Export Instagram Comments to Excel or CSV (Free)

If you want the comments from an Instagram post sitting in rows and columns instead of a scroll you have to read by eye, the fastest free route is InstaPicker's comment export. Paste the post link, load the comments, and download a CSV you can open in Excel or Google Sheets. No Instagram password, no browser extension, no manual copy-pasting.

Here's exactly how to do it, what you get in the file, how to fix the formatting issues that trip people up in Excel, and what this data is actually good for once you have it.

The Quick Answer: Export Instagram Comments in 3 Steps

1. Copy the link to the Instagram post or Reel (tap the three dots or the share icon, then "Copy link").
2. Paste it into InstaPicker and load the comments.
3. Click Export Comments to download a CSV file of every comment loaded.

That's the whole process. No sign-up is required to try it, and it works on any public post, whether it's yours or not.

What You Get in the Export: Columns Explained

The CSV isn't just a wall of comment text. Each row is one comment, and the file breaks it into columns so you can sort, filter, and search it like any spreadsheet:

• Username — the commenter's @handle
• Comment text — the full comment, including any emojis or hashtags
• Timestamp — when the comment was posted
• Is reply — whether the comment is a top-level comment or a reply to another comment
• Likes — how many likes the comment itself received, where available

If you run a draw first and then export, you also get a separate winners file listing whoever was picked, which doubles as a record if anyone later asks how the result was chosen.

One distinction worth knowing: this export is for comments on a single post. If what you actually want is a list of someone's posts — links, captions, and dates, not comments — that's a different tool: InstaPicker's posts exporter handles that job instead.

Step-by-Step: Exporting Comments With InstaPicker

1. Get the post link. On your phone, open the post or Reel, tap the three dots (…) or the paper-plane share icon, and choose "Copy link." On desktop, open the post and copy the URL from your browser's address bar. It will look like instagram.com/p/… for a post or instagram.com/reel/… for a Reel.

2. Paste the link into the tool. Head to InstaPicker's comment picker and paste the link into the Instagram Post URL field.

3. Load the comments. Press Scrape Comments & Pick Winners. InstaPicker pulls in every public comment on the post and shows you the total count.

4. Export. Press Export Comments to download the full list as a CSV file. If you're running a giveaway and already drew a winner, press Export Winners instead (or in addition) to get a separate file of just the selected entries.

5. Open the file. Double-click the downloaded CSV, or import it into Google Sheets or Excel directly (more on avoiding formatting glitches below).

You get 3 free trial runs on signup, shared across InstaPicker's tools. Beyond that, the Creator plan ($5/month) or Growth plan ($50/year) removes the limits.

Opening the CSV in Excel and Google Sheets Without the Mess

This is where most people hit a snag, and it has nothing to do with the export itself — it's how Excel reads text encoding by default.

In Excel: Don't just double-click the CSV if your comments have emojis, accented letters, or non-English text. Instead, open a blank workbook, go to Data → From Text/CSV, select the file, and when prompted, set the File Origin to Unicode (UTF-8). This keeps emojis and special characters intact instead of turning them into question marks or boxes.

In Google Sheets: Open Sheets, go to File → Import → Upload, and choose the CSV. Google Sheets handles UTF-8 encoding automatically, so this route is usually the path of least resistance if Excel's encoding step feels fiddly.

Column width and wrapping: Comment text can run long. Select the comment column, then use Format → Wrap text (Sheets) or the wrap text button (Excel) so long comments don't get visually cut off.

Using Exported Comments Beyond Giveaways

Picking a winner is the most common reason people export comments here, but it's not the only one. Once the comments are in a spreadsheet, you can:

• Mine them for feedback. Sort by keyword to pull out every comment mentioning a specific product, complaint, or feature request.
• Spot content ideas. Questions people ask in the comments are often the exact content your next post or FAQ should cover.
• Track engagement over time. Export comments on a series of posts and compare comment counts and sentiment side by side.
• Keep a giveaway audit trail. For sponsored or brand-partner giveaways, the exported comment list plus the winners file is your proof that the draw ran on a real, complete entry pool.

If your actual goal is picking a winner rather than analyzing the data, you don't need to export anything first — the comment picker draws directly from the loaded comments and the export becomes a record you keep afterward, not a required step.

Limits: What Won't Show Up in Your Export

A few things to know before you rely on an export for something important:

• Private accounts are off-limits. No tool, including this one, can read comments on a private account it isn't logged into. The post has to be public.
• Deleted comments are gone. If a comment was deleted before you exported, it was never there to begin with — this is a limit of Instagram's own data, not the export tool.
• Hidden comments may not appear. Instagram lets post owners hide comments from public view (without deleting them) to filter spam or offensive replies. Hidden comments typically won't load for an outside tool either, since they're not publicly visible.
• The count may not match Instagram's own number. Instagram's displayed comment count can include comments that were later restricted, and Reels replies sometimes load inconsistently. Treat the exported count as the actual list of what's currently publicly visible, not necessarily identical to the number shown on the post.