Instagram Followers / Following Scraper

Scrape the followers or following list of any public Instagram profile. Returns usernames, full names, profile pictures, and account status for each result.

Built with residential proxy rotation and Chrome TLS fingerprint impersonation — designed to work reliably at scale.

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⚠️ Authentication Required

Instagram requires a logged-in session to access followers and following lists. This scraper uses your Instagram Session ID — a cookie from your browser — to authenticate requests on your behalf.

Your Session ID is stored securely by Apify and is never shared or logged.

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🔑 How to Get Your Session ID

This takes about 30 seconds:

1. Open Google Chrome and go to https://www.instagram.com
2. Log in to your Instagram account
3. Press F12 to open DevTools (or right-click anywhere → Inspect)
4. Click the Application tab at the top of DevTools
5. In the left sidebar, expand Cookies → click https://www.instagram.com
6. Find the row named sessionid
7. Copy the full value in the Value column
8. Paste it into the Instagram Session ID field in the Actor input

Note: Session IDs expire periodically (usually every few weeks). If the scraper stops returning results, repeat the steps above to get a fresh one.

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📥 Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
accounts	List of strings	✅ Yes	Instagram usernames to scrape (without @)
type	Select	No	Followers or Following (default: Followers)
limit	Number	No	Max results per account, up to 5,000 (default: 20)
sessionId	String	✅ Yes	Your Instagram sessionid cookie value

Example Input

{
  "accounts": ["mrbeast", "cristiano"],
  "type": "Followers",
  "limit": 100,
  "sessionId": "your_session_id_here"
}

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📤 Output

Each result is one follower or following record:

Field	Type	Description
instagram_id	String	Numeric Instagram user ID
username	String	Instagram username
full_name	String	Display name
is_private	Boolean	Whether the account is private
is_verified	Boolean	Whether the account has a verified badge
profile_pic_url	String	URL of the profile picture

Example Output

{
  "instagram_id": "16573539386",
  "username": "example_user",
  "full_name": "Example User",
  "is_private": false,
  "is_verified": false,
  "profile_pic_url": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/..."
}

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⚙️ How It Works

1. Username resolution — resolves each username to an internal Instagram user ID using an authenticated API call with Chrome TLS fingerprinting (curl_cffi) to avoid rate limiting
2. Proxy rotation — uses Apify's residential proxy pool, rotating IP sessions on every request
3. Pagination — automatically pages through results up to your specified limit
4. Data output — pushes each record to Apify's dataset in real time

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🚫 Limitations

Following list ✅ — unlimited for all accounts. You can scrape as many following accounts as you want from any public profile.

Followers list ⚠️ — some Instagram accounts limit their followers list visibility to around 50 users. This restriction comes directly from Instagram and cannot be bypassed by the scraper.

Access Type	Followers access
Limited accounts	~50 results maximum
Accounts without restriction	Full list, unlimited pagination

Other limitations:

• Public profiles only — private accounts require the scraping account to already be a follower
• Session expiry — Instagram session IDs expire periodically; get a fresh one from your browser if runs start failing

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❓ Troubleshooting

"sessionId is invalid or expired" Your session has expired. Go back to Chrome → DevTools → Application → Cookies and copy a fresh sessionid value.

"Could not resolve username" The username may be misspelled, the account may have been deleted, or Instagram temporarily blocked the lookup. Try again in a few minutes.

"Profile not found" The account does not exist or has been deactivated.

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⚖️ Legal Disclaimer

This actor is provided for legitimate research, analytics, and business intelligence purposes. Users are solely responsible for ensuring their use complies with Instagram's Terms of Service and applicable laws. The author assumes no liability for misuse.