🛰️ Instagram Video Details scraper — Apify Actor

🚀 Production-ready Apify Actor for reliably extracting metadata and media URLs from public Instagram video posts (posts & reels). Built for enterprise usage on Apify Platform , optional IG credentials, per-item sessionized handling, and human-friendly output formatting.

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🧭 Actor Overview

• 🧩 Name: Instagram Video Scraper
• 🧰 Version: 0.1
• ⚙️ Purpose: Scrape metadata and media resources from Instagram video URLs (both /p/ posts and /reel/ URLs) without requiring browser cookies by using instaloader and realistic request headers.
• ☁️ Platform: Designed to run as an Apify Actor (Node-style runtime wrapper using apify Python SDK).
• 🔐 Auth: Optional IG_USER / IG_PASS environment variables supported for authenticated access (helps with private/age-gated content where credentials are permitted).
• 🧭 Proxy: Full Apify proxy / custom proxy support. Actor will create per-item session proxy URLs to enable sticky IPs.

---

⚙️ What This Actor Does (Instagram Video Details scraper)

• 🛰️ Accepts one or more Instagram video URLs (post or reel).
• 📡 Uses instaloader to fetch the canonical post node (metadata + available media resources).
• 🧾 Parses and normalizes fields such as owner info, counts, description, hashtags, mentions, upload date, formats (image/video resources), and more.
• 🔍 Detects proxy type (best-effort) — residential, datacenter, or unknown — when a proxy URL is available.
• 💾 Pushes each scraped item to the actor dataset (one JSON per item) and writes the full result array to key-value store under OUTPUT.
• 🧪 Formats numeric counts to human-readable short forms (1.3k, 2m) and durations to mm:ss or hh:mm:ss strings.
• 🧵 Runs each item sequentially by default (safe, reduces rate limit pressure). Can be adapted for parallel runs by modifying the actor code.

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🛠️ Instagram Video Details scraper — Key Features

• 🔗 Universal URL support — accepts both /p/ (posts) and /reel/ paths; robust shortcode extraction.
• 🧷 Optional authentication — set IG_USER and IG_PASS via environment variables for logged-in requests.
• 🧭 Proxy-aware — integrates with Apify proxy or custom proxy configuration; creates sessionized proxy URLs per shortcode.
• 📦 Human-friendly output — humanized counts (k, m) and durations for easier downstream consumption.
• 🗄️ Dual output options — item-by-item dataset entries + a single key-value OUTPUT array JSON file for convenience.
• ⚠️ Graceful error handling — per-item error capture so one failure does not stop the whole run.
• 🔎 Caption parsing — extracts unique hashtags and mentions from captions.
• 🧾 Comprehensive formats list — includes all display_resources and video URLs found in Graph node, with deduplication.

---

🔬 How the Actor Works (Step-by-step flow)

1. 🟢 Start & Input Read — Actor starts and reads startUrls and optional proxyConfiguration from actor input.
2. 🧭 Normalize URLs — Supports list of { "url": "..." } objects or raw string list; normalizes to canonical URL list.
3. 🪝 Proxy Configuration — Creates Apify ProxyConfiguration object from input (or platform default) and attempts to acquire a sessionized proxy URL per shortcode.
4. 🔎 Shortcode Extraction — Extracts Instagram shortcode from each URL using robust path parsing.
5. 🧵 Per-item Proxy Detection — If proxy URL is obtained, attempts to detect whether it’s datacenter, residential, or unknown (best-effort via IP info lookup).
6. 🧪 Scrape with Instaloader — Calls a blocking instaloader routine in a background thread to fetch the post node and metadata. Uses IG_USER/IG_PASS if provided.
7. 🧾 Normalize & Format — Builds result object including formats array, extracts hashtags/mentions, formats counts and durations, and populates metadata fields.
8. 💾 Push & Store — Pushes each item to the actor dataset and, after finishing the run, writes the full array to key-value store under the key OUTPUT.
9. ⚠️ Error Handling — For any item-level exception, records "original_url": <url>, "error": <message> in results and continues processing remaining URLs.

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🧾Instagram Video Details scraper — Input Parameters

🔎 Field	🔤 Type	✅ Required	✍️ Description
🟢 startUrls	array	Yes	List of Instagram video URLs to scrape. Accepts ["https://..."] or [{"url":"https://..."}].
🟡 proxyConfiguration	object	No	Apify proxy / custom proxy configuration (editor: proxy). If omitted, actor will attempt to create a default proxy configuration (Apify Proxy if available). Example: {"useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]}.

📌 Note: startUrls is required. Provide the full Instagram URL (including /reel/ or /p/ path). The actor prefill examples include both a reel and a post.

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🗂️ Environment Variables

🔐 Name	🔤 Type	✍️ Purpose
🟣 IG_USER	string	Optional Instagram username for authenticated requests. Set if you need to access content behind login.
🟣 IG_PASS	string	Optional Instagram password. Use together with IG_USER.
🌐 HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, http_proxy, https_proxy	string	Internally set per-item when using proxies. You can also set them globally beforehand to force a proxy.

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• 🗂️ Dataset: Each item is pushed to the Apify dataset (one JSON object per post).
• 🧾 Key-Value Store: The entire results array is saved under the OUTPUT key in key-value store for easy download.

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🧪 Usage Examples

🖥️ Instagram Video Details scraper — Example: Minimal Input (via Apify Console)

{
    "startUrls": [
        {
            "url": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHCcTryOTlc/?igsh=NWp1YXg1azE4bm11"
        },
        {
            "url": "https://www.instagram.com/p/DPZNtRuDHy9/"
        }
    ]
}

---

🗃️Instagram Video Details scraper — Output Structure (single item example)

Example output 📦

[
  {
    "original_url": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHCcTryOTlc/",
    "id": "POLARIS_3585552751326214492",
    "ownerUsername": "ufc",
    "ownerId": "17841401450200356",
    "description": "Bringing the POWER! 😤\n\n@RomanDolidze looks to add another highlight in the #UFCVegas104 main event!",
    "likesCount": "56k",
    "commentsCount": "142",
    "upload_date": "2025-03-11T00:00:00",
    "thumbnail_url": "https://scontent-yyz1-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.75761-15/483045268_18506759965048341_2893971373339605725_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e15_tt6&_nc_cat=110&ig_cache_key=MzU4NTU1Mjc1MTMyNjIxNDQ5Mg%3D%3D.3-ccb7-5&ccb=7-5&_nc_sid=58cdad&efg=eyJ2ZW5jb2RlX3RhZyI6IkNMSVBTLnhwaWRzLjExMjMuc2RyLnZpZGVvX2RlZmF1bHRfY292ZXJfZnJhbWUuQzMifQ%3D%3D&_nc_ohc=X2SWRxwJI5oQ7kNvwGioysn&_nc_oc=AdqLo0Ja_fm0GQy9BiUuGsLIADz01f11Sb1e0xPjCMRpujHtCLucBqZV2ojGxMApizk&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-yyz1-1.cdninstagram.com&_nc_gid=JsdvpOIe2E9hgUe1AsyMkw&_nc_ss=7fa8c&oh=00_AQCQgzHraAMKvZroY_Xncu5vtO6jNs3aSVp0w4xL6boYXQ&oe=6A6DF838",
    "duration": "",
    "resolution": "720x1280",
    "type": "GraphVideo",
    "hashtags": [
      "UFCVegas104"
    ],
    "mentions": [
      "RomanDolidze"
    ],
    "video_url": "https://scontent-yyz1-1.cdninstagram.com/o1/v/t2/f2/m367/AQMWkcAvWn57eVuH9ob0-R7fei5pWFoIbN7LRd1J5qYC9yZ8CpHnt1t3JTst-LvVAkJROsrNcuc4v6A9ICFS7IrktdnVxAPOLWQhzzA.mp4?_nc_cat=110&_nc_sid=5e9851&_nc_ht=scontent-yyz1-1.cdninstagram.com&_nc_ohc=-CrN1HLpiz4Q7kNvwEFjB8v&efg=eyJ2ZW5jb2RlX3RhZyI6Inhwdl9wcm9ncmVzc2l2ZS5JTlNUQUdSQU0uQ0xJUFMuQzMuNzIwLmRhc2hfYmFzZWxpbmVfMV92MSIsInhwdl9hc3NldF9pZCI6NTEzODg2Nzg1MDg2OTQ4LCJhc3NldF9hZ2VfZGF5cyI6NTA1LCJ2aV91c2VjYXNlX2lkIjoxMDA5OSwiZHVyYXRpb25fcyI6MzIsInVybGdlbl9zb3VyY2UiOiJ3d3cifQ%3D%3D&ccb=17-1&vs=879b9d7fd19cdfc9&_nc_vs=HBksFQIYQGlnX2VwaGVtZXJhbC9FRTRCNTZBMTBBRDQ3NDA2NzhEMzQxNzFGQzYxQ0JBMV92aWRlb19kYXNoaW5pdC5tcDQVAALIARIAFQIYR2lnX3hwdl9yZWVsc19wZXJtYW5lbnRfc3JfcHJvZC8xMzYyODk4NjY4NDYzNzM5XzUzNDk4NTM3OTMyNDg1MDk2MDQubXA0FQICyAESACgAGAAbAogHdXNlX29pbAExEnByb2dyZXNzaXZlX3JlY2lwZQExFQAAJsiXvfSS2OkBFQIoAkMzLBdAQHul41P3zxgSZGFzaF9iYXNlbGluZV8xX3YxEQB1_gdl5p0BAA&_nc_gid=JsdvpOIe2E9hgUe1AsyMkw&_nc_ss=7fa8c&_nc_zt=28&oh=00_AQB4-KLWFJebPzCfR-y3eYMfycea4pz2b-uiEX9SvoivXQ&oe=6A6DE79F",
    "_scraped_at": "2026-07-28T03:58:48.218281Z",
    "_source_index": 1
  },
  {
    "original_url": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPZNtRuDHy9/",
    "id": "POLARIS_3736077651887815869",
    "ownerUsername": "4k_archives",
    "ownerId": "17841432921670514",
    "description": "DM to buy 4K upload settings and tricks!\n.\nFollow me @4k_archives \nFollow me @4k_archives \n.\n#avengersendgame #marvel #mcu",
    "likesCount": "30.3k",
    "commentsCount": "112",
    "upload_date": "2025-10-04T16:27:19",
    "thumbnail_url": "https://scontent-hel3-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.82787-15/559072173_18079466501097390_182720057780888428_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e15_tt6&_nc_cat=110&ig_cache_key=MzczNjA3NzY1MTg4NzgxNTg2OQ%3D%3D.3-ccb7-5&ccb=7-5&_nc_sid=58cdad&efg=eyJ2ZW5jb2RlX3RhZyI6IkNMSVBTLnhwaWRzLjEwODAuc2RyLnZpZGVvX2RlZmF1bHRfY292ZXJfZnJhbWUuQzMifQ%3D%3D&_nc_ohc=Npavn93-iNwQ7kNvwF-rigx&_nc_oc=Adqw8MkHdOB5GHHf1GXHystgb67qVRKuiJoWIt79jg3JfmG8suXFftDyKpWbSVYce0rSkyYcK2E8wDXVGxgSS5Rc&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-hel3-1.cdninstagram.com&_nc_gid=peuhQxTH62ZyMFy8cGfxVg&_nc_ss=7f689&oh=00_AQB1_BjN9IgUKLVifV-ku_HGboNRrfjWa-exLbFa0pRKGA&oe=6A6DE612",
    "duration": "",
    "resolution": "1080x1920",
    "type": "GraphVideo",
    "hashtags": [
      "avengersendgame",
      "marvel",
      "mcu"
    ],
    "mentions": [
      "4k_archives"
    ],
    "video_url": "https://scontent-hel3-1.cdninstagram.com/o1/v/t2/f2/m86/AQOmlupwcTKHwXrvixr1E66tEMvvYJmg0xC1QW0sj2Zw38LLI9XCfl8Kxo-8x9BZoTQ5Y0qX0v_QZK3AULQcJh0I0ag47E1q0z7HFLg.mp4?_nc_cat=108&_nc_sid=5e9851&_nc_ht=scontent-hel3-1.cdninstagram.com&_nc_ohc=hcfCKgbhvYYQ7kNvwGZyEEj&efg=eyJ2ZW5jb2RlX3RhZyI6Inhwdl9wcm9ncmVzc2l2ZS5JTlNUQUdSQU0uQ0xJUFMuQzMuNzIwLmRhc2hfYmFzZWxpbmVfMV92MSIsInhwdl9hc3NldF9pZCI6MTMzNDIxNDkyMTQ1MjM2NiwiYXNzZXRfYWdlX2RheXMiOjI5NiwidmlfdXNlY2FzZV9pZCI6MTAwOTksImR1cmF0aW9uX3MiOjM1LCJ1cmxnZW5fc291cmNlIjoid3d3In0%3D&ccb=17-1&vs=cf00deaf6e22e018&_nc_vs=HBksFQIYUmlnX3hwdl9yZWVsc19wZXJtYW5lbnRfc3JfcHJvZC82ODQzODNBMjJCRUVGNzAzQUJDNkVGRUMxODZDMTZCM192aWRlb19kYXNoaW5pdC5tcDQVAALIARIAFQIYR2lnX3hwdl9yZWVsc19wZXJtYW5lbnRfc3JfcHJvZC8xMTY5NDc0NzMxNzE2Njg0XzYwMjIxNjYwMDcwMTA0MjE2ODEubXA0FQICyAESACgAGAAbAogHdXNlX29pbAExEnByb2dyZXNzaXZlX3JlY2lwZQExFQAAJpztk-fD3d4EFQIoAkMzLBdAQZmZmZmZmhgSZGFzaF9iYXNlbGluZV8xX3YxEQB1_gdl5p0BAA&_nc_gid=peuhQxTH62ZyMFy8cGfxVg&_nc_ss=7f689&_nc_zt=28&oh=00_AQByw_NBC3ldAV1ZfnQnDhgUhnEre91AhK4ynwp209fJvQ&oe=6A6A1DED",
    "_scraped_at": "2026-07-28T03:58:50.675102Z",
    "_source_index": 1
  }
]

🧪 Example: CLI run with Apify CLI

$apify run --input input.json

input.json contains the same JSON shown above.

🧾 Example: Accessing results

• ▶️ After run completes, view dataset in Apify Console or download OUTPUT (key-value store).
• 📥 Use Apify API to programmatically download the OUTPUT file.

---

⚖️ Performance & Limits

• 🧯 Sequential processing: The current implementation processes URLs one-by-one to avoid triggering Instagram rate limits. This is safe for reliability but slower for large batches.
• ⚡ Parallelization: For higher throughput, you can modify the actor to run scrape_reel_with_optional_proxy concurrently, but you must add rate-limiting, proxy/session handling, and backoff logic.
• 🌐 Proxy impact: Using sessionized proxies (Apify Proxy with session_id=shortcode) helps avoid block detection but may require RESIDENTIAL proxies for some geolocation-limited content.
• ⏱️ Time per item: Typical runtime depends on network, proxy latency, and whether authentication is used — expect several seconds to tens of seconds per item.
• 🧮 Limits: Instagram imposes rate limits and content access restrictions. Frequent large-scale scraping may cause temporary IP bans or require authenticated sessions.

---

🚨 Error Handling & Edge Cases

• ❗ Invalid URL / Shortcode parse failure: Actor logs error and stores {"original_url": "...", "error": "Can't parse shortcode..."} for that item. Continues with remaining URLs.
• 🔒 Private/Restricted posts: If the post is private and you are not authenticated (or authentication fails), instaloader will throw — actor captures the error in item result. Consider providing IG_USER/IG_PASS if you have permission to access.
• 🧯 Rate-limiting / blocks: If Instagram throttles requests or block occurs, expect exceptions from instaloader. Use backoff, rotate proxies, or reduce concurrency.
• 🌍 Proxy detection failure: detect_proxy_type is best-effort and depends on external IP lookup; it may return "unknown" if detection fails or network is restricted. This value is informational only.
• 🧷 Missing fields: Some posts may lack certain fields (e.g., video_view_count or video_duration). The actor returns null/None for missing fields and still outputs available data.
• 🧰 Instaloader exceptions: Any instaloader exception is captured and returned as the error field for that item.

---

✅ Instagram Video Details scraper — Best Practices

• 🔁 Start with a small batch of URLs to validate proxy/auth behavior before scaling.
• 🧭 Proxy strategy: Try DATACENTER proxies first (faster & cheaper). If you hit blocks or geolocation restrictions, switch to RESIDENTIAL proxies. (Actor input prefill shows RESIDENTIAL as an example, but your usage may differ.)
• 🔒 Use credentials responsibly: If using IG_USER/IG_PASS, ensure you have the right to access accounts and store credentials securely via platform environment variables.
• 🧰 Respect rate limits & ToS: Implement polite crawling practices—throttling and backoff—and check Instagram Terms of Use and applicable laws.
• 🧩 Post-processing: Use the formats array to fetch actual media files with a downloader; verify CORS/redirect behavior when using direct media URLs.
• 🛡️ Monitoring: Track error rates and proxy type distribution to detect blocks or degraded performance.

---

🧾 Instagram Video Details scraper — Common Use Cases

• 📊 Social media analytics — aggregate metadata and formats for trend analysis.
• 🧾 Media archiving — obtain thumbnails and direct media URLs for backup or legal archiving when permitted.
• 🕵️ Brand monitoring — track brand mentions and hashtags across video posts.
• 🎯 Ad intelligence — collect creative assets and metadata for competitive analysis.
• 🧪 Testing & QA — validate presence and properties of media for content pipelines.

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🧯 Instagram Video Details scraper — Troubleshooting Checklist

• 🔍 "Can't parse shortcode" — Verify URL format (should contain /reel/ or /p/ or a post shortcode path).
• 🔑 Authentication errors — Ensure IG_USER/IG_PASS are set correctly in actor environment variables; check instaloader login behavior.
• 🌐 Proxy not working — Validate proxy config in input; test proxy URL separately; try different Apify proxy groups (DATACENTER vs RESIDENTIAL).
• 🧰 Missing media URLs — Some videos may be served via temporary CDN tokens; re-fetch or download immediately after scraping.
• 📈 High error rate — Reduce concurrency, rotate proxies, or use authenticated sessions.

---

🧾 Instagram Video Details scraper — Development Notes (for maintainers)

• 🛠️ The actor uses instaloader in a background thread (asyncio.to_thread) to keep the main loop async-friendly.
• 🧭 Proxy URLs are created via Actor.create_proxy_configuration() and requested per shortcode with proxy_cfg.new_url(session_id=shortcode). Sessionized proxies reduce cross-item IP churn.
• 📐 Numeric counts and durations are transformed by format_count and format_duration utilities for consumer-friendliness.
• 🧪 detect_proxy_type performs a lightweight ipinfo.io request through the proxy to guess if it’s a datacenter or residential provider. This is optional and best-effort.
• ⚙️ To scale throughput, consider a worker-pool pattern with controlled concurrency and per-worker proxy sessions plus central rate-limiting/backoff.

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🧾 Legal & Compliance Disclaimer

• ⚖️ This software is provided as-is. The author and publisher of this actor are not responsible for misuse. It is your responsibility to ensure compliance with:

  • 🔒 Instagram Terms of Service and platform policies
  • 🏛️ Local and international data protection laws (GDPR, CCPA, etc.)
  • 📜 Any contractual obligations or permissions related to the content you access

• 🧭 Use responsibly. If uncertain about legal exposure, consult legal counsel.

---

📞 Support & Contact

• ✉️ For questions, troubleshooting, or custom feature requests, contact: (mailto:alphascraper69@gmail.com)
• 🔗 For a Reels-specific actor refer to: https://console.apify.com/actors/oGR3xfeXTuIirhdlZ/input (example actor link provided in actor input documentation).

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🏁 Instagram Video Details scraper — Final Notes

• 🏷️ This actor is optimized for reliable metadata extraction and enterprise integration. Before large runs, test on a small sample set and tune proxy/authentication strategy.
• 🔄 The actor writes both per-item dataset entries and an aggregated OUTPUT JSON in key-value store to fit different automation workflows.

---

Thank you for using Instagram Video Scraper — built for stability, clarity, and enterprise readiness. 🚀

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