are there any 3rd party programs that IG authorizes for use?

Are there any 3rd party programs that IG authorizes at all (or is well-known publically to at least tolerate, like Twitter) for use? I'm asking because I have been using apps to read stats from my account (like growth, etc) and many of these apps allow for manual following, liking, unfollowing, etc. I know IG is cracking down on automation, but the phrasing of the warnings makes it sound like any 3rd party app is not allowed.

To give another example from another social media platform, Twitter doesn't officially partner with any 3rd party service like Hootsuite but so many people use programs like that on Twitter I think there's some quasi-toleration at least with them.

I'm just wondering what services or apps might IG most likely tolerate, if not approve of, for manual use -- not with automation, but with another app or program to help keep track of stats, people who aren't following back, etc. It is helpful to at least know who I am following who is relatively inactive (no posts in the last 6 months, for example, and not following me back) I might reasonably want to unfollow them after some point, right? That would seem to be an appropriate use for a 3rd party app, if that's allowed in any way by Instagram, as Twitter does, apparently.

Something like "Later" maybe?

https://fstoppers.com/news/later-officially-instagram-partner-better-integration-you-245362

Thanks, proxyguys. This service gives the following description for their different analytics offerings:

"With Later’s Basic Instagram Analytics, you can track the performance of your last 10 posts and discover what types of content get the most engagement. Later’s Pro Instagram Analytics gives you a more detailed overview of your account’s performance, including information about your follower growth, audience engagement data, and the number of visits and clicks to your Linkin.bio page."

Well, one thing I'd be most interested in is knowing who is the most DISengaged -- like an account with the most distantly dated last post and whether the account is following me back or not -- an account like that I'd be more likely to want to UNfollow. I want to do this as easy as possible so I would like to be able to do this in-app but that might violate IG's TOS, even if it was done by me manually. I really, really don't want to get some clumsy but pretty graphical output showing accounts in a list that I could write down or read and then manually unfollow them on a phone app or in another browser window, and I'm not even clear at this point that I'd run into Instagram's blocking / warning issues if I did that. It would be so much easier to do this in a standalone app, independent of IG, even if I had to do it manually.

It isn't clear that Later gives me anything that even in a report would give me this information, aside from being able to do an action in-app, except for automating or scheduling posting. The "Pro" analytics also start at the $20 (approx) monthly subscription level.

$20 may not seem like much but as a monthly fee when this kind of stat or ability to at least get a report (like a CSV file, preferably) so I can selectively act on certain accounts (the ones I'd want to unfollow, for example) is more than I'd want to pay. (I'd rather pay higher one-time fee up front for a program that I knew would be maintained, ideally, like Ninjagram.)

It's good though knowing that "Later" exists and it seems to have some official or approved connection to Instagram. Does anyone know of any others that have an official or approved connection to IG, whether or not they give the analytics I'm asking about?

I don't know why don't you use IG insights themselves.
No external app would give you better stats and it's free.
As per software, I use Flumeapp on my mac (there must be a similar for pc).
It handles as many accounts as you want, and you can access insights within it.
You can also schedule posts and access your DM's in a more suitable fashion on your desktop.
Pretty nice tool to use if you are promoting a service.
.

Lilith55 said:

I don't know why don't you use IG insights themselves.
No external app would give you better stats and it's free.
As per software, I use Flumeapp on my mac (there must be a similar for pc).
It handles as many accounts as you want, and you can access insights within it.
You can also schedule posts and access your DM's in a more suitable fashion on your desktop.
Pretty nice tool to use if you are promoting a service.
.

Click to expand...

Thanks Lilith55, I looked at the website for Flumeapp and it's not clear that the program would be able to tell me what accounts I'm following (or which are following me) appear to be the least active, like by the oldest age of the most recent post. I don't really know if this would violate Instagram's TOS or not in this respect:

https://help.instagram.com/478745558852511/
"You can't attempt to create accounts or access or collect information in unauthorized ways.
This includes creating accounts or collecting information in an automated way without our express permission."

This could be taken to mean almost anything that could read or access accounts other than one's own, or even one's own posts, if they wanted to get strict about it.

I know IG wants to crack down on programs that spam follows, likes, DMs, comments, etc. It seems though that almost any program that accesses accounts to do anything that requires a login could violate their TOS.

I mainly want to find out who I should UNfollow, and there don't seem to be any programs anymore that will give me information to infer that, not even bot-like programs. I don't need a program to promise to tell me what posts of mine are getting the most engagement, that seems to be a big selling point but it's the easiest thing for me to view manually on my account, I don't at all need a program to do that for me.

If I have to I can manually follow and like easily enough, though it's time consuming, it's nearly impossible though to scroll through my own followers/following list, access accounts manually to see if they're inactive, choose to unfollow or not, and then go back to the followers/following list WITHOUT losing my place and look at the next account. See what I mean? That's all but impossible to do manually.

If anyone has suggestions, leads, hints, for how I can most efficently do this I'd like to know.