Instagram data export files explained: followers_1.json, following.json and the rest
When you download "Followers and following" from Instagram, you get a ZIP full of files with names like followers_1.json and pending_follow_requests.json. This reference explains what each file contains, how the formats changed over the years, and the quirks you'll run into if you read them yourself. It's based on the real exports our tool has to handle.
How to request the export is covered in the Instagram JSON export guide.
Where the files are
In current exports (2022 and later), the follower files are in connections/followers_and_following/. Some ZIPs have an extra top-level folder named after your account and the export date, like instagram-yourname-2026-09-27-…. Your username is also in personal_information/personal_information.json.
If you chose HTML instead of JSON, the files have the same names with .html. They contain the same lists as web pages, with dates written out in your language.
Every file and what it means
| File | What it lists |
|---|---|
followers_1.json, followers_2.json … | Everyone who follows you, with the date they followed. Large accounts get several numbered parts; together they form one list. |
following.json | Everyone you follow, with the date you followed them. Some exports split this into following_1.json and so on. |
pending_follow_requests.json | Requests you sent to private accounts that haven't been accepted yet. See your pending follow requests. |
recently_unfollowed_profiles.json | Accounts you recently unfollowed, with dates. Not the people who unfollowed you. |
follow_requests_you've_received.json | Follow requests other people sent you. |
close_friends.json | Your Close Friends list for stories. |
blocked_profiles.json | Accounts you blocked. |
restricted_profiles.json | Accounts you restricted. |
removed_suggestions.json | Suggested accounts you dismissed. |
Only the first two are needed to see who doesn't follow you back. The others are optional: if one is missing, you usually just have none of those entries.
What's not in any file: the people who unfollowed you. Instagram doesn't keep that list. You find it by comparing followers_1.json from two exports taken at different times, which is what the unfollowers tracker does when you analyze a new export in the same browser.
What an entry looks like
In the followers files, each entry is an object with a string_list_data array. The classic shape:
{
"title": "",
"string_list_data": [
{
"href": "https://www.instagram.com/example",
"value": "example",
"timestamp": 1719830400
}
]
}valueis the username andhrefthe profile link.timestampis a Unix time in seconds: when the follow (or request) happened.followers_1.jsonis a bare array of such entries;following.jsonwraps them in"relationships_following".- Since 2024, some entries carry the username only in
title, with anhreflikehttps://www.instagram.com/_u/exampleand novalue. - Since 2025, some lists (for example pending requests, blocked and restricted) use
label_valuesrecords instead: small lists of labelled fields such as URL, name and username, with labels in your account's language.
Older export formats
- 2021–2022:
followers_and_following/followers.jsonwith the list under"relationships_followers". - 2020 and earlier: a single
connections.jsonwithfollowers,following,follow_requests_sent,close_friends,blocked_usersand more, each mapping usernames to a date.
If you kept an old export, it still works for comparison: the tool reads all three generations.
Quirks to know
- Broken special characters. Meta writes every non-ASCII character byte by byte (
éinstead ofé), so names with accents or emoji look garbled in a text editor. The data is intact; it just needs to be decoded as UTF-8. - Date range matters. If you don't choose All time, older follows are missing and people seem not to follow you back.
- Deactivated accounts vanish. An account that's switched off at export time isn't in your followers file, even if it still follows you.
- Duplicates. Downloading twice can leave copies like
following (1).json. They're the same list. - Threads files. Exports can include Threads files with their own followers. They're a different network and don't belong in an Instagram comparison.