Instagram Data Export: What's Really Hidden in Your Download

Instagram's official data export contains far more than most users expect. Beyond your photos and followers, it includes your complete search history, login records for every device that has accessed your account, Meta's advertising categories for your profile, and the full list of companies that have uploaded your personal data to target you with ads. This guide covers how to download it and what you will find.

How to Download Your Instagram Data Export

Instagram's data export is managed through Meta's Accounts Centre, not the Instagram app settings. The process works on both mobile and desktop.

On Mobile

1. Open Instagram → tap your Profile (bottom right) → tap ☰ menu
2. Tap Settings and privacy → scroll down to find Accounts Centre
3. Tap Your information and permissions → Download your information
4. Tap Request a download
5. Select your Instagram account from the list
6. Choose Some of your information and select the categories you want, or choose All available information for the complete export
7. Set Date range to All time
8. Set Format to JSON - selecting HTML will produce files that cannot be automatically analyzed
9. Tap Create files

On Desktop

1. Visit accountscenter.instagram.com in your browser
2. Click Your information and permissions → Download your information → Request a download
3. Follow the same steps as mobile: select account, choose JSON format, set date range to All time, click Create files

Instagram sends an email to your account's linked address when the download is ready. The link is valid for 90 days.

What Is Inside Your Instagram Export

A complete Instagram JSON export is organized into folders covering every category of your account activity. Here is what each section contains:

• connections/followers_and_following - your complete current followers list and following list in separate JSON files. This is the data used to identify unfollowers.
• content/posts_1.json - every post you have published, with captions, timestamps, and media references
• content/stories.json - your story archive
• content/reels.json - your reel archive
• comments/post_comments_1.json - every comment you have left on other accounts' posts
• likes/liked_posts.json - your complete post like history
• saved/saved_posts.json - everything you have saved
• personal_information/account_searches.json - every username or term you have searched for in Instagram, with timestamps
• security_and_login_information/login_and_account_activity.json - every login to your account, including device type, IP address, and timestamp
• ads_information/instagram_ads_and_businesses - Meta's interest categories for your profile and the advertiser lists detailed below

The Advertiser Lists: What They Reveal

For most users, the most striking section of the Instagram export is the advertising data. Inside the ads_information folder you will find several files worth examining:

• advertisers_using_your_activity_or_information.json - the full list of businesses that have uploaded your contact information (email address, phone number, or device ID) to Meta to target you directly. Most users find between 500 and 3,000 companies on this list.
• ads_interests.json - the interest segments Meta has assigned to your advertising profile. These range from broad categories to surprisingly specific ones.
• subscription_for_no_ads.json - whether you are subscribed to Meta's ad-free tier (where available)

The advertiser list in particular surprises most users. It is common to find brands you have never interacted with on Instagram - companies that bought your contact data from data brokers and then uploaded it to Meta. Each entry shows the company name and whether they used your data for custom audience targeting, lookalike targeting, or both.

Using the Export to Find Instagram Unfollowers

The followers_and_following section is the most immediately actionable part of the export. Your followers file lists everyone currently following you; your following file lists everyone you follow. The difference - accounts you follow that do not appear in your followers file - are people who have either unfollowed you or never followed you back.

On accounts with hundreds of followers, comparing these lists manually is impractical. ScrollDecoded processes the entire comparison in under a second - just upload the ZIP file directly. The analysis is completely private and runs locally in your browser.