What ByeBud is, in plain facts
ByeBud is a browser-based Instagram unfollower checker. It reads the two JSON files in Instagram's official data export and tells you which accounts you follow that don't follow you back. It never asks for an Instagram login or password.
What it does
What question does ByeBud answer?
Which accounts you follow do not follow you back — the non-mutual list from your own Instagram export.
How does it get the data?
You request the free 'Followers and following' JSON export from Instagram, then drop followers_1.json and following.json onto the tool. Instagram emails the export, usually within a few minutes.
What exactly does it calculate?
Followers is the count of unique usernames in your followers file. Following is the count of unique usernames in your following file. 'Don't follow back' is every username in Following that is absent from Followers. Matching is case-insensitive.
How long does it take?
The comparison itself takes a couple of seconds. Waiting for Instagram to prepare the export is the slow part — usually a few minutes.
Safety and privacy
Do I have to log in or give a password?
No. ByeBud never asks for an Instagram username, password, session cookie or OAuth token, and never contacts Instagram's API.
Where is my export processed?
Entirely inside your browser. The files are never uploaded to ByeBud's servers, never stored, and never logged. We cannot recover or delete them, because we never receive them.
Can this get my Instagram account blocked?
No. Nothing logs in, scrapes or automates any action on your account, so there is nothing for Instagram's anti-automation systems to detect. Unfollowing afterwards is something you do manually in the app.
What data does ByeBud keep?
Anonymous, aggregate usage analytics only, recorded first-party. No third-party advertising or tracking scripts. Full detail in the privacy policy.
What it costs
Is it free?
The first 5 accounts that don't follow you back are shown for free, with no sign-up and no email required.
What does the full list cost?
A one-time payment of $4.99 USD unlocks the complete list for that analysis. There is no subscription, no auto-renewal, and no trial that quietly converts to a charge. Payment is handled by Stripe; card details never reach ByeBud.
What it cannot do
Can it tell me when someone unfollowed me?
No. An export is a snapshot of the current state, not a log of events. ByeBud shows who is a one-way follow right now, not the date it changed.
Does it track changes over time?
No. ByeBud deliberately stores no scan history — that would mean keeping your follower data on a server, which is exactly what it avoids.
Can it check someone else's account?
No. The data has to come from that account's own Instagram export, so you can only analyse an account you control.
Can it unfollow people for me?
No. It gives you the list; the unfollowing is manual, in the Instagram app.
Why are my numbers lower than my profile shows?
Almost always because the export was requested with a limited date range. Choose 'All time' when requesting it and the counts will match.
Who it's for — and who it isn't
ByeBud suits anyone who wants an accurate, private, one-off check without handing credentials to a third party — including people whose accounts have been action-blocked by login-based follower apps before. It is a poor fit if you want continuous daily unfollow tracking with notifications: that requires storing your follower data, and ByeBud doesn't.
Machine-readable summary: llms.txt.