Instagram Follower Tracker - New Followers & Unfollows

Find out who followed and who unfollowed any public Instagram profile. Run it on a schedule and get one row for every new follower, every unfollow and every change to the following list. No login or cookies needed.

What you get

Every run compares the profile's current followers (and/or following) list with the snapshot saved by the previous run, and outputs one row per change:

• trackedUsername: the profile you are tracking
• list: followers or following
• change: new (started following, or was followed), lost (unfollowed, or was unfollowed) or baseline (first run)
• userId, username, fullName, isVerified, profilePicUrl: who changed
• detectedAt: when this run spotted the change
• previousSnapshotAt: the last snapshot that did not include the change (for lost, the last time the account was seen)

A SUMMARY record in the Key-value store gives the totals for each profile and list: total accounts, new, lost, and a status (baseline, compared, incomplete, unavailable, not_found).

Export to JSON, CSV, Excel or Google Sheets, or send the changes to Slack, email or a webhook with Apify integrations.

Use cases

• Unfollower tracking: see exactly who unfollowed your brand or creator account, and when
• Audience growth monitoring: get a daily list of new followers to welcome, qualify or add to a CRM
• Competitor analysis: watch who starts following a competitor, and who they start following
• Influencer vetting: spot follow-for-follow churn and sudden follower spikes
• Lead generation: turn new followers of niche accounts into a daily list of warm leads

How to use

1. Enter one or more Instagram usernames (with or without @).
2. Choose which lists to track: Followers, Following, or Both.
3. Run the actor once. This first run saves a baseline snapshot and outputs one summary row per list with its size. Turn on Output full list on first run if you also want every current follower as a row.
4. Set up a schedule (see below). Every later run outputs only what changed since the previous run.

Schedule it to track changes automatically

1. Save your input as a Task (Actor page → Save as a new task).
2. Open Schedules in Apify Console → Create new → pick a frequency (daily is a good default; weekly for large accounts).
3. Add your task to the schedule.
4. Optional: add an integration (Slack, email, Google Sheets, webhook) to the task so every new follower and unfollow gets sent to you.

Snapshots live in a named key-value store (default instagram-follower-tracker-snapshots) that is kept between runs. To keep separate histories, for example one per client, give each task its own Snapshot store name. To start over, delete that store or use a new name.

Input example

{
  "usernames": ["raycastapp", "@yourbrand"],
  "mode": "both",
  "maxFollowers": 10000,
  "emitBaselineList": false
}

Output example

{
  "trackedUsername": "raycastapp",
  "list": "followers",
  "change": "lost",
  "userId": "51767272098",
  "username": "pliiight",
  "fullName": "",
  "isVerified": false,
  "profilePicUrl": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/...",
  "count": null,
  "detectedAt": "2026-10-12T03:16:54.468Z",
  "previousSnapshotAt": "2026-10-12T03:09:47.845Z"
}

On the first run you get a baseline row instead, for example { "change": "baseline", "count": 1544, ... }.

How accurate is it?

Instagram does not always return exactly the same list twice. Each read can miss a few accounts that show up again in the next one. To avoid false alerts:

• Unfollows are confirmed over two runs. An account that is missing for the first time is held back. It is reported as lost only if it is still missing on the next run and a direct search of the list cannot find it. So an unfollow is reported one scheduled run after it happens.
• New followers are reported straight away. Instagram lists followers newest first, so an account that reappears deep in the list is treated as a glitch, not a new follow.

Limits

• Best for small and mid-size accounts. Every run reads the whole list, so cost and run time grow with follower count. Instagram returns about 25 accounts per request, so 1,500 followers take roughly 10 seconds to 2 minutes and 10,000 take roughly 1 to 15 minutes, depending on Instagram's response times.
• Verified accounts: Instagram only shows the ~50 most recent followers of verified (blue badge) accounts, to everyone. Follower tracking for verified accounts only covers those. The following list is not affected.
• Private accounts, and public accounts that hide their lists, cannot be tracked. They show up as unavailable in the summary and are not charged.
• When the list Instagram returns is much smaller than the follower count on the profile, the summary includes a warning note. This is usually because of hidden, restricted or deactivated accounts.
• Max accounts per list (default 10,000) is a safety cap. If a list is bigger, only the most recent accounts are read: new followers are still detected, but unfollow detection is turned off for that list. Set it to 0 for no cap.
• On the free plan, each run reads up to 500 accounts per list for up to 3 profiles.
• If a run gets close to its timeout, it stops and keeps the previous snapshot unchanged, so you never get false unfollows from a half-read list. Increase the run timeout for big lists.

Pricing

Pay per event:

• follower-scanned: per account read from a tracked list. This is what the run actually costs to do, whether or not anything changed.
• result: per change row in the dataset (new, lost, or a baseline row when the full list is output on the first run).

The baseline summary row and private or not-found profiles are not charged.

FAQ

Does it need my Instagram login? No. It only reads public data.

Can I see who unfollowed me on Instagram? Yes. Track your own username with Followers selected and schedule daily runs. Every unfollow shows up as a lost row.

Can I track several accounts at once? Yes. Add as many usernames as you like. Each profile and list keeps its own snapshot.