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Vaibhav thakur
Vaibhav thakur

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GitHub Follow-Back Checker: Find Who Hasn't Followed You Back

#github #api #opensource #javascript

Have you ever wondered how many people you follow on GitHub but haven’t followed you back? Well, you can manually check, but that’s time-consuming. Instead, let's automate it with GitHub API and JavaScript!

This guide will help you build a GitHub Follow-Back Checker using JavaScript, which will:
✅ Fetch your followers and following lists.

✅ Identify users who haven't followed you back.

✅ Display both follow-back and not-following-back users.

✅ Run in Node.js or directly in the browser console.

Let's get started! 🚀

🔑 Step 1: Generate a GitHub Personal Access Token (PAT)

Since GitHub API requires authentication, we need a Personal Access Token (PAT).

  1. Go to GitHub Token Settings.
  2. Click "Generate new token".
  3. Select the scope "read:user".
  4. Copy and save the token (it will only be shown once!).

📥 Step 2: Clone the Repository 

git clone https://github.com/vibhuthakur9911/github-followback-checker.git cd github-followback-checker
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📌 Step 3: JavaScript Code (GitHub API)

Create a file github-follow-check.js and add the following script:

const GITHUB_USERNAME = "your-username"; // 🔹 Replace with your GitHub username const GITHUB_TOKEN = "your-personal-access-token"; // 🔹 Replace with your GitHub token const API_URL = "https://api.github.com"; async function fetchGitHubData(endpoint) { let users = []; let page = 1; while (true) { const response = await fetch(`${API_URL}/users/${GITHUB_USERNAME}/${endpoint}?per_page=100&page=${page}`, { headers: { Authorization: `token ${GITHUB_TOKEN}` } }); if (!response.ok) { console.error(`Error fetching ${endpoint}:`, response.statusText); return []; } const data = await response.json(); if (data.length === 0) break; users = users.concat(data.map(user => user.login)); page++; } return users; } async function checkFollowBack() { const following = await fetchGitHubData("following"); const followers = await fetchGitHubData("followers"); const notFollowingBack = following.filter(user => !followers.includes(user)); const followingBack = following.filter(user => followers.includes(user)); console.log("\n✅ These users have followed you back:"); followingBack.forEach(user => console.log(`- ${user}`)); console.log("\n❌ These users haven't followed you back:"); if (notFollowingBack.length > 0) { notFollowingBack.forEach(user => console.log(`- ${user}`)); } else { console.log("🎉 Everyone you follow has followed you back!"); } } checkFollowBack();
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🚀 Step 4: Running the Script

✅ Option 1: Run in Node.js 

node github-follow-check.js
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✅ Option 2: Run in Browser Console

  1. Open GitHub and log in.
  2. Press F12 to open the Developer Console.
  3. Copy-paste the script above.
  4. Press Enter to execute.

🎯 Expected Output

If some users haven't followed you back:

✅ These users have followed you back: - user1 - user2 - user3 ❌ These users haven't followed you back: - user4 - user5 - user6
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If everyone has followed you back:

✅ These users have followed you back: - user1 - user2 - user3 - user4 🎉 Everyone you follow has followed you back!
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🔥 Conclusion

This GitHub Follow-Back Checker automates the tedious task of checking who hasn’t followed you back. It's a great example of using GitHub API, JavaScript, and Node.js together.

📌 Want more features? You can extend this script to:

  • Export data to CSV for easy tracking.
  • Send alerts via email/notification when someone unfollows you.
  • Build a web interface to visualize the data.

💡 Feel free to contribute to the project! Happy coding! 🚀

💬 Share Your Thoughts!

Did you find this tool helpful? Have suggestions for improvements? Drop a comment below or connect with me on GitHub! 😊

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