or transfer information and select your Instagram account.
4. Pick Some of your information, and under Connections tick Followers and following only.
5. Choose Download to device, set the date range to All time, and set the format to JSON.
6. Tap Create files and wait for Instagram to notify you. The download link expires after a few days.

Choose only Followers and following. If you leave the defaults, Instagram may bundle all your media, which makes the file much bigger and slower to prepare.

What you get

Inside the ZIP, the lists live in a connections folder. Followers are in followers_1.json (and followers_2.json and so on for large accounts), and the accounts you follow are in following.json.

The file has usernames only. It has no user IDs, and deactivated accounts are not included. Choosing a short date range drops older follows, so always pick All time.

Turning it into CSV

Here is the honest part: Instagram does not give you CSV. You can open JSON in Excel through Data, Get Data, From JSON, but the usernames sit inside nested fields, so it takes several clicks in Power Query to flatten them. In Google Sheets there is no direct JSON import without a script.

The easier path is igbento's free checker. Upload the ZIP (or the JSON files) and it reads them in your browser, shows who does not follow you back and which fans you do not follow back, and lets you download the result as a CSV. That gives you a spreadsheet of those groups, not a plain dump of every follower.

Method 2: Export with the igbento extension

The extension works through the Instagram session already open in your browser. It does not ask for your password, and the lists are stored in your browser, not uploaded.

Steps

1. Install igbento in Chrome, Edge or Brave on a desktop, and log in to Instagram as usual.
2. Open the Instagram downloader and exporter page and choose New task.
3. Paste the account link, for example instagram.com/username, and choose Analyze URL.
4. Pick Export followers or Export following. The dialog shows the item limit your plan allows.
5. Choose Create task and let it run. You can keep using other tabs.
6. When the status reads Done, download the file as CSV or JSON. It goes to your Downloads folder.

What is in the file

Each row is one account, with the username, display name, and whether the account is verified and whether it is private. That is enough to sort, filter and compare in a spreadsheet.

Whose lists you can export

• Your own followers and following.
• The followers or following of any public account.
• Private accounts, but only if you follow them.

Long exports run as background tasks

Instagram slows down requests for long lists. igbento handles this as a task you can pause and resume. If Instagram pushes back, the task pauses instead of pushing through. On Free you resume it by hand. Basic waits and resumes automatically, and Pro also resumes automatically and sends a notification.

You can turn on browser notifications for a task, so you will know when it finishes or needs attention.

Export limits by plan

CSV and JSON are included on every plan. What changes is how many people one task can export, and how it behaves when Instagram rate-limits it.

Yearly billing is 50% off. See the pricing page for the full comparison. If your plan caps a task, the card says "Stopped at N items, your plan's limit per task", and the file contains what was collected up to that point.

Open the file in Excel or Google Sheets

Excel

1. Open Excel and choose Data, then From Text/CSV.
2. Select the exported file. Check that the file origin is UTF-8 so names with accents or emoji display correctly.
3. Choose Load. Your list lands in a table you can sort and filter.

Double-clicking the file also works, but accented characters can appear garbled. Importing avoids that.

Google Sheets

1. Open a blank sheet and choose File, then Import.
2. Upload the CSV and pick Replace spreadsheet or Insert new sheet.
3. Leave separator type on Detect automatically, then choose Import data.

That is all you need for an Instagram followers list in Excel or an Instagram followers to Google Sheets workflow. Once the data is in a sheet, you can share it with a teammate or filter it with a few clicks.

Useful formulas: compare two Instagram lists

Say you exported your following into one sheet and your followers into another. Put usernames in column A of each sheet, with a header in row 1.

Find who does not follow you back

In the Following sheet, put this in B2 and fill it down:

=IF(COUNTIF(Followers!A:A, A2)=0, "not following back", "")

Filter column B for "not following back". The same formula with the sheets swapped shows fans you do not follow back.

Compare two snapshots over time

Export your followers today and again next month. In the older sheet, use =IF(COUNTIF(New!A:A, A2)=0, "gone", "") to see who left. Instagram does not notify you of unfollows, so comparing two snapshots is the only honest way to know. For a quicker check, see how to see who unfollowed you.

Other quick wins

• Filter the private column to see how many accounts are private.
• Filter the verified column to pull out verified accounts in a list.
• Use Remove Duplicates (Excel) or Data cleanup (Sheets) if you merge several exports.
• Sort by username to spot odd, number-heavy handles, a first step in spotting ghost followers.

Prefer not to build formulas? The igbento unfollow tool does the same comparison in one click for your own account.

What people use an exported list for

• Audits. Check how many followers are private, verified or look like bots before you work with a creator or run ads.
• Giveaways. Keep a dated copy of your followers when a contest starts, so you can verify entrants later.
• Outreach. Build a list of an account's followers or following to find people in your niche, then reach out one by one with a real message.
• Backups. Save your lists in case you lose access to your account. A lost login also means a lost audience list.
• Growth tracking. Export on the first of each month and compare. See also how to see recent follows on Instagram.

Privacy and respecting other people's data

A followers list is personal data about other people, even when each profile is public. Use it with that in mind.

• Keep exports for your own analysis. Do not publish or sell them.
• Do not mass-message people you exported. Cold spam gets accounts reported and limited.
• Delete files you no longer need. In igbento you can delete a task and its exported data from the browser.
• If you export someone else's list for work, follow local privacy rules such as GDPR for any personal data you store.

Keep in mind that tools differ in other ways too. See our tools overview at /tools or the FAQ if you are unsure what fits your case.