See When You Followed Someone on Instagram

Instagram does not show in the app the date you started following an account, but it does store it: it is in your data export. In the file following.json, every account you follow carries a timestamp with the moment you started following it. With NomeSigueApp you see it as a readable date on each row, without touching the JSON.

Which date each file stores

Inside the ZIP, under connections/followers_and_following/, the same timestamp key means different things depending on the file:

File	What the timestamp says	Use it to
`following.json`	When you started following that account	See how long you have followed someone
`followers_1.json`	When that account started following you	See how long they have followed you
`pending_follow_requests.json`	When you sent the request	Spot old requests with no answer

If you have many followers, Instagram splits the list into followers_2.json, followers_3.json and so on; the tool merges them all. Each file is described in what is inside the Instagram ZIP.

How to get the export

Open Instagram, go to your profile and tap the menu (three lines) → Accounts Center.
Go to Your information and permissions.
Tap Download your information, then Download or transfer information.
Select your account and choose Some of your information.
Tick only Followers and following.
Choose Download to device.
Select JSON format and the All time date range, and create the files.

The format must be JSON: HTML cannot be analyzed (JSON or HTML). Instagram emails you when the ZIP is ready; with only followers and following it is usually a matter of minutes and at most about 48 hours.

See any account's date with NomeSigueApp

Open the tool on your phone or computer.
Upload the ZIP as it is, without unzipping.
Go to the Following tab and type the username in the search box.

The row shows the @username, the date from the timestamp and a link to open the profile. You can also sort oldest first to see who you have followed the longest, or newest first to see your latest follows. If you prefer a spreadsheet, Download CSV produces the columns username, profile_url and followed_at, the last one in YYYY-MM-DD format.

Everything is computed in your browser: the file is not uploaded to any server and no password is requested.

What "started following" meansThe date is the one the export attaches to each account you follow today. If you unfollowed someone and followed them again, we have not checked which date Instagram stores, so we do not state it as fact.

Why the date is worth knowing

The date helps you decide with some judgment. If you have followed an account for years and it never followed back, it may be a reference account rather than a favor owed. If you followed it only recently, it may not have had time to respond. And if you are planning to clean up who you follow, sorting by age lets you start with the oldest and review calmly, by hand, instead of acting all at once.

If you open the JSON by hand: converting the timestamp

The number you see in following.json is the seconds elapsed since January 1, 1970 (Unix format). A record looks like this:

{
  "string_list_data": [
    {
      "href": "https://www.instagram.com/username",
      "value": "username",
      "timestamp": 1700000000
    }
  ]
}

The value 1700000000 is an example we chose, not real data: it corresponds to November 14, 2023 at 22:13:20 UTC. Your local time zone can shift the day.

To convert one of your own values you have several options:

Excel, Google Sheets or LibreOffice: paste the number into cell A1 and in another cell type =A1/86400+DATE(1970,1,1); format that cell as a date. You divide by 86400 because a day has 86,400 seconds.
Mac terminal: date -u -r 1700000000.
Linux terminal: date -u -d @1700000000.

The export's timestamp is in seconds, so there is nothing else to divide.

Common mistakes

Looking in followers_1.json to see how long you have followed someone. That file says when they followed you. For your own follows, use following.json or the Following tab.
Requesting the export in HTML. The tool cannot read it and will warn you; request it again as JSON.
Searching for someone you no longer follow. The export is a snapshot of today: if you unfollowed an account, it is gone from the list.
Confusing the follow date with the account creation date. They are different things; the export only gives the first.

Frequently asked questions

Can I see in the app when I started following someone?

The app can sort your own Following list by date followed, latest or earliest first, although that option is not offered to every account, and it never shows the date itself. What is confirmed is that the export includes it for every account.

Can I also see when someone followed me?

Yes: it is in followers_1.json (and followers_2.json, and so on), and the tool shows it in the Followers tab.

Does it tell me who unfollowed me?

A single export cannot, because it is a snapshot. If you analyze two exports from different dates in the same browser, the tool shows the changes between them.

Does the other person find out I looked up the date?

No. The tool reads your file in your browser and does not connect to your account or anyone else's.

Look it up in a minute

Request your export, open NomeSigueApp, upload the ZIP and search for the account you care about in the Following tab. To also find out who does not follow you back, the main guide walks through it step by step.