How to See When You Followed Someone on Instagram

Find the date in your own Following record

Your Instagram export can contain a recorded date for each account in Following. You can read following.json or following.html yourself, or open the export in Following Analyzer and search for the username. The manual steps and local timestamp converter below do not require uploading an archive or installing an app.

Following is outgoing: accounts you follow. Followers is incoming: accounts following you. The same username can have different dates in those two lists. For this question, use Following rather than the follower's incoming date.

If the record has no usable timestamp, the date remains unknown. InstaScope does not estimate a missing value from list order, account age or other relationships.

To check the source yourself, find that username in following.json or following.html. A date on its Followers entry answers the incoming question instead. Do not substitute the ZIP creation time or a file modification date for a relationship date.

Read following.json or following.html yourself

Request your own information in Instagram's Accounts Center, selecting Followers and Following and All time when available. Download and extract the ZIP on your device. A common folder is connections/followers_and_following; if the layout differs, search the extracted files for following.json or following.html.

In JSON, a supported Following file contains a relationships_following list. Find the username and read the timestamp inside that entry's string_list_data. The invented record below contains 1620777600 seconds, which converts to May 12, 2021 at 00:00:00 UTC. It is a complete small JSON example accepted by InstaScope's parser.

For HTML, find the username and read its adjacent recorded date. Keep that displayed calendar date as written: an HTML date without a timezone should not be passed into a Unix timestamp converter. If you only have a followers file, you are looking at the opposite direction.

{
  "relationships_following": [
    {
      "title": "sample.fern",
      "string_list_data": [
        {
          "value": "sample.fern",
          "timestamp": 1620777600
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Convert an Instagram JSON timestamp to a date

Copy only the number from the timestamp field. The converter starts with the fictional record above and displays UTC, matching InstaScope's JSON date display. Your local calendar date can differ near midnight; neither timezone changes the underlying instant.

Search a large export with Following Analyzer

You request the files from Instagram, then inspect them locally in InstaScope. The analyzer needs both relationship lists even when your question concerns just one outgoing follow.

1. Request your Instagram information through Accounts Center. Include Followers and Following and choose All time when available. JSON is recommended; supported HTML relationship records also work.
2. Open Following Analyzer and choose the ZIP. For extracted files, select following.json or following.html together with every numbered followers part.
3. Select Following, then type the exact username into Search accounts. Read the date beneath the account; do not use its position in the list as a calendar date.
4. For a broader view, clear the search and sort the recorded dates, or open Relationship Timeline with the outgoing direction selected. Undated records remain undated.

• Get the right Instagram export

A fictional example: two directions, two dates

Suppose your synthetic Following record for sample.fern has a usable JSON date of May 12, 2021, while its Followers record has August 3, 2022. Following Analyzer displays May 12, 2021 for the outgoing relationship. The later incoming date answers when the source recorded sample.fern following you instead.

Interpret the recorded date carefully

A timestamp can identify the date attached to that current Following record. It does not prove that you followed the account without interruption from that day, because the export does not reconstruct every unfollow and refollow event.

The date is also not necessarily the first time you ever followed that person, and it is not the creation date of either Instagram account. Supported HTML exports can include a visible date without a timezone, while JSON may provide a precise timestamp; InstaScope preserves those limits instead of inventing precision.

JSON calendar dates are displayed in UTC. Supported HTML records preserve their recorded calendar date without an inferred timezone. If a username is absent from the loaded Following list, that establishes absence from these files, not that you never followed it. If it is present but says Date unavailable, the record has no usable supported date.

Find your oldest recorded current follows

Request Followers and Following with All time coverage, preferably in JSON, then select the ZIP in InstaScope. Sort the Following view oldest first or browse the Relationship Timeline by year and month. The earliest result is the oldest usable date among current relationships in that export.

Analysis happens locally in your browser and does not require your Instagram password. Any undated account stays visible in the relationship lists even though it cannot be placed on the dated timeline.

If the account or date is missing

Check that you exported the intended Instagram profile, requested All time and opened Following rather than Followers. Search the current handle and any older handle you already know from your own records. An export is not a complete log of every account you have ever followed.

If the entry exists but has no supported date, keep it unknown. File modification times and position in a sorted following list do not provide an exact calendar date. This method cannot reveal when two other people followed one another; it uses relationships recorded in your own export.

Sources

• Instagram Help Center: review and export your information
• InstaScope methodology: check relationship counts and snapshot changes