The first question we get about the browser extension is always the same one, and it deserves a direct answer up front: ExportComments never sees your account, your session, or the data you export with it. The extension runs entirely inside your own logged-in browser. Your Facebook, Instagram, Discord, and LinkedIn auth tokens stay where they already are. The exported file is built locally and saved to your machine. There's no upload step, no "sync," no telemetry on the content. We can't see what you exported even if we wanted to. With that out of the way, here's why the extension exists in the first place, how to install it, and how to use it on each of the platforms it supports.
What the extension lets you do
The extension is the only realistic path for exporting content that's gated behind authentication — the kind of stuff the platform Graph APIs walled off years ago and never opened back up. Specifically:
- Private Instagram posts — your own private account, accounts that accepted your follow request, Close Friends posts where you're on the list.
- Friends-only Facebook posts — posts from people who friended you back, with audience set to Friends or Friends except, or custom audiences you're on.
- Closed and secret Facebook Groups — comment threads on posts inside groups that admitted you, including groups that don't appear in search.
- Discord channels and DMs — message history from servers you're a member of and direct messages in your account, with the same scope your Discord client has.
- Private LinkedIn content — posts and comment threads from your feed, including content from your network that isn't reachable as a logged-out visitor.
- Public content too — anything the website-side exporters handle, the extension can also pull, with the convenience of clicking a toolbar icon instead of pasting a URL.
The principle across every platform is identical: if you can scroll to the content in your own logged-in browser, the extension can capture it. If you can't see it manually, the extension can't either. That's not a limitation we worked around — it's the whole reason this approach is safe for you and stable for us.
Why a browser extension (and not just an API)
Short version: the APIs for this content don't exist anymore.
Longer version: between 2014 and 2018, most of the major platforms ran open or semi-open developer APIs that gave third-party apps read access to a meaningful slice of private content with user permission. Facebook's Graph API exposed friend posts, group content, and a wide range of comment endpoints. Instagram had the original platform API. Even LinkedIn had richer content endpoints than it does today. The Cambridge Analytica fallout in early 2018 ended that era. Within months, Facebook and Instagram revoked most third-party access to anything that wasn't a public Page you owned. Discord has never offered an official API for personal-account message history. LinkedIn's content APIs were tightened to enterprise partners.
What's left, on every platform, is essentially: "sign in as yourself in a browser." The session your browser already holds is the only credential that can read the content you have personal access to. A browser extension is the natural shape for a tool that needs to ride along with that session. It runs in the page context, reads the data the page already loaded, and produces a file. Your auth token doesn't get copied, transmitted, or stored anywhere outside the browser — because the extension never needs to leave the browser to do its job.
That's the architecture. Anything else would either require us to handle your credentials (a non-starter for security) or wait for APIs that are not coming back.
How to install
Step 1: Open the Chrome Web Store listing
Go to the ExportComments listing on the Chrome Web Store. The extension works in Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, Opera, and any other Chromium-based browser. Firefox is on the roadmap; Safari is not — Apple's WebKit extension model doesn't support what the extension needs to do.
Step 2: Add to Chrome
Click "Add to Chrome," then confirm the permissions prompt. The extension requests access to facebook.com, instagram.com, discord.com, and linkedin.com — the four domains it actually reads. It does not request "all sites" access and it does not request access to your tabs in general. If you ever see a different permission scope on an extension claiming to be ours, it isn't ours.
Step 3: Pin the icon
Open the extensions menu in your browser toolbar (the puzzle piece icon in Chrome and Edge) and pin ExportComments. The extension is invoked by clicking its icon, so having it visible in the toolbar saves a step every time.
Step 4: Sign in to your ExportComments account (optional)
You can run the extension as a guest with the Free tier limits. To unlock the higher comment caps that come with a Personal, Premium, or Business plan, click the icon and sign in with your ExportComments account. Your plan tier travels with the account, not the browser, so the same login works on every machine you install the extension on.
Step 5: Log into the platform you want to export
Open the relevant platform — facebook.com, instagram.com, discord.com, or linkedin.com — in the same browser and sign in normally. The extension reads from the active session, so the account you sign in with on each platform determines what private content is reachable. Want to export a closed Facebook group? Sign in as the account that's a member. Close Friends Instagram post? Sign in as the account that's on the list.
How to use it on each platform
Navigate to the post — your feed, a profile, a Reel, a carousel — and let the comments tray render. Click the ExportComments icon, pick Excel, CSV, or JSON, and the extension scrolls the comments, expands every "View replies" thread, and saves the file to your downloads folder. One row per comment, with author handle, text, like flag, and timestamp. Works on private accounts you follow, your own account, and Close Friends content where you're on the list.
Open the post — in a closed group, on a friend's profile, on a private brand page you admin, or in your own activity log — and click into it so the comments tray is fully visible. Click the extension icon, pick a format, and the export covers author name, profile URL, comment text, the per-user reaction breakdown across all six reaction types, and timestamps. Closed groups and friends-only posts are the most common use case here.
Discord
Open Discord in the browser at discord.com (the desktop app uses Electron and runs in its own process — the extension reads the web client). Navigate to the channel or DM you want to export, scroll up to load the message history you need, then click the extension icon. The export includes message author, content, timestamp, attachments, and reactions. Scope is whatever your Discord account has access to: servers you're in, channels you can read, DMs in your inbox.
Open the LinkedIn post — your feed, a connection's profile, a company page, a Group post, or a comment thread on someone else's content — and click into it so the comments are loaded. Click the extension icon and pick a format. The export covers commenter name, headline, profile URL, comment text, reaction counts, and timestamp. Works for any post your LinkedIn account can see, including content from second- and third-degree connections that wouldn't be visible to a logged-out scraper.
Privacy + safety
Will I get banned? The extension reads the page the same way your browser already reads it. It doesn't impersonate a different client, doesn't hammer the platform with requests, and doesn't make hidden API calls. The traffic pattern looks like a slightly faster scroller. We've seen no enforcement actions tied to extension use across years of operation on any of the supported platforms. That said, the platforms change their rules — for high-value accounts, run during off-hours and avoid stacking back-to-back exports in the same session.
Does ExportComments see my data? No. The extension runs in your browser. Your session tokens for Facebook, Instagram, Discord, and LinkedIn never leave the browser process. The exported file is generated locally and saved to your machine — no upload, no "cloud sync," no copy on our servers. Account login (if you choose to sign in to ExportComments to unlock plan limits) is a separate, isolated channel that has nothing to do with the platform sessions.
What data is captured? Only the data the platform page has already loaded into your browser tab. The extension is a reader, not a collector. It can't see anything that isn't already on the rendered page — no shadow-banned comments, no hidden replies, no deleted content. If you scroll the thread manually and don't see something, the export won't see it either.
Can I inspect what the extension does? Yes. The extension package is JavaScript and you can unpack and read it from the Chrome Web Store before installing. There's no obfuscation step in the build.
Plan limits & API access
The extension is free to install and free to use within the Free tier limits. Comment caps per export scale with your plan: Free returns up to 100 comments per export, Personal scales to 5,000, Premium to 50,000, and Business to 250,000 — enough to archive even the busiest closed-group threads or long-running Discord channels in a single run. The website-side exporters also support bulk URL upload (one file per URL bundled in a single ZIP) for any public content you want to process alongside private exports. The REST API with webhook delivery handles public content programmatically; private content stays extension-only by design, because there is no API path for it on any of the supported platforms. See the pricing page for the full grid.
FAQ
- Does it work in Firefox or Safari?
Firefox is on the roadmap. Safari is not — WebKit's extension model on macOS doesn't support reading and exporting page content the way Chromium does. - Will it work on the Discord desktop app?
No. The desktop app runs in its own Electron shell, separate from your browser. Open Discord in the browser at discord.com to use the extension. - Do I need to be signed in to ExportComments to use the extension?
No, you can run it as a guest within Free tier limits (up to 100 comments per export). Sign in to apply your Personal, Premium, or Business comment caps. - Can the extension join groups, follow accounts, or accept friend requests for me?
No. It only reads content your current logged-in session already sees. If you haven't joined the group or your follow request hasn't been accepted, the content is invisible to your browser and to the extension. - What happens if a platform changes its layout?
The extension auto-updates through the Chrome Web Store. When platforms ship layout changes that affect parsing, we push a fix as fast as we can — usually within hours for the major platforms. - Why isn't there a Graph API alternative for this content?
The Cambridge Analytica fallout in 2018 ended most third-party Graph API access to private content on Facebook and Instagram. Discord has never offered a personal-account message API. LinkedIn restricts content APIs to enterprise partners. The extension is the realistic path because the API path was closed and there's no signal it's reopening.