How to read your Instagram data download on your phone
Instagram lets you download a copy of everything it holds about you. Pick the JSON format and you get a zip full of folders and files that your phone doesn’t know how to show. Here’s how to get from that zip to something you can actually read.
Short answer
Download the zip from the link Instagram sends, open it in your file manager and tap Extract. Then open the .json file you care about (followers, following, likes or messages) in a JSON viewer, which shows it as a readable tree. If you only want to browse and don’t need the data itself, request the HTML format instead, which opens in any web browser.
Get Sonnet free Reads the files offline, nothing uploaded.
JSON or HTML: which should you request?
When you request your information, Instagram asks for a format. Both contain the same information.
- HTML opens in a web browser as ordinary pages. Choose it if you just want to look through your history.
- JSON is structured data. It’s harder to read raw, but it’s what you want for counting things, comparing follower lists, feeding the data into a spreadsheet or another tool, or searching precisely.
Already downloaded the wrong one? You can request it again in the other format.
1. Request the download
In the Instagram app, go to your profile → menu → Accounts Center → Your information and permissions → Download your information. Choose the account, what to include (all of it, or specific types like followers or messages), the date range, and the JSON format. Meta renames these screens from time to time, but “Download your information” inside Accounts Center has been the stable entry point.
The file isn’t instant. Instagram prepares it and notifies you when it’s ready. A full download with media can take a while and be large. If you only want followers or likes, selecting just those types is faster and gives you a much smaller file.
2. Unzip it on your phone
- Download the file from the notification or email link. It lands in Downloads as a
.zip. - Open Files by Google (or your phone’s file manager) and tap the zip.
- Tap Extract. You get a folder with subfolders inside.
3. Find the file you want
Folder and file names change between export versions, so look for these names or close variants:
| You want | Look for |
|---|---|
| Who follows you, who you follow | A followers_and_following folder with followers_1.json and following.json |
| Posts and comments you liked | A likes folder with liked_posts.json and liked_comments.json |
| Direct messages | A messages folder with inbox, one subfolder per conversation holding message_1.json |
| Your posts and stories | A content or media folder with JSON describing each item, next to the photos and videos |
| Searches, logins, ads interests | Folders such as recent_searches, security_and_login_information and ads_information |
4. Open it in a JSON viewer
Tap the .json file and choose Sonnet under Open with, or open Sonnet and tap Open file. Instead of one long line you get a tree. A followers file, for example, is a list of entries, each with the account’s name, a profile link and a timestamp:
{
"title": "",
"string_list_data": [
{
"href": "https://www.instagram.com/example_account",
"value": "example_account",
"timestamp": 1694563200
}
]
}
An illustrative entry. The exact shape varies by file and export version.
What the odd-looking data means
Timestamps are numbers
A value like 1694563200 is a Unix timestamp: seconds since 1 January 1970, in UTC. That one is 13 September 2023, 00:00 UTC. Search “unix timestamp converter” to turn any of them into a date. Some files use milliseconds instead, a 13-digit number. Divide it by 1,000 first.
Accented letters and emoji look garbled
Meta’s JSON exports are known to store non-English characters in a mangled way, so é can show up as é and emoji as strings of odd symbols. The data isn’t damaged. It was encoded twice. Any viewer shows it the same way, and tools that analyse these exports usually include a step to repair it. The HTML format doesn’t have this problem, which is one more reason to choose HTML if you only want to read.
Followers are split across files
Large accounts get followers_1.json, followers_2.json and so on. Open each one.
Be careful with “unfollower checker” websites
Many sites ask you to upload your Instagram data zip to show who unfollowed you. That zip can contain your direct messages, your login history and your search history. Before uploading it anywhere, request a download that contains only the followers and following data, or read those two files yourself. Comparing two lists of names is tedious, but it doesn’t hand your inbox to a stranger.
Read your data, keep it on your phone
Sonnet opens JSON files as a collapsible tree, entirely offline. Nothing you open is uploaded. No ads, no account. Free on Google Play, with an optional one-time Pro unlock for bigger files and search.
