How to Download Instagram Analytics

Checking your Instagram numbers on your phone is easy, but getting that data off the platform for deeper analysis can be tricky if you don't know where to look. This tutorial will walk you through the practical, step-by-step methods to download your Instagram analytics. We'll cover everything from simple screenshots to proper bulk data exports so you can start turning those raw numbers into smarter content decisions.

Why Download Your Instagram Analytics?

While the in-app Instagram Insights are great for a quick look at how your latest post performed, they're not built for serious analysis. When you actually download your data, you unlock the ability to spot trends, build custom reports, and understand your performance in a much more meaningful way. It’s the difference between glancing at your car's speedometer and popping the hood to see how the engine really works.

Here’s what you can do with a proper data download:

Spot Trends Over Time: Is your engagement rate actually improving month-over-month? Are your followers growing faster this quarter than last quarter? You can’t answer these questions accurately without looking at your data over longer periods, which is much easier to do in a spreadsheet than by scrolling endlessly through the app.
Perform a Deep Content Analysis: By exporting data for hundreds of posts at once, you can sort and filter to find what truly resonates. Quickly identify which content formats (Reels, Carousels, single images), topics, or calls-to-action generate the most shares, comments, or reach. For example, you might discover that carousels with 7-8 slides get twice as many saves as your other content.
Prove Your ROI: If you're a marketer, freelancer, or agency, you need to show your work is paying off. Downloaded reports provide tangible proof of growth, reach, and engagement to clients or stakeholders. A professional-looking chart showing a steady increase in impressions carries a lot more weight than a quick screenshot from your phone.
Combine Data Sets: You can merge your Instagram data with information from other platforms like Google Analytics, your email marketing software, or Shopify. This helps you see the bigger picture - for instance, you can track how a spike in Instagram reach from a Reel corresponds with a surge in website traffic or product sales.

A Quick Look at Native Instagram Insights

Before an export, it’s worth knowing what’s available right in the app. This is data you can check on the fly without logging into any other platform. To access it, you need to have a Creator or Business account. If you're still on a Personal account, make the switch in your account settings - it's free and unlocks all the analytics features.

You can find this data in two main places:

Overall Account Insights: Go to your profile, tap the "hamburger" menu (three horizontal lines) in the top-right corner, and select "Insights." Here, you'll see account-level data like Accounts Reached, Accounts Engaged, and Total Followers for a set period.
Post-Specific Insights: On any individual post, story, or Reel, you can tap the "View Insights" button below your content to see metrics specific to that piece of content, like plays, likes, comments, shares, and saves.

This is great for a quick performance check, but since you can't filter, sort, or export it, your analytical capabilities are limited. That's why we need to turn to proper download methods.

Method 1: Meta Business Suite for Bulk Exporting (The Best Free Method)

Meta Business Suite is the most powerful - and official - way to download your Instagram data for free. It lets you export performance metrics for all your posts, stories, and Reels over custom date ranges as a CSV file, which you can then open in Excel or Google Sheets. To use it, your Instagram account must be a Business or Creator account connected to a Facebook Page.

Here’s the step-by-step process:

Step 1: Navigate to Meta Business Suite

Go to https://business.facebook.com/ in your web browser and log in. If you manage multiple assets, make sure you've selected the correct business account that contains the Instagram profile and Facebook page you want to analyze.

Step 2: Go to the "Insights" Tab

Look for the navigation menu on the left side of the screen. Click on the "Insights" tab, usually marked with a little bar chart icon. This is the central hub for all your Facebook and Instagram analytics.

Step 3: Select an Area to Analyze (Posts, Stories, Reels)

Within the Insights dashboard, you’ll see several sub-sections. To get raw data on your content, you'll want to focus on the "Content" area. You'll be able to see an overview and a list of your recently published posts for both Facebook and Instagram. You can then filter content by type. For instance, get detailed data just on posts and stories and get detailed reports.

Step 4: Set Your Date Range

This is one of the most useful features. In the top-right corner, you’ll see a date filter, often set to "Last 28 days" by default. Click on it and select a custom date range. You can choose from presets like "Last 90 days" or set a specific start and end date. This is perfect for quarterly or monthly reporting.

For example, if you want to create a Q3 performance report, you’d set the range from July 1st to September 30th.

Step 5: Export Your Data

Once you’ve set your date range and confirmed you're looking at the right content, look for the "Export data" button. After you click this button, you can choose to download data in one of two formats:

As a CSV file: This exports the raw data like reach, impressions, likes, comments, shares, etc., for each individual piece of content in your selected date range. This is the best option for deep analysis in a spreadsheet.
As an image from a chart or table: This option is useful if all you're looking for is data points that you can directly show on a graph in a presentation without much hassle and preparation.

Just by clicking on the three dots in the chart's upper right corner menu, you'll see options to either download that table's info into a CSV or alternatively download that specific view (the graph image) in case you want to send just that graph's view for a presentation slide.

The CSV is the most valuable export. It will contain columns of data that you can then manipulate, including:

Post ID
Post Message (your caption)
Post Type (photo, video, carousel)
Reach
Impressions
Engaged Users
Likes
Comments
Saves
Shares
And much more, depending on the content type.

Method 2: Use the Instagram "Download Your Information" Feature

Instagram has a built-in privacy feature that lets you download a complete archive of your account's information. While this is primarily designed for personal data archival (like your messages, photos, and comments you’ve made), it also includes some useful analytics files in a format called JSON.

Be warned: this method is not ideal for performance reporting. The data is hard to read and isn't structured for content analysis. However, it's worth knowing about if you need an archive of your follower history.

How to Request Your Data:

Open the Instagram app and go to your profile.
Tap the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines).
Go to "Your activity."
Scroll to the bottom and select "Download your information."
If requested, enter your password.
Instagram will compile your data and send you an email with a download link within a few hours to up to 14 days, as large files take time to prepare.

Inside the downloaded ZIP file, you'll find a folder named followers_and_following. In it, there are files with lists of your followers, accounts you follow, and pending requests. It’s not great for marketing analytics, but it can be useful for a one-time audit of your followers.

What to Do With Your Downloaded CSV Data

You’ve downloaded your CSV from the Meta Business Suite - now what? The real magic happens when you open that file in Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel. A raw data file can look intimidating, but here are a few simple steps to start gleaning insights.

Sort by Your Key Metric: Once you open the sheet, the first thing to do is sort your data. Do you care most about getting comments? Click the 'comments' column and sort from largest to smallest. Want to see which post had the widest reach? Sort by the 'reach' column. This immediately surfaces your top-performing pieces of content.
Calculate Your Engagement Rate: Instagram doesn't typically export an engagement rate metric directly, but you can easily calculate it yourself. A common formula is: (Likes + Comments + Saves) / Reach * 100. Create a new column in your spreadsheet, enter the formula, and drag it down for all your posts. Now you can find content with high engagement relative to its reach.
Categorize Your Content: Create a new column called "Content Pillar" or "Topic." Go through each post and manually tag it (e.g., "Product Tutorial," "Behind the Scenes," "Customer Story," "Meme"). Once you're done, you can create a pivot table or use simple filters to see which categories get the most engagement, saves, or shares. This is a powerful, direct path to creating more of what your audience loves.
Create Simple Visualizations: You don’t need to be a data viz expert. Select your 'Post Date' and 'Impressions' columns and create a simple line chart. This can quickly show you how your overall visibility is trending over time and help you spot when influential posts caused major spikes.

Final Thoughts

Moving beyond the in-app analytics to download your data is the first step toward building a truly data-driven Instagram strategy. By using the Meta Business Suite, you get access to granular, post-level performance data that allows you to identify what's working, what's not, and understand your content on a much deeper level.

And while wrestling with CSV files and creating your reports manually works, you will eventually find it becomes a weekly chore that eats up valuable time you could be using for strategy and creation. As your analytics needs grow, you’ll want a process that feels less manual. At https://www.graphed.com/register, we automate all of this for you. We connect to your social media accounts and other data sources, then let you use simple, natural language to get answers, build reports, and create real-time dashboards that always stay up-to-date. This gives you instant access to insights without ever having to download another CSV file.