How To Use an IG Follower Export Tool: Know Your Crowd!

Profile photo of Karen Lin, author

Karen Lin

Instagram 101 | Nov 12, 2024

Want More Real Instagram Followers?

It’s easy to get caught up in whether your follower count on Instagram is growing. There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing that number get higher and higher. But it’s not always about the number more than it is the quality of your followers. So, who’s really following you? Are they real fans or fakes and spam accounts? That’s something you can check with an IG follower export tool.

Exporting your list of followers gives you a chance to go through the names of everyone who supports your page. It helps you dig deep into your followers. At the same time, the data you glean from it allows you to tweak and finetune your social media strategy.

Not sure exactly how a follower export tool works? Let’s take a deep dive into this essential social media tool!

Someone looking at audience data reports next to their Samsung smartphone on a wooden table.

Why Would You Need To See a User’s List of Followers?

There are plenty of reasons why viewing your follower list is useful as a creator. By visualizing in one spreadsheet who your followers are, you’ll learn more about them and the quality of your fanbase. Here are just some of the things you can glean by simply assessing an exported follower list:

  • Audience demographics: Looking through the profiles of your followers helps you check on your fanbase’s demographics, like their age, gender, and location. This tells you what kind of people you’re attracting online.
  • Fake or ghost accounts: According to Buffer, around 9.5% of Instagram “users” are fake accounts. If you’re diligent enough to assess the profile of each follower, you can check who are fake followers. Check for strange, incoherent usernames, blank profile pictures, and low follower and following counts to spot them. 
  • Active, engaged fans: Looking through all your fans allows you to familiarize yourself with valuable followers who engage with your content.
  • Unfollowers: If you regularly export your follower list, you can compare new and old lists to check for unfollowers. This helps you spot who unfollowed you (perhaps out of disinterest) and when (to see what might have triggered it).

With these valuable insights, you can make better, more informed decisions about your social media strategy moving forward. You’ll be able to purposefully tailor your content to your fans, allowing you to drive meaningful engagement on your content.

How To Export Instagram Followers With the IG Data Download Tool

The easiest way to export your followers is by using Instagram’s built-in feature that lets you download your personal data. Here’s how you can do it, step by step:

1. Open the Instagram app and go to your profile.

2. Tap the hamburger menu (the one with three horizontal lines) at the top-right corner of your profile. This takes you to your account settings.

3. Select the Meta Accounts Center at the top of the settings.

Path Social’s screenshot of Instagram’s settings page with a red box around the “Accounts Center” option.

4. Under “Account settings,” tap Your information and permissions.

Path Social’s screenshot of the Accounts Center pop-up menu highlighting “Your information and permissions.”

5. Choose Download your information.

Path Social’s screenshot of the information and permissions page highlighting the “Download your information” button.

6. On the next page, you’ll see all your current and scheduled data downloads. Tap Download or transfer information to make a new request.

Path Social’s screenshot of IG’s data download page with a red box around “Download or transfer information.”

7. If you have multiple accounts, choose the account whose follower list you want to export. Then, tap Next.

8. Select Some of your information.

Path Social’s screenshot of IG’s data download options highlighting the “Some of your information” option.

9. Under “Connections,” select Followers and following. Then, hit Next.

Path Social’s screenshot of the “Followers and following” box ticked on IG’s data download page.

10.  Choose whether you want to download the file to your device or transfer it to another destination, like Dropbox.

Path Social’s screenshot of Instagram’s destination options for data downloads.

11.  Tap Create files.

12.  Wait until Instagram notifies you that the exporting process is finished. From there, you can download an Excel or CSV file containing a list of all your followers.

How To Use an IG Follower Export Tool for More In-Depth Follower Data

Exporting your follower list straight from Instagram is perfect if you want to see your own followers. But what if you want to see another brand’s or creator’s list of followers? Instagram only allows users to download their own personal data. So, how do you see someone else’s followers?

That’s where a third-party IG following export tool comes in. These exporting apps and extensions allow you to extract anyone’s follower data on the platform. It’s terrific if you want to compare someone’s followers with yours or target a competitor’s fans for certain projects.

There are many third-party export tool options to choose from. Some come in the form of websites like the tool on LinkedRadar, or popular browser extensions like IGFollow and IGExport.

A handful of these insightful tools provide more than just the names of someone’s followers. They also list additional info like their profile URLs, follower count, verification status, and more. It’s perfect for getting a clear snapshot of how each profile presents itself on Instagram.

Here’s how using a third-party IG followers export tool typically works:

1. Open your chosen software, website, or browser extension.

2. Provide the username of the person whose follower list you want to export.

3. Tap the Export button or equivalent, depending on the tool you’re using.

4. Wait for the tool to parse the data and generate the CSV file or spreadsheet containing the follower list.

5. Download the file and look through that user’s entire follower list!

Is an IG Follower Export Tool Safe To Use?

We’ll be honest with you. Using an export follower tool for IG isn’t necessarily the safest thing in the world. There’s always the issue of exporting data from other people’s accounts and using third-party tools not affiliated with Instagram. Some consider these violations of Instagram’s terms of service, especially since the platform cracks down on privacy and data scraping.

That means using third-party export tools can get you in trouble with the platform. Maybe they’ll let you off the hook with a warning or a temporary shadowban. But if you abuse these unauthorized, third-party tools and use them too often, you could potentially find your account suspended. So, have as much restraint as possible when using these tools.

Analyzing Your Current Fans Is Fun, but Attracting New Ones Is More Important

It’s incredibly fascinating to go through your follower list and see every person who has shown your page some love. It’s a terrific way to unlock new insights about your audience and assess the quality of your overall fanbase. Then, from the data you glean, you can tweak your Instagram marketing strategies to tailor them for the fans!

But don’t get stuck analyzing your current followers with an IG follower export tool. It’s just as important to funnel your efforts into attracting new followers to your page. For that, Path Social is your guy.

Our team uses AI-driven algorithms to organically promote your content to your niche audience. We boost your discoverability on Instagram, introducing you to potential new followers. That means more fans, more likes, and more success online!

We’ve helped thousands of brands get famous fast. Just look at the Beauty of Baking, a page that garnered 19,000 new followers with our help. Level up your Instagram game and get more followers with Path Social!

Frequently Asked Questions

What does the IG follower export tool do?

Follower export services extract any account’s full list of followers. While there is a built-in feature on Instagram that lets you download this list, you can also use third-party tools. If you use the latter, you may see additional info on the list apart from the followers’ usernames. This includes links to their profile, display picture, date followed, and more.

Is there a way to export a list of Instagram followers?

Yup! You can either use Instagram’s data download feature or a third-party export tool to get a hold of this list. Both options will give you a comprehensive list of an Instagram profile’s followers compiled in a spreadsheet.

Do IG export tools notify the person whose followers you export?

No, they don’t. These tools aren’t directly linked to the profile whose followers you’re looking up. They simply operate in the background, so they have no way of sending notifications to those users. So, if you’re looking through someone’s follower list, don’t worry—you’re completely safe from being found out!