Clean up Instagram followers

[Creator90]

Hello,

I restarted my IG account (https://www.instagram. com/freedom_fastlane/I) after almost 2 years. Unfortunately I have the feeling that I have a lot of fake and ghost followers.

How do I find them and how do I clean them up? I think inactive followers are not good for growth.

 

[Luke Spencer]

Yeah, cleaning up fake or inactive followers can really help your reach. I’ve done a few rounds myself — the best move is to remove them gradually instead of all at once, otherwise your engagement rate might drop temporarily. You can check your followers manually or use analytics tools that help spot low-engagement or inactive accounts. After cleaning, try posting more consistently for a few weeks — the algorithm usually picks up again once your audience is more active.

 

[ToyBox Marketing]

What you can do is get a third party app on the app store that allows you to detect ghost followers. I previously had used one for a page that I had when I wanted to improve the engagement ratio.

 

[Jesseluxs]

Manual cleanup: Delete dozens of obvious fake followers daily (those with no profile pictures, no posts, and following thousands of people). Avoid deleting too many at once: Instagram can easily flag this as "unusual activity," so we recommend deleting no more than 100 followers per day. Alternatively, use tools like SpamGuard or Follower Insight to automatically detect low-quality followers.

 

[TechEinstien]

Don't delete it at once. Wait and see which are active.

 

[thegrey912]

Is there a service or someone that does this?

 

[Nikolaos]

Hello,

I restarted my IG account (https://www.instagram. com/freedom_fastlane/I) after almost 2 years. Unfortunately I have the feeling that I have a lot of fake and ghost followers.

How do I find them and how do I clean them up? I think inactive followers are not good for growth.

You can use services like spamguard to detect the unwanted followers. Or you can do it and remove them manually but it will be more tedious.

 

[Creator90]

Thank you for all the input - love this forum!

 

[Rochaleth]

Fake followers hurt reach — remove them.
Check Insights to spot inactive ones, then manually remove or block low-activity, no-photo, spammy profiles.
After cleanup, re-engage real followers with polls or fresh content to boost growth.

 

[Creator90]

So, I am still unsure. As only 0.1% of my followers watch my reels (nstagram.com/freedom_fastlane/) and the rest of the views arenfrom discovery tab it seems that I almost have no real followers.

But I could also keep them. I am super unsure about this.