I built a Chrome extension for the Instagram follower lists that stop halfway

leo rock — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 10:14:23 +0000

Instagram will show a follower list, then stop. On a large account you might see a few thousand people and a spinner that never finishes. A lot of exporter extensions treat that as the end of the file.

I build IG Follower Export Tool, a Chrome extension for the way those lists behave now. Paste a profile, export followers or following to CSV or Excel, and when Instagram cuts the list off, keep going from the profiles you already have instead of saving a short file and calling it done.

What actually breaks

The normal export walks the follower or following connection list and writes each profile to a spreadsheet. That still works on smaller accounts.

On bigger ones, Instagram often returns only part of the list. The request does not always fail. It just stops producing new people. An exporter that only paginates will sit there, or it will export a few thousand rows and look finished. The missing people were never in the response.

The extension flags that cutoff. You can save the rows you already have. Smart Capture then starts from those visible profiles and collects further accounts from them, which is the path I added because waiting on the original list does not bring the rest back.

Detailed export is separate. It adds public profile fields when Instagram shows them: bio, follower counts, and a public email or phone if the profile lists one. It is slower, and it only includes what is already on the profile.

Use a secondary Instagram account. Large exports still hit rate limits and checkpoints. The extension can pause and continue. It does not remove those limits.

Try it before you pay

The free tier needs no subscription. Each export includes 100 profiles, or 5 profiles if you turn on detailed fields. That is enough to see the spreadsheet, the cutoff notice, and whether Smart Capture is worth it for the account you care about.

If that is all you need, stop there. You do not pay.

Pro is for unlimited exports: $9.99 a month or $79.99 a year, tied to a Google account so the plan follows you to another computer. I only want that upgrade after the free export has already been useful.

Install it from the Chrome Web Store: IG Follower Export Tool.

It runs locally in the browser you are already logged into. It is not a cloud database of leads, and it will not invent emails that a profile does not show.

I Built a Chrome Extension to Download Telegram Media More Easily

leo rock — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 03:11:38 +0000

Introduction
Telegram has become one of the most popular platforms for sharing files, videos, images, and other media.
However, when using Telegram Web, I found that saving media files was not always convenient.
For example:
downloading videos from channels
saving multiple images
managing large files
The process usually requires several manual steps.
So I decided to build a Chrome Extension to make Telegram media downloads easier.
The project is called TGVideoDown.
Website:
https://tgvideodown.com

Why build a Chrome Extension?
At first, I considered building a standalone desktop application.
But I realized that many Telegram users already use Telegram Web inside their browsers.
A browser extension provides a simpler workflow:
Open Telegram Web
↓
Find the media file
↓
Click download
↓
Save directly
Users don't need:
additional software
complicated setup
third-party upload services

Technical implementation
TGVideoDown is built with Chrome Extension APIs.
Main technologies include:
Content Script
Used to interact with Telegram Web pages.
Because Telegram Web is a dynamic application, the extension needs to handle:
dynamic DOM updates
asynchronous loading
user interactions
Chrome Downloads API
Used to manage browser downloads.
Example:
chrome.downloads.download({
url: fileUrl,
filename: fileName
})
Storage API
Used for storing user preferences and extension settings.

Features
Currently TGVideoDown supports:
Telegram video downloads
Telegram image downloads
Telegram audio downloads
Telegram GIF downloads
Telegram file downloads
Large file downloads
Batch media downloading

Challenges during development
Handling dynamic pages
Telegram Web uses a highly dynamic frontend.
Traditional HTML parsing is not enough.
The extension needs to monitor page changes and react when new media elements appear.
Download experience
Large media files require a smoother download process.
The goal was to make downloading as simple as possible:
Click → Download → Save

Current status
TGVideoDown is already available as a Chrome Extension.
The project has received:
real user installations
user feedback
search traffic from Google
I am continuing to improve the extension and make Telegram media management easier.

Future improvements
The next focus areas are:
improving download management
improving user interface
adding more usage tutorials
improving overall user experience

Conclusion
Building TGVideoDown was a practical experiment:
Telegram is already a powerful media-sharing platform, but downloading and managing those files can still be improved.
This project is my attempt to make that process easier through a simple Chrome Extension.
Website:
https://tgvideodown.com

DEV Community: leo rock

I built a Chrome extension for the Instagram follower lists that stop halfway

What actually breaks

Try it before you pay

I Built a Chrome Extension to Download Telegram Media More Easily