What Instagram Files Does Social Janitor Need?

The short answer

For follower relationship analysis, Social Janitor needs the parts of your Instagram export that contain your Followers and Following records in JSON format.

You only need the relationship data

Messages, media, comments and other unrelated export categories are not needed to build Mutual, Following only and Followers only lists.

Followers data

The Followers data contains the accounts that follow you in that export snapshot.

Social Janitor uses those records as one side of the relationship comparison.

If you are unsure where the file is located, read where to find Followers and Following in an Instagram data export.

Following data

The Following data contains the accounts you follow in that same export snapshot.

Comparing Following against Followers is what allows Social Janitor to identify one-way and mutual relationships.

For the comparison logic itself, read how to compare Instagram Followers and Following.

Why does Social Janitor need JSON?

Social Janitor is designed to read Instagram's structured JSON export format. JSON gives the application the account records in a machine-readable structure that can be compared reliably.

If your export uses another format, request a new export in JSON before importing it.

If you want to inspect the structure manually, read how to read an Instagram followers JSON file.

Which Instagram export files can you ignore?

Social Janitor does not need unrelated export categories for follower relationship analysis.

Messages
Photos and videos
Comments
Search history
Other account categories unrelated to Followers and Following

Import the minimum needed

Select the follower-related JSON files rather than trying to import the entire Instagram archive.

What if Instagram split the follower data into multiple files?

Larger exports may contain more than one file for a follower-related category. If the archive includes several parts that belong to the same Followers or Following dataset, keep those related parts together.

Importing only one part can make the result appear incomplete.

If that is happening, read Instagram data export not showing all followers?.

What should you do next?

Once you have the correct Followers and Following JSON files, you can import them into Social Janitor and review the relationship lists.

Ready to import the right files?

Open the free preview and select the follower-related JSON files from your Instagram export.

If the files still do not import, read why your Instagram export may not import.