Instagram Followers.html vs JSON Export: What Changed

If you've searched for how to check your Instagram followers and following, you've probably run into instructions mentioning a file called followers.html. Those instructions aren't wrong, but they're describing an older default. Instagram changed its data export format around mid-2022, and understanding both formats helps you get unstuck fast if a tool or tutorial doesn't match what you actually downloaded.

Why the format changed

Instagram's "Download your information" tool originally produced HTML pages designed to be opened in a browser and clicked through like a mini web page. Around mid-2022, Instagram shifted the default output to JSON - a format built for programs to read, not people to browse - as part of broader changes to how Meta structures data-portability exports across its apps. The change wasn't announced loudly, which is why so many tutorials, forum posts, and YouTube walkthroughs still reference the old HTML file names.

What the JSON export looks like

A JSON followers or following file is an array of entries, each with a string_list_data array. The username lives at string_list_data[0].value for each entry, alongside a timestamp of when the follow relationship began. The following.json file wraps its array under a top-level key, relationships_following, rather than being a bare array like the followers file sometimes is - a small structural quirk that trips up hand-rolled parsing scripts if you're not expecting it.

What the HTML export looks like

The HTML file is a self-contained web page: open it in any browser and you'll see a scrollable list of profile links, one per account. Each account name is wrapped in an <a> tag pointing to that account's Instagram profile URL. It's human-readable out of the box - you can literally scroll through it - which is part of why it was popular with non-technical users and why so much existing tutorial content is built around it.

Which one to request today

Either format works fine for checking your followers and following. JSON is the current default when you request a download, and it's the more compact, more consistently structured of the two if you ever want to inspect or process the data yourself. If you specifically want the HTML format - say, because a particular tutorial you're following expects it, or you just want to browse the list directly in a browser tab - it's still available as a selectable option in Instagram's download flow.

Why the format doesn't matter for the comparison itself

The actual question you're trying to answer - who follows me, who do I follow, where do the two lists differ - doesn't depend on file format at all. It's a straightforward comparison of two username lists. The Instagram Follower Checker was built to auto-detect whichever format you upload, whether that's the current JSON structure or the legacy HTML page, so you don't have to figure out which one you have before getting your results - it can compare two HTML lists directly, side by side, exactly like it compares two JSON exports.

Troubleshooting a format mismatch

If a tool rejects your file or returns nothing, the most common cause is that it was built to expect only one of the two formats. Double-check what you actually requested (JSON vs HTML) and confirm the tool you're using explicitly supports both - otherwise the fix is usually just re-requesting the export in the other format.