How we check Instagram accounts

We read public Instagram data only: an account's profile, its follower and following counts, and its public lists of followers and following. A data provider that collects public profile data supplies it.

We never ask for your Instagram password. We never log in to your account, and we never follow, like, or message anyone.

Nobody gets a notification when you check: not you, not the people on your lists, and not the account you check.

A free check reads the profile and the first part of each list. It shows real accounts from the lists and how many accounts you follow that don't follow you back. It does not start tracking.

When Premium starts, we read the full followers and following lists and save them. That first read is the starting point for every later comparison.

From then on, we check the account every hour. Each check reads the profile. When a count changes, and at least once a day, we read the full lists again and compare them with the saved lists.

Instagram's public lists sometimes load incomplete, so one missing name is not proof. We count an unfollow only when the account is missing from two good reads at least 12 hours apart, or from one complete read where the drop in the follower count matches.

This is why an unfollow can appear a few hours after it happens. It also means far fewer false alarms.

When we confirm an unfollow, we email you the name. If more people leave within 3 hours, they come together in the next email.

You can turn these emails off on your Account page, or with the link in every email.

Private accounts hide their lists, so we can't check them.

No one can show unfollows from before tracking started. Instagram keeps no record of who left, so tracking starts on the day you start.

We don't support accounts that follow more than 5,000 accounts. For accounts with more than 10,000 followers, we track the following list only.

A deleted or deactivated account also disappears from your followers list. We can't tell it apart from an unfollow, so it shows as someone who left.

We store the public lists of the accounts you track, so we can compare them over time. We never store or ask for passwords. Our privacy policy has the details, and you can ask us to delete your data at any time.

UnfollowerTrack is an independent service. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by Instagram or Meta.