See exactly who unfollowed you
Instagram never tells you when someone leaves. We keep a dated copy of a public account's follower and following lists, compare each new copy against the last one, and show you the names that disappeared.
Public accounts only. We never ask for your Instagram password.
An unfollow is a row that stops existing
There is no Instagram signal that says someone unfollowed you. The only way to know is to remember who was on the list yesterday. That is the whole mechanism, and it is the reason the answer arrives on a schedule rather than the second it happens.
How often we actually look
Every tool in this category calls itself real time. Here are the intervals our scheduler really uses, so you can decide whether they are good enough before you pay.
- Paid plansevery 60 min
The scheduler wakes every 30 minutes, but a single account is re-checked at most once an hour. Checking harder would put the Instagram sessions we rely on at risk.
- Trialevery 180 min
Same detection, longer gap between checks.
- Freeevery 360 min
Enough to watch a single account casually, not enough for same-day answers.
- Story checksevery 4 h
Paid plans only. Stories expire in 24 hours, so a four-hour sweep catches them while they are live.
- Unfollow confirmation2 cycles
A name that vanishes once may just be a partial response from Instagram. We wait for a second consecutive check before we call it an unfollow, which costs one extra interval and removes almost all false alarms.
How the tracking works
Four steps, all of them on our side. You add a public username and we do the rest on a schedule.
You add a public username
No login, no authorisation prompt, no browser extension. We check the account exists and is public, then start watching it.
We take a baseline snapshot
The first pass stores the current follower and following lists. Until that baseline exists there is nothing to compare against, so the account shows as pending and reports no changes yet.
Each cycle re-reads the lists
On the interval for your plan we fetch the lists again and diff them against the stored copy. Additions are reported immediately; removals go into a pending state.
A second check confirms removals
If the same name is still missing on the next cycle, the unfollow is confirmed and you are notified. If it reappears, it was a partial response and nothing is reported.
Three ways people try to answer this
Password apps, the official data export, and us. None of the three is perfect, and the differences are worth knowing before you pick one.
| StoriesFly | Password apps | Data export | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Works without your Instagram passwordHanding credentials to a third party is the single biggest risk in this category. | Works without your Instagram password — StoriesFly | Works without your Instagram password — Password apps | Works without your Instagram password — Data export |
| Detects unfollows automatically | Detects unfollows automatically — StoriesFly | Detects unfollows automatically — Password apps | Detects unfollows automatically — Data export |
| Keeps watching after you close the tab | Keeps watching after you close the tab — StoriesFly | Keeps watching after you close the tab — Password apps | Keeps watching after you close the tab — Data export |
| Works on accounts that are not yoursPublic accounts only. | Works on accounts that are not yours — StoriesFly | Works on accounts that are not yours — Password apps | Works on accounts that are not yours — Data export |
| Covers very large follower listsWe compare lists only up to your plan allowance — see the limits below. | Covers very large follower lists — StoriesFly | Covers very large follower lists — Password apps | Covers very large follower lists — Data export |
| Exports the full list to ExcelThe data export gives you a raw archive; turning it into a usable list is your problem. | Exports the full list to Excel — StoriesFly | Exports the full list to Excel — Password apps | Exports the full list to Excel — Data export |
| Free | Free — StoriesFly | Free — Password apps | Free — Data export |
Comparison of approaches, not of named products. The middle column describes apps that ask you to log in with your Instagram credentials; the right column is Instagram's own Download Your Data export.
What you get
Everything here is built on the same stored snapshots — no separate data source, no guesswork.
Unfollows, named
Not a count that went down by three. The actual accounts that were on the list at the last check and are not on it now.
New followers and new follows
The comparison runs in both directions, so additions show up alongside removals — including who the account started following.
Alerts in Telegram
Changes are pushed to you as they are confirmed, so you do not have to open a dashboard to find out something happened.
No password, ever
We read public data the way any visitor can. There is no field on this site that asks for your Instagram login, and there never will be.
Story activity
On paid plans we also check for new stories every four hours and archive them, so a story that expired is still there when you look.
The whole list, as a spreadsheet
Export the stored followers and following to an .xlsx workbook — one sheet each, username and profile link per row. Download it in the browser or have it sent to you in Telegram.
Take the raw lists with you
Most tools in this category show you a list and keep it. We hand it over: the snapshots we store are exported as a real Excel workbook, so you can sort, filter and diff them yourself — or keep a copy that outlives your subscription.
Export needs an active paid subscription — it is not available on the free tier or during a trial.
- Two sheets, one row per accountFollowing and Followers go into separate sheets, each row carrying the username and its instagram.com link. Opens in Excel, Numbers, LibreOffice and Google Sheets.
- Straight into TelegramAsk for it as a Telegram document and the file arrives in your chat instead of your downloads folder — useful on a phone, where opening a downloaded workbook is the awkward part.
- Monthly allowance, by planBasic covers 5,000 exported rows a month and Pro 50,000. A row is one username in one sheet, so exporting both lists for a 1,200-follower account spends about 1,200 rows.
What each plan covers
These numbers are one budget shared by every account on the plan, handed out oldest account first. Lists are compared name by name up to 2,400; above that a change is reported as a count, without the username.
Basic
$4.99 / month
1 account · 300 following · 1,500 followers
Pro
$19.99 / month
5 accounts · 1,500 following and 3,500 followers shared across them
Need more than a plan covers? Capacity can be extended in blocks of 500 entries instead of moving up a whole tier.
What this cannot do
These are structural limits, not bugs, and no tool in this category escapes them. Read them before you pay so nothing here surprises you later.
- 1.
It only works on public accounts. If a profile is private, its follower and following lists are not readable and there is nothing to snapshot.
- 2.
It is not instant. The answer arrives one to two check cycles after the event, so on a paid plan expect roughly one to two hours, and longer on free.
- 3.
Very large lists are skipped rather than guessed at. Each plan covers a fixed number of following and follower entries, and if an account exceeds that allowance we stop comparing lists and report additions only, because a partial read would invent unfollows that never happened.
- 4.
Nothing is retroactive. Tracking starts from the baseline snapshot, so unfollows that happened before you added the account cannot be recovered.
Understanding unfollow tracking
Why Instagram will not just tell you
Instagram treats unfollowing as a private act. The person leaving gets no confirmation prompt and the person left behind gets no notification, which is a deliberate product decision rather than an oversight — an app that announced every departure would make leaving socially expensive and people would follow fewer accounts. The follower count is the only public trace, and a count that drops by one tells you nothing about who. That gap is what every tool in this category exists to fill, and every one of them fills it the same way: by remembering the list.
Why the apps that ask for your password stopped working
For years the standard approach was an app that logged into your account and read your lists from the inside. Instagram progressively closed those paths, and the apps that remain either break constantly or keep credentials on a server you know nothing about. Reading public lists from the outside is slower and covers less, but it does not require your password, cannot get your account actioned for automated logins, and keeps working when the login-based approach breaks again. That trade — less speed and less coverage in exchange for not handing over credentials — is the whole design.
How to read the results without fooling yourself
A confirmed unfollow means the same account was missing on two checks in a row, having been on the list before that. It does not tell you why, and it cannot distinguish someone who left deliberately from someone whose account was deactivated, renamed or blocked. Treat the event as a fact about the list and not as a statement about the person. If you are tracking an account near your plan's list limit, also check whether it is running in additions-only mode, because in that state the absence of unfollow events means we stopped comparing, not that nobody left.
Common questions about finding unfollowers
The phrasing changes by country but the question is the same everywhere: someone left and Instagram will not say who. Here is what is actually possible.
Can you see who unfollowed you on Instagram?
Not from inside the app. Instagram shows a follower count and a follower list, but it keeps no history, so there is nothing to compare against. The only workable method is to store the list yourself and compare a later copy to it, which is what a tracker does on your behalf. Anything that claims to reveal past unfollows for an account it has never watched before is claiming something the data does not support.
Do these tools need my Instagram password?
Ours does not, and you should be extremely careful with any that does. A tool holding your credentials can post, message and follow as you, and Instagram can action the account for logging in from automation. We read only what a logged-out visitor can see on a public profile, which is why the tool works on accounts that are not yours and why it cannot see anything on a private one.
Why does it take an hour instead of being instant?
Because detection is a comparison, and a comparison needs two points in time. Checking a given account more than once an hour would multiply the number of requests we make to Instagram, and the accounts we use to read public data have limits of their own. An hour is the point where detection is fast enough to be useful and light enough to stay reliable, and the second confirmation cycle exists so a momentary partial response never turns into a false accusation.
Can I track an account that is not mine?
Yes, as long as it is public. The mechanism does not care whose account it is because it only reads what anyone can already open in a browser. Private accounts are out of reach entirely: their lists are not visible to a logged-out visitor, so there is nothing to store and nothing to compare.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I find out who unfollowed me on Instagram?
Add your public username to the tracker. We store a snapshot of your follower and following lists, then re-read them on a schedule and report the accounts that disappeared. The first result comes after the second check, because the baseline snapshot has nothing to be compared against.
Do I need to give you my Instagram password?
No. There is no login field for Instagram anywhere on this site. We read public profile data the same way an ordinary visitor does, which is also why the tracker works on public accounts other than your own.
How long until I see the first unfollow?
On a paid plan, roughly one to two hours: one cycle to spot the missing name and one more to confirm it. On the free tier the cycle is six hours, so the same confirmation takes up to twelve.
Does it work on private accounts?
No. A private account does not expose its follower or following list to visitors, so there is no list to snapshot and no comparison to make. This is a hard limit of the data, not a feature we could add.
Will the tracked account know?
Nothing is sent to the account being tracked. We do not follow it, request access, view its profile as you, or interact with it in any way — we read public data and compare it with what we stored earlier.
What happens if the account has more followers than my plan covers?
The account switches to additions-only mode. New followers and new follows are still reported, but list comparison stops, because reading only part of a large list would produce unfollow events for people who never left. You can extend capacity in blocks of 500 entries or move to a larger plan.
Can I see unfollows from before I signed up?
No. Tracking begins at the baseline snapshot taken when you add the account. Anything that happened before that moment was never recorded and cannot be reconstructed.
Can I download the follower list as a file?
Yes, as an .xlsx workbook with a Following sheet and a Followers sheet, each row holding a username and its profile link. You can download it in the browser or have it delivered as a Telegram document. It needs an active paid subscription, and the monthly row allowance is 5,000 on Basic and 50,000 on Pro.
Why did someone show as unfollowing and then come back?
That is the confirmation window doing its job. If a name is missing from one check but present again on the next, we treat the first reading as a partial response from Instagram and report nothing. Only names missing across two consecutive checks are reported as unfollows.
The numbers behind the tracker
Four figures that describe how the system behaves, taken from the scheduler rather than from marketing.
The minimum interval between two checks of the same account on a paid plan.
Consecutive checks a name must be missing from before we call it an unfollow.
Followers and following are snapshotted separately, so both directions are visible.
How often paid plans check for new stories before they expire.
Stop guessing who left
Add a public account, let the first two cycles run, and see the names instead of a number that went down.
Open the tracker