Can I see the most liked comments on an Instagram post in the app?

Not as a ranked list. Instagram orders comments with its own relevance ranking and lets you switch to most recent, but there is no 'most liked' sort. Likes affect the default order, so the first few comments are often popular ones, but the order also depends on who you follow, who replied and what the account pinned.

How do I find the single most liked comment on an Instagram post?

Download the comments, open the file in Excel or Google Sheets and sort the likes column from largest to smallest. Row one is the most liked comment. Check that it is not a reply (reply_to_id is empty) if you want the top-level winner only.

The first 100 comments of any public Instagram post are free, with no signup and no Instagram login. Posts with more comments need a one-time payment, never a subscription. On a post with thousands of comments, the free 100 are not guaranteed to include the most liked ones, so a full ranking needs the whole thread.

Will the account owner know I downloaded the comments?

No. The exporter reads the public comment thread without logging into any Instagram account. It does not like, follow, view a story or comment, so nothing appears in the owner's notifications or insights.

Is it legal to download comments and rank them by likes?

Reading and analysing publicly visible comments is generally fine for research, giveaways, moderation and marketing analysis. What you do with the data still has to follow privacy law where you are, such as GDPR in the EU, and Instagram's terms. Avoid republishing personal data or contacting commenters in bulk without a lawful basis.

Why is the pinned comment at the top if it has fewer likes?

Pinning overrides ranking. An account can pin up to three comments, and those stay at the top of the thread no matter how many likes they have. The export marks them with is_pinned = true so you can separate them.

Do replies count in the most liked ranking?

Only if you turn replies on. Replies come out as their own rows with a reply_to_id pointing at the parent comment. Sort with and without them: a witty reply under a viral comment can out-like most top-level comments.

Does the like count in the file match what I see in the app?

It matches at the moment of export. Likes keep moving, especially in the first 48 hours of a post, so the file is a snapshot. Export again later if you need the final numbers, for example when a 'most liked comment wins' giveaway closes.

Can I rank comments by likes across several posts?

Yes. Export each post, paste the files into one sheet and sort the combined likes column. Add a column with the post URL first so you know where each comment came from.

Does this work on reels, carousels and private accounts?

Reels, single-image posts and carousels on public accounts all work. Private accounts do not, because their comments are not publicly visible. Stories have no public comments to rank.

Instagram Most Liked Comments — Find the Top Comments on Any Post (Free CSV, Excel & JSON Download, 2026)

If you want the Instagram most liked comments on a post, the app will not hand them to you. There is no "sort by likes" option, no leaderboard and no export button. The quickest dependable route is to download every comment free as a CSV or Excel file, sort the likes column from largest to smallest, and read the top rows. This guide walks through that, explains why the order you see in the app is not a likes ranking, and covers the three traps that make people quote the wrong "top comment".

Why Instagram won't show you a "most liked" list

Open the comments on any busy post and you will see a sort control. Depending on your app version it shows a default ranked view (labelled "For you" on most accounts) and a "Most recent" option. Neither is "most liked". The default view is ranked by a model that weighs many signals, and likes are only one of them. Meta describes this kind of ranking in its ranking explanations on the Transparency Center: the order is personalised, so two people can open the same post and see different comments first.

That is fine for scrolling, but it breaks the moment you need a fact. A brand asking "which comment did our audience like most?", a creator running a "most liked comment wins" giveaway, or a journalist quoting "the top comment" all need a number they can defend, not the order one phone happened to show.

What "top comments" in the app actually means

When people say "top comments on Instagram" they usually mean the first few under a post. Those are shaped by four things:

Pins. The account can pin up to three comments. Pinned comments stay on top regardless of likes.
Your relationships. Comments from accounts you follow, or that the post owner replied to, get pushed up for you.
Engagement. Likes and replies push a comment up, but a comment with many replies can rank above one with more likes.
Moderation. Comments caught by filters are hidden from everyone except the commenter and the owner, so they never appear in any ranking. Our guide to who can see hidden Instagram comments covers that in detail.

So the first comment you see is "a popular comment, for you, right now". The most liked comment is a different and stricter question.

Ranking every comment by likes in five minutes

Copy the post link. Use the share menu on the post or reel. Any public /p/ or /reel/ URL works, and you can be logged out.
Paste it into the Instagram comment exporter. It counts the thread first, so you know whether you are ranking 80 comments or 8,000.
Download CSV or Excel. The columns are author, username, text, likes, replies, created_at, language, is_pinned, id, reply_to_id and avatar_url.
Sort by likes, largest to smallest. In Excel that is Data → Sort (Microsoft's sort guide covers multi-column sorts). In Google Sheets, select the data and use Data → Sort range, described in Google's sort and filter help page.
Filter out pins and replies if you want a clean top-level ranking (more on this below).

If you prefer code, the JSON download loads straight into pandas: df.sort_values("likes", ascending=False).head(20) gives you the top 20. The sort_values documentation covers tie-breaking if you want to rank equal likes by date.

Reading the ranked file: what the top of the list tells you

A sorted comment file is more useful than a single "winner". Look at the shape:

One runaway comment

If the top comment has ten times the likes of the second, something outside the thread drove it: a joke that got screenshotted, a reply from a famous account, or a comment that became the story. For brand posts this is often the line people remember more than the caption.

A flat top ten

If the top ten all have similar like counts, no single opinion dominates. That is typical of giveaway posts, where comments are entries ("@friend @friend2"), and of product launches where people ask similar questions. The text column tells you which, and a quick word count of the top 50 shows the themes.

Questions near the top

Highly liked questions ("does it come in black?", "when does it ship to Canada?") are audience demand signals. Each like is someone who wanted the same answer and did not type it. Brands that pull these regularly get a free FAQ list.

Early vs late comments

Sort by created_at next to likes. Comments posted in the first hour collect most of the likes because they are seen most. A late comment with high likes is genuinely strong; an early one may just be early.

Pinned, liked-by-author and reply traps

These three mistakes account for most "wrong top comment" claims we see:

Quoting the pinned comment as the most liked. It sits on top because the owner chose it. Filter is_pinned = TRUE out before ranking, then add it back as a separate note if it matters.
Mixing replies into the top-level ranking. With replies on, a reply under a viral comment can outrank almost everything. If your rule is "most liked comment", decide up front whether replies count, and filter on an empty reply_to_id if they don't.
Ranking a partial file. If you only downloaded the first 100 of a 6,000-comment post, you ranked 100 comments, not the post. On big threads the order the platform serves is not strictly by likes, so a highly liked comment can sit further down.

One more: likes move. A comment can double its likes between Monday and Friday. For anything with a deadline, such as a giveaway, export on the closing day and keep the file as your record.

Who actually needs a most-liked ranking

Giveaways judged by likes

"The comment with the most likes wins" is a popular format because it rewards entrants for sharing. It is also the format most likely to be disputed. A sorted export with timestamps is the evidence you can screenshot. If you pick winners randomly instead, the Instagram comment picker guide covers fair draws.

Creators planning the next post

The most liked comments on your own last ten posts tell you what your audience reacts to. Export each post, combine the files, add a post column and sort. Patterns jump out: the same joke format, the same request, the same complaint.

Brands and agencies

For a launch or a campaign, the top 20 comments by likes are a quick read of sentiment that is weighted by agreement, not just volume. Ten negative comments with no likes matter less than one with 2,000. Pair it with the Excel export walkthrough for pivot tables.

Researchers and journalists

"The top comment said..." needs a source. A timestamped export lets you cite the comment, its like count and when you captured it.

Most liked comments across a whole account

A single post answers "what did people like here?". A run of posts answers "what does this audience like?", which is usually the more useful question for a creator or a brand watching a competitor.

The workflow is the same, repeated. Export each post, paste the files one under another in a single sheet, and add a post_url column before you sort. Then sort the combined likes column. The top 30 rows across ten posts give you a cross-post leaderboard: which comments, on which posts, drew the most agreement.

Two adjustments make it fairer:

Normalise by post size. A comment with 500 likes on a post with 2,000 comments is a stronger signal than 500 likes on a post with 50,000. Add a column that divides likes by the post's comment count and sort on that as a second view.
Group by theme, not by wording. "Price?", "how much", and "cost??" are the same question. A quick manual tag column on the top 50 turns a list of comments into a list of audience needs.

If you want the posts themselves ranked first, the Instagram posts exporter lists an account's posts with likes and comment counts, so you can pick which threads are worth pulling.

When 100 rows is the whole answer and when it isn't

For a post with under 100 comments, the free download is the whole thread, and your ranking is complete. Most personal posts and many small business posts fall here.

For bigger posts it depends on the question. If you only want a feel for the conversation, the free 100 rows are a decent sample. If you need the actual most liked comment, a giveaway winner or a count you will publish, you need every comment. The exporter shows the real count before you pay, and larger threads are a one-time payment, never a subscription; details are on the pricing page.

Also expect the file to have fewer rows than the number under the post. That badge includes replies and moderation-hidden comments. Our post on why the real count beats the badge explains the gap.

What our export logs show about top comments

We run the exporter that produces these files, so this guide is written from what we see in real downloads, not from a description of the app. A few things we only know from operating it:

Searches for "most liked Instagram comments" and "top comments Instagram" have grown sharply this year, and the people who arrive with that question are mostly running like-based giveaways or reporting on viral posts.
The is_pinned column exists because users repeatedly reported the "wrong" top comment, and the cause was almost always a pin.
On large posts, the order comments come back in leans toward popular comments early, but it is not a strict likes ranking. That is why we tell people to sort the file rather than trust row order.

The columns, the 100-comment free tier and the one-time pricing described here are the live product values. For Instagram's own rules on comments, pins and moderation, the Instagram Help Center is the authority.

Download Instagram comments free and sort by likes →