Instagram Export: Exactly What to Select (2026 Checklist)
By the Don’t Follow Back editorial team ·
The hardest part of checking your unfollowers safely isn’t the checking — it’s requesting the right file. Instagram’s export screen offers a dozen categories, preselects most of them, and doesn’t tell you which ones you actually need.
This is the exact checklist. Nothing extra.
The whole flow in one glance
- Instagram (or Threads) → Settings → Accounts Center
- Your information and permissions → Export your information
- Create export → pick your profile → Export to device
- Customize information → tick the boxes below
- Format: JSON · Date range: All time
- Create export, then wait for the email or notification
- Download the ZIP → upload it to Don’t Follow Back
The only decision is step 4, and it depends on which report you want.
Checklist 1 — Follower Report (fastest)
You want to see who doesn’t follow you back, save a Snapshot, and track unfollowers over time.
Tick:
- Connections → Followers and following ✓
That’s it. One box. Everything else can be unchecked, and the ZIP arrives fast because it’s tiny.
Checklist 2 — Advanced Insights (the full picture)
You want everything the Follower Report shows, plus your profile history, advertiser matches, targeting categories, searches, saved library, attention patterns, and export-health coverage.
Tick:
- Connections → Followers and following ✓
- Your Instagram activity ✓ — likes, comments, saved posts, stories viewed, and searches are what turn the report into a full activity picture
- Personal information ✓ — includes profile change history (your old bios live here)
- Security and login information ✓
- Ads information ✓ — advertiser matches and targeting categories
- Logged information ✓ — link history and other recorded activity
Leave these unchecked — always
- Photos, videos, and other media ✗ — media can turn a 5 MB export into a 340 MB one, and DFB never processes media bytes. It only slows down (or blocks) your upload.
- Messages ✗ — DFB does not read or analyze private message bodies. Leaving them out keeps the ZIP smaller and the report identical.
If your export already arrived with media in it, it may still work if it’s under the upload limit — but the next request will be much faster without it.
The two settings people miss
On the final screen before you submit:
- Format: JSON. HTML looks nicer but cannot be analyzed. If you accidentally picked HTML, you’ll need to request again.
- Date range: All time. A shorter range can silently drop the older records that make history and activity insights interesting.
For Threads accounts
Same flow through Accounts Center — just select your Threads profile at step 3 and keep it as its own export. One platform per ZIP. The Threads download guide covers the Threads-specific files.
How long does it take?
Small follower-only exports often arrive within minutes to a few hours. Fuller exports take longer, and Meta officially allows up to 30 days (in practice it’s rarely that). The export is ready when the email or in-app notification lands — download the ZIP and upload it as-is, without unzipping or rearranging anything.
After the upload
- The Follower Report shows who doesn’t follow back, fans, and mutuals — then lets you save a Snapshot so a future export reveals who unfollowed between the two dates.
- Advanced Insights organizes the fuller categories into readable sections and shows exactly which datasets your export contained. Curious what’s in there? Your export knows more than you think.
No login. No password. Just the file Instagram gave you.