Instagram API - How can I retrieve the list of people a user is following on Instagram

Shiva's answer doesn't apply anymore. The API call "/users/{user-id}/follows" is not supported by Instagram for some time (it was disabled in 2016).

For a while you were able to get only your own followers/followings with "/users/self/follows" endpoint, but Instagram disabled that feature in April 2018 (with the Cambridge Analytica issue). You can read about it here.

As far as I know (at this moment) there isn't a service available (official or unofficial) where you can get the followers/followings of a user (even your own).

You can use the following Instagram API Endpoint to get a list of people a user is following.

https://api.instagram.com/v1/users/{user-id}/follows?access_token=ACCESS-TOKEN

Here's the complete documentation for that endpoint. GET /users/user-id/follows

And here's a sample response from executing that endpoint.

Since this endpoint required a user-id (and not user-name), depending on how you've written your API client, you might have to make a call to the /users/search endpoint with a username, and then get the user-id from the response and pass it on to the above /users/user-id/follows endpoint to get the list of followers.

IANAL, but considering it's documented in their API, and looking at the terms of use, I don't see how this wouldn't be legal to do.

Here's a way to get the list of people a user is following with just a browser and some copy-paste (A pure javascript solution based on Deep Seeker's answer):

1. Get the user's id (In a browser, navigate to https://www.instagram.com/user_name/?__a=1 and look for response -> graphql -> user -> id [from Deep Seeker's answer])

2. Open another browser window

3. Open the browser console and paste this in it

   options = {
       userId: your_user_id,
       list: 1 //1 for following, 2 for followers
   }

4. change to your user id and hit enter

5. paste this in the console and hit enter

   `https://www.instagram.com/graphql/query/?query_hash=c76146de99bb02f6415203be841dd25a&variables=` + encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify({
           "id": options.userId,
           "include_reel": true,
           "fetch_mutual": true,
           "first": 50
       }))

6. Navigate to the outputted link

(This sets up the headers for the http request. If you try to run the script on a page where this isn't open, it won't work.)

7. In the console for the page you just opened, paste this and hit enter

   let config = {
     followers: {
       hash: 'c76146de99bb02f6415203be841dd25a',
       path: 'edge_followed_by'
     },
     following: {
       hash: 'd04b0a864b4b54837c0d870b0e77e076',
       path: 'edge_follow'
     }
   };
   
   var allUsers = [];
   
   function getUsernames(data) {
       var userBatch = data.map(element => element.node.username);
       allUsers.push(...userBatch);
   }
   
   async function makeNextRequest(nextCurser, listConfig) {
       var params = {
           "id": options.userId,
           "include_reel": true,
           "fetch_mutual": true,
           "first": 50
       };
       if (nextCurser) {
           params.after = nextCurser;
       }
       var requestUrl = `https://www.instagram.com/graphql/query/?query_hash=` + listConfig.hash + `&variables=` + encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify(params));
   
       var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
       xhr.onload = function(e) {
           var res = JSON.parse(xhr.response);
   
           var userData = res.data.user[listConfig.path].edges;
           getUsernames(userData);
   
           var curser = "";
           try {
               curser = res.data.user[listConfig.path].page_info.end_cursor;
           } catch {
   
           }
           var users = [];
           if (curser) {
               makeNextRequest(curser, listConfig);
           } else {
               var printString =""
               allUsers.forEach(item => printString = printString + item + "\n");
               console.log(printString);
           }
       }
   
       xhr.open("GET", requestUrl);
       xhr.send();
   }
   
   if (options.list === 1) {
   
       console.log('following');
       makeNextRequest("", config.following);
   } else if (options.list === 2) {
   
       console.log('followers');
       makeNextRequest("", config.followers);
   }

After a few seconds it should output the list of users your user is following.