Instagram video Downloader & Scraper

📱 Instagram video Downloader & Scraper – Overview

Instagram video Downloader & Scraper is an Apify Actor built to extract video information and a downloadable video URL from publicly accessible Instagram video posts and Reels. It accepts one or more Instagram video URLs, retrieves the available public post data, and returns structured results in an Apify Dataset.

The Actor is designed for users who need more than a simple video link. Along with the video URL, it can return the post caption, hashtags, likes, comments, video views, posting date, username, profile information, thumbnail, verification status, post identifiers, and other structured metadata.

It is useful for content research, media collection, social media monitoring, dataset creation, Instagram video analysis, and workflows that require a direct video resource together with its related post information.

🔹 Key Features

• Extract Instagram video and Reel information from supplied URLs
• Return a downloadable video URL when available
• Retrieve high-resolution video URL information from the public video data
• Extract captions and hashtags
• Collect likes, comments, and video view counts
• Capture post date and Instagram identifiers
• Return thumbnail and profile image URLs
• Include Instagram username, profile URL, and verification status
• Process multiple Instagram video URLs in a single run
• Save results as structured records in an Apify Dataset
• Designed to work without requiring user cookies or login credentials

The Actor is especially suitable when your goal is to combine Instagram video downloading information with useful metadata rather than collecting only a media URL.

🔍 Instagram video Downloader & Scraper – Key Features

The Actor focuses on a practical Instagram video scraping workflow: provide the Instagram URLs you want to process, run the Actor, and receive structured records containing the extracted video and post information.

🎬 Video URL Extraction

For a supported Instagram video post or Reel, the Actor extracts the available video URL and exposes it through the video_downloadable_url field.

The same URL is also included inside post_content when a video URL is successfully found. This makes the dataset easier to use in downstream automation or media-processing workflows.

📝 Instagram Post Metadata

The Actor does more than retrieve video media. It extracts useful post-level information, including:

• Instagram username
• Caption or description
• Hashtags
• Number of comments
• Number of likes
• Video view count
• Posting date
• Post shortcode
• Instagram post identifiers
• Thumbnail URL
• Profile image URL
• Profile URL
• Verification status

👤 Profile Context

Each successful record can connect the Instagram video with the account that posted it. The output includes the detected username, profile URL, profile image link, verification state, and user identifier when those values are available.

This makes the Instagram video data more useful for research and content analysis than a standalone download link.

📊 Structured Dataset Results

Every successfully processed URL is pushed as a structured dataset item. The output uses predictable field names so your workflow can consume the information programmatically.

💡 Why Use This Actor

• Turn Instagram video URLs into structured video records
• Collect media and metadata together
• Process several URLs in one run
• Build datasets for analysis or monitoring
• Retrieve captions, hashtags, engagement counts, and video information
• Use the downloadable video URL in compatible downstream workflows
• Avoid manually opening every Instagram video page to collect basic metadata

📦 Instagram video Downloader & Scraper – What Data You Can Extract

The output is centered on Instagram video posts. The exact values depend on what is available from the public source page for each URL.

Output field	Description
url	Normalized Instagram post URL created from the extracted shortcode
user_posted	Username of the account that posted the video
description	Instagram caption text
hashtags	Hashtags detected from the caption
num_comments	Comment count
date_posted	Post timestamp formatted as UTC
likes	Numeric like count
likes_formated	Human-readable like count such as 1.2k
post_id	Extracted Instagram shortcode
display_url	Available display or thumbnail image URL
shortcode	Instagram shortcode
content_type	Content type, returned as Video
pk	Instagram content primary identifier when available
content_id	Content identifier based on the shortcode
engagement_score_view	Video view count plus like count
thumbnail	Thumbnail URL
video_view_count	Video view count
video_view_count_formated	Human-readable video view count
tagged_users	Tagged-user value; currently returned as null
video_play_count	Video play/view count
video_play_count_formated	Human-readable play/view count
followers	Profile follower value; currently returned as null
posts_count	Profile post total; currently returned as null
profile_image_link	Instagram profile image URL
is_verified	Whether the detected profile is marked as verified
profile_url	Instagram profile URL
is_paid_partnership	Paid partnership flag returned by the Actor
partnership_details	Partnership object with profile-related fields
user_posted_id	Instagram user identifier when available
_scraped_at	Timestamp showing when the Actor generated the result
_source_index	Index of the original input URL
video_downloadable_url	Extracted video URL for the Instagram video
videos	Video collection; currently returned as an empty array
post_content	Content array containing the video URL when available
photos	Photo collection; returned as an empty array for this video-focused Actor
latest_comments	Latest comments collection; returned as an empty array

Some fields are intentionally empty or null because this Actor is focused on Instagram video extraction rather than full profile enrichment, comments scraping, or tagged-user discovery.

📤 Output / Data Fields

• Video media information is provided through video_downloadable_url
• Video content is also represented in post_content
• Caption text is available in description
• Hashtags are returned as a list in hashtags
• Engagement values include likes, comments, and video views
• Account information includes username, profile URL, profile image, and verification status
• Timestamps are provided in standardized UTC formats
• Results are stored as structured Apify Dataset records

🛠️ Instagram video Downloader & Scraper – How to Use It

Using the Actor requires only Instagram video URLs. There is a single required input field: startUrls.

1️⃣ Add Instagram Video URLs

Open the Actor input and add one or more Instagram URLs to the Start URLs field.

Supported examples shown in the Actor configuration include:

• https://www.instagram.com/p/DPZNtRuDHy9/
• https://www.instagram.com/reels/DPqxAD2E3IE/
• https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHCcTryOTlc/?igsh=NWp1YXg1azE4bm11

2️⃣ Start the Actor

Run the Actor after adding your URLs. Each supplied URL is processed individually.

The Actor attempts to retrieve the public page information and extract the available Instagram video and metadata.

3️⃣ Review the Dataset

Successful records are pushed into the Actor's Apify Dataset. From there, you can inspect the structured results and use them in your Apify workflows or other compatible processing steps.

📥 Input

Field: startUrls

• Type: Array
• Required: Yes
• Purpose: Provide one or more Instagram video, Reel, or compatible Instagram post URLs
• Recommended input: Public Instagram video URLs
• Multiple URLs can be submitted in one Actor run

🔗 How to Scrape an Instagram Reel and Get Its Video URL

To scrape an Instagram Reel with this Actor, add the Reel URL to startUrls and run the Actor.

The Actor attempts to identify the video information contained in the public page data. When successful, the resulting dataset includes video_downloadable_url, providing the extracted video resource.

The output also contains related information such as the caption, hashtags, username, likes, comments, views, thumbnail, and posting date. This makes the result useful for workflows where media and metadata need to stay together.

The downloadable video URL should be treated as the media resource returned for that particular source response. Availability can depend on what information Instagram makes accessible when the Actor processes the URL.

🎯 Can You Download Instagram Video Without Cookies?

Yes. The Actor description states that it has been updated to work without requiring cookies and is intended for public-access extraction.

This means you can supply public Instagram video URLs without providing your own Instagram login cookies as an input.

Because the Actor works with publicly available page information, successful extraction can still depend on the accessibility and structure of the supplied Instagram URL at the time of the run.

⚠️ Important Note

• Use publicly accessible Instagram URLs.
• Extraction results can vary when Instagram changes public page availability or response structure.
• A valid URL does not guarantee that every optional metadata field will contain a value.
• If video information cannot be extracted, the Actor may return an extraction error for that URL rather than inventing missing data.

🚀 Instagram video Downloader & Scraper – Use Cases

📚 Content Research

Collect Instagram video metadata for research projects, competitive analysis, trend discovery, or social media studies.

Useful fields include captions, hashtags, likes, comments, views, posting dates, usernames, and profile information.

📈 Social Media Analytics

Build a structured dataset of Instagram videos and compare engagement indicators such as likes, comments, and video views.

The engagement_score_view field can provide a simple combined value based on video views and likes.

🎥 Media Collection Workflows

When a usable video URL is extracted, video_downloadable_url can be used as the media reference for a compatible downstream workflow.

This is useful for teams building content archives, media research datasets, or internal processing pipelines.

🔎 Hashtag and Caption Research

The Actor extracts hashtags from the Instagram caption and stores them separately.

This makes it easier to organize Instagram video datasets around recurring topics, themes, campaigns, or content categories.

👤 Creator and Profile Research

The output connects the video with the detected creator account through fields such as user_posted, profile_url, profile_image_link, is_verified, and user_posted_id.

🗂️ Dataset Building

Process multiple Instagram video URLs and create a structured dataset containing both media references and post metadata.

This can be useful for analysis, reporting, content research, and automated data workflows on Apify.

🧩 Use Cases

• Instagram video research
• Reel metadata collection
• Social media content analysis
• Hashtag research
• Creator research
• Engagement analysis
• Video URL collection
• Content dataset creation
• Public Instagram monitoring
• Media research workflows

💻 Sample Input

The Actor accepts an array of URLs through startUrls.

{
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.instagram.com/p/DPZNtRuDHy9/"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.instagram.com/reels/DPqxAD2E3IE/"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHCcTryOTlc/?igsh=NWp1YXg1azE4bm11"
    }
  ]
}

You can provide a single URL or multiple URLs in the same run.

📄 Sample Output

A successful result can contain data similar to the following structure:

{
  "url": "https://www.instagram.com/p/DPZNtRuDHy9/",
  "user_posted": "example_user",
  "description": "Example Instagram video caption",
  "hashtags": [
    "video",
    "instagram",
    "reels"
  ],
  "num_comments": 125,
  "date_posted": "2026-10-07T08:30:00Z",
  "likes": 5400,
  "likes_formated": "5.4k",
  "shortcode": "DPZNtRuDHy9",
  "content_type": "Video",
  "video_view_count": 72000,
  "video_view_count_formated": "72.0k",
  "profile_image_link": "https://example.com/profile.jpg",
  "is_verified": false,
  "profile_url": "https://www.instagram.com/example_user/",
  "video_downloadable_url": "https://example.com/video.mp4",
  "post_content": [
    {
      "index": 0,
      "type": "Video",
      "url": "https://example.com/video.mp4"
    }
  ]
}

The example above demonstrates the output structure and field relationships. Actual values depend on the Instagram page processed during the Actor run.

💰 Pricing

No actor-specific pricing amount is provided in the supplied Actor configuration, so no fixed price is stated here.

Your actual usage cost should be checked from the current Apify Actor Store page and your Apify account's applicable usage terms rather than inferred from the source code.

💳 Pricing Note

• No unsupported price is advertised in this README.
• The supplied configuration does not provide a public fixed price to document.
• Check the current Apify Store listing for the latest applicable cost information.

⚙️ Tips and Best Practices

✅ Use Public Instagram URLs

For the smoothest workflow, submit Instagram video or Reel URLs that are publicly accessible.

✅ Process Related URLs Together

You can place multiple Instagram video URLs inside startUrls when you want to collect several records in one run.

✅ Check video_downloadable_url

When your main goal is video extraction, this is the most important output field to inspect.

✅ Use post_content for Video Records

The post_content array provides another structured representation of the extracted video resource.

✅ Expect Optional Fields to Vary

Instagram page data can differ between posts. Fields such as follower totals, post counts, tagged users, or other optional metadata may be empty or unavailable.

✅ Review Failed URLs Separately

If a video cannot be extracted from a specific source page, inspect the Actor run logs and resulting dataset rather than assuming every supplied URL will produce a complete record.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🔍 What is Instagram video Downloader & Scraper?

Instagram video Downloader & Scraper is an Apify Actor that processes Instagram video and Reel URLs and returns structured video metadata together with an extracted video URL when available.

🔗 What URLs can I submit?

You can submit Instagram video-related URLs through the required startUrls input. The supplied configuration demonstrates standard post URLs, /reel/ URLs, and /reels/ URLs.

🎥 Does the Actor return a downloadable Instagram video URL?

Yes. When video extraction succeeds, the result includes a video_downloadable_url field containing the extracted video URL.

📊 What Instagram data does the Actor extract?

The Actor can return the caption, hashtags, likes, comments, video views, posting date, username, profile information, verification status, thumbnail, Instagram identifiers, and video URL information.

🍪 Do I need Instagram cookies or login credentials?

No cookie or login input is required by the Actor configuration. Its description specifically states that it is designed to work without requiring cookies through public access.

📦 Can I process multiple Instagram videos in one run?

Yes. startUrls is an array, so you can provide one or more Instagram video URLs in a single run.

🖼️ Does the Actor scrape Instagram photos?

The Actor is designed around video content. The output contains photos, but this field is returned as an empty array in the current implementation.

💬 Does it collect Instagram comments?

No dedicated comment scraping is performed. The output includes latest_comments, but the current implementation returns it as an empty array.

👥 Does it return Instagram follower counts?

The output schema contains a followers field, but the current Actor implementation returns this value as null.

🧾 Does it extract Instagram captions and hashtags?

Yes. The caption is returned in description, while hashtags detected in that caption are returned in the hashtags array.

📅 Can I get the Instagram video posting date?

Yes. When the source provides a usable timestamp, the Actor converts it into a UTC timestamp and returns it through date_posted.

✅ Does the output include verification status?

Yes. The is_verified field reports the detected verification state of the profile when available.

🔄 Can I use the output in an automation workflow?

Yes. The Actor writes structured results to an Apify Dataset, making the records suitable for further processing in workflows that consume Apify dataset data.

🛡️ Limitations and Important Notes

Instagram can change how public page information is presented or made available. As a result, individual runs may not always contain every optional field.

This Actor should therefore be understood as a focused Instagram video Downloader & Scraper rather than a complete Instagram profile, comments, followers, or media intelligence solution.

The strongest use case is extracting the available video resource together with the post metadata returned from a supplied Instagram URL.

📌 Important

• The Actor does not claim to populate every possible Instagram field.
• Fields not provided by the public source may be empty or null.
• photos and latest_comments are not populated by the current implementation.
• followers and posts_count are currently returned as null.
• Video extraction depends on successful access to the supplied Instagram page and available public video data.

📞 Support

For questions, feature requests, or help with the Actor, use the contact information below.

• contact me by email : alphascraper69@gmail.com