Who Follows Me That I Don't Follow Back?

The accounts that follow you while you don't follow them back are a list Instagram doesn't show you in one place, but it is in your official data export. Upload that file to NomeSigueApp and the You don't follow back tab lists them with the date each follow began, while Mutual follows shows who you follow and who follows you. Everything runs in your browser: no password, and nothing is uploaded to a server.

Three lists, three different questions

Crossing your followers with your following gives three groups. They are easy to mix up, so here is how they differ:

List	What it contains	What it's for
Don't follow you back	Accounts you follow that don't follow you	Deciding who to unfollow
You don't follow back	Accounts that follow you that you don't follow	Following back real people, checking strangers
Mutual follows	Accounts you follow and that follow you	Seeing your real circle

This article covers the last two. For the first one, see the guide to finding who doesn't follow you.

How to get the list, step by step

Request your information from Accounts Center: profile → menu (three lines) → Accounts Center → Your information and permissions → Download your information → Download or transfer information.
Select your account, choose Some of your information and tick only Followers and following.
Choose Download to device, the JSON format and the "All time" date range, then create the files.
When Instagram's email arrives, download the ZIP. You don't need to unzip it.
Open the tool, upload the ZIP and go to the You don't follow back tab.

If any step is unclear, How to Download Your Instagram Data walks through it in more detail, and the JSON vs HTML article saves you from the most common mistake: choosing HTML, which can't be analyzed.

What to do with "You don't follow back"

This list has two very different uses, and the date on each row helps you tell them apart.

Following back real people

If someone you care about followed you and you never replied, they will show up here. It happens a lot with clients, coworkers, or people you met offline who looked you up afterwards. Sort by oldest first to see who has been waiting longest.

Checking accounts you don't recognize

You will also see accounts you don't recognize: profiles without a photo, generic businesses, or names with a strange string of characters. The tool can't tell you whether an account is fake or who runs it, only that it follows you and you don't follow it. You decide: open the profile with the link on the row and decide what to do about it.

The tool doesn't act for youNomeSigueApp gives you the list and a link to each profile, but it doesn't follow or unfollow anyone. You take every action yourself in Instagram.

What to do with "Mutual follows"

The Mutual follows tab is useful for what it doesn't look like: it works as a safe list. If you later clean up who you follow, the accounts here are the ones you shouldn't touch without thinking, because the relationship goes both ways.

It is also a good starting point for building lists of people you actually interact with, or for comparing against the "Don't follow you back" tab to see how much of your following is reciprocated.

Each tab can be sorted (oldest, newest, A-Z), searched by name, copied to the clipboard or downloaded as CSV with the columns username, profile_url and followed_at. For long lists, the CSV opens in Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers; see the article on exporting followers to Excel or CSV.

How the tool works it out

Inside the ZIP, the relevant folder is connections/followers_and_following/:

connections/followers_and_following/
  followers_1.json
  following.json

If you have many followers, Instagram splits the first file into followers_2.json, followers_3.json and so on; the tool merges them all. It then compares the usernames in followers with those in following: those in followers but not in following form You don't follow back; those in both form Mutual follows.

The date on each row comes from the timestamp field and is when that relationship started: in followers, when that account started following you; in following, when you started following it.

Common problems

The list is empty or odd. Almost always the export is in HTML. Request it again in JSON.
Followers are missing. Check that you uploaded the whole ZIP. If you upload loose JSON files, include every followers_N.json, not just the first.
An account shows up although you already followed it. The export is a snapshot from when you requested it. If you followed someone afterwards, request a new one.
Accounts that vanish. If an account is deactivated or deleted, it drops out of your lists.

Frequently asked questions

Can I see this without downloading anything?

The Instagram app doesn't offer a reliable screen that cross-checks the two lists. The export includes both, which is why the tool starts from it.

Who can see that I analyzed them?

Nobody. The analysis happens in your browser, the file isn't uploaded to any server, and the accounts get no notification.

Do I have to follow everyone back?

No. Following back is your decision. The list only shows you who is there; it doesn't oblige you to do anything.

Does it detect who views my profile or who blocked me?

No. It only works with the followers and following lists in the export. An account that blocks you simply disappears from your followers list.

Try it with your own data

Request the export, upload it to NomeSigueApp and see who you still need to follow back. If you want to see how it works first, the sample data button uploads nothing.