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Export Both Your Followers and Following, Then Compare Them

2 min read

Key takeaways

  • You need both lists, not one. "Who doesn't follow me back" is a comparison. Export followers and following separately, then diff them.
  • The diff is one spreadsheet formula. COUNTIF across the two columns flags every account in one list but not the other.
  • Match on user ID, not username, if you can. Usernames change; a renamed account would show up as both a departed follower and a new one.
  • It's a snapshot, not a tracker. Two exports a week apart, compared, show you what changed. That's how you see who unfollowed without a "tracker" app watching in the background.
  • The following list is the smaller, easier export. Most people follow far fewer accounts than follow them, so it runs fast and rarely hits caps.

Your follower list answers one question: who follows you. Your following list answers another: who you follow. The questions people actually care about — who doesn't follow me back, who unfollowed me, who am I not following back — all come from putting the two together.

Export both lists

They're separate exports. Do the followers list (the four methods), then the following list the same way. A tool like ListLift lets you pick either direction, or both in one go.

The following list is the easy one. Most people follow a few hundred to a few thousand accounts while being followed by many more, so it exports fast and rarely brushes a free-tier cap. If you only care about "who doesn't follow me back," you can often get away with a quick following export plus a full followers export.

Do the comparison

Put both lists in one sheet:

  • Column A: everyone you follow (from the following export)
  • Column B: everyone who follows you (from the followers export)

Then in column C, filled down:

=IF(COUNTIF(B:B, A2)=0, "not following back", "")

Every row that says "not following back" is an account you follow that doesn't follow you. Flip the columns to get the reverse — people who follow you that you don't follow back:

=IF(COUNTIF(A:A, B2)=0, "you don't follow back", "")

Match on user ID if your export has it. Usernames can be changed, so a comparison keyed on username will show a renamed account as both a lost follower and a new one. The user ID column is permanent — use that as the key and the diff is exact.

See who unfollowed you

This is the same technique across time instead of across lists.

  1. Export your followers today. Keep the file, dated.
  2. Export again in a week (or a month).
  3. Compare: accounts in the older file but not the newer one either unfollowed or deactivated in between.
=IF(COUNTIF('followers-new'!B:B, B2)=0, "gone", "")

You can't tell "unfollowed" from "deactivated" this way — for that you'd check whether each "gone" account still exists — but for spotting a drop after a specific post or campaign, it's enough.

Why do it this way instead of a tracker app

Unfollower-tracker apps run a service that watches your account continuously, which means granting a third party ongoing access and trusting it not to misuse the session. The export-and-diff approach gives you the same answers with:

  • No background monitoring — you run a comparison when you want one
  • No third-party service holding access to your account between checks
  • A file you keep — your own history, not a dashboard you lose if the app shuts down

It's more manual. It's also entirely yours, and it doesn't add anything to your account for Instagram's automated-behaviour detection to notice.

FAQ

Questions this comes up with

Skip the manual work — use ListLift

Follower & Following Exporter — see the real count before you export.

See how it works