How to Find and Unfollow Instagram Users Who Don’t Follow You Back

Some Instagram users go as far as deploying the follow-unfollow strategy that seems to be commonplace lately. They will follow you in an attempt to gain more followers and then covertly unfollow you after you’ve followed back. Finding and unfollowing such users may be an option you want to employ to help you clean up your account. Get valued followers genuinely interested in what you share or offer, whether a business or personal profile.

Here are some ways to find those deceiving users and unfollow them.

How to Manually Find Users Who Unfollow You On Instagram

Instagram has made it easy to unfollow anyone on your following list if they unfollow you. You can do so from your following list or the user’s profile.

Unfollowing Users From Your Followers List

This approach allows you to find and unfollow those who have unfollowed you once you follow them back. Here’s how to unfollow someone without leaving your profile.

1. Open your profile and navigate to your “Followers” list.
   
2. Scroll down the list to check if the user’s name in question appears.
   
3. If the user isn’t on the list, you can open your “Following” list and click on the “Unfollow” button next to their name. If you do that, you’ll no longer see their posts in your Feed.

By default, Instagram shows a list of accounts you frequently interact with and a separate list of people that rarely appear on your Feed. Therefore, concentrating on the latter can be an excellent strategy to determine whether someone has followed back.

Someone that shows up in the “least interacted with” category doesn’t mean they haven’t followed you. The user may be in that category simply because they haven’t been active on Instagram.

The problem with this approach is that you may have to memorize the user’s name you’re searching for before scrolling down the list.

Unfollowing Users From Their Profile

Suppose you don’t want to memorize names and keep going back and forth between your “Following” and “Followers” lists to single out those that haven’t followed you. Another method involves accessing their profiles since you can conveniently open them and find out if your name is on their “Following” list. Here’s how to do it.

1. Visit the follower’s “user profile” and open their “Following” list.
   
2. Scroll down and search for your name. Alternatively, tap on the “search bar” at the top and type your name to run a quick search.
   

If your name isn’t on the list, that user hasn’t followed you.

How to Use Third-Party Services to Find Users Who Don’t Follow Back

One of the most daunting tasks on Instagram is manually unfollowing people who don’t follow you back, especially if you’ve got thousands of followers. It can be time-consuming to click through the profiles of everyone you’re following in search of users who haven’t returned the favor. Luckily, numerous third-party tools can help you automate this process.

Let’s see how the most popular tools work.

#1: Combin

Some people like the “follow for following, then unfollow” dance. They might even populate their Feed with “follow for follow” posts to win you over, only to unfollow you after you’ve started following them. This situation can be both unpleasant and annoying, stunting your brand’s growth and your profile’s reputation.

With “Combin,” you can instantly detect accounts that haven’t followed you back and even unfollow them as a whole. You can try it free, then pay $15/month for personal use or $30/month for a business subscription.

Here’s how this works:

1. Download the Combin app and install it on your PC, Mac, or Linux.
   
2. After installation, launch the app and enter your “Instagram credentials” to sign in to your account.
   
3. Click on “Users” in the navigation menu on the left.
   
4. Click on “Following.” This action displays all the users you’re currently following.
   
5. Click on “Not Followers.” This action reveals a list of anyone that hasn’t followed you back.
   
6. To unfollow a user in the “Not Followers” list, click on the “circular box” next to their name and then select “Unfollow.”
   
7. To unfollow users in bulk, click the “Select All” button and choose “Unfollow.”
   

#2: Followers-Unfollowers App

Followers-Unfollowers is a free tool that helps you identify Instagram users who haven’t followed you in return. It comes with a clean and intuitive user interface that gives you a comprehensive overview of your account in seconds. You also get notifications when someone begins following or unfollowing you.

As soon as you install the app, you must log in with your Instagram credentials. After that, the app automatically generates user stats for your account. That includes a list of your followers, those that have unfollowed you, and users you haven’t followed back. You can unfollow one user at a time or mass unfollow many accounts at the touch of a button.

The app has garnered over 10 million downloads on Google Play, showing its widespread usage. These numbers also probably indicate the amount of trust the app receives in an otherwise overcrowded market.

It’s also important to note that Instagram’s terms of use are pretty stringent, and any action considered unauthentic can put your account at risk of closure or suspension. Using third-party apps to bulk-unfollow users is risky, so unfollowing users one at a time is recommended.

Instagram Follow/Unfollow FAQs

Is there a way to filter my Instagram followers?

Instead of the methods listed above, you can filter the list of people you’re following. However, you can’t filter your followers.

If you want to filter the list of people you’re following, head over to your profile, tap on “Following,” and tap on the “dual arrow icon” in the upper right-hand corner next to “Sorted by Default.”

Next, you can select one of the options to sort by “date.” Tap the option next to “Latest” or “Earliest.”

How do I unfollow hashtags?

Hashtags also appear in your “Following” list. Perhaps it’s time to clean up your “Following” list. Open your “Following” list and type “#” in the “search bar.” Here, you’ll see a few of the hashtags you’re following, and you can tap them. You can tap “Following” next to any hashtags you wish to unfollow, then tap “Unfollow.”