📸 Instagram Posts Scraper - Captions, Likes & Media

Export the posts of any public Instagram account, newest first: caption, date, likes, comment count, hashtags, mentions, tagged users, collaborators, location, pictures, carousel slides and video links. A date window keeps a daily run small. No login, no cookies, no API key. Export to JSON/CSV/Excel, run on a schedule, call via API, or connect to Make, Zapier or n8n.

🔎 What is the Instagram Posts Scraper?

It is an Apify Actor that asks Instagram for the same data its own website loads for a visitor who is not logged in. It opens no browser. An account's posts arrive 33 at a time, each one complete.

In our tests 600 posts of National Geographic took 29 seconds, all 86 posts it published in September 2026 took 8 seconds, and 4,894 posts from three accounts took three minutes.

Posts and reels both appear, in the order of the account's grid. record_type is post or reel, and media_type is image, video or carousel.

What data does it extract?

• Post: id, code, url, caption, posted_at, media_type, is_edited, is_pinned, is_paid_partnership
• Engagement: likes, comments, likes_hidden
• Author: username, full_name, author_id, is_verified, from_profile (the account whose grid the post is on)
• People and places: mentions[], tagged_users[], coauthors[], location_name, location_id
• Content: hashtags[], image_url, video_url, slide_urls[]
• Audio (reels): music_title, music_artist

⬇️ Input

Field	Type	What it does
usernames	array	Usernames, @handles or profile links
maxResults	integer	Posts per account, newest first. 20 by default, up to 100,000
postedAfter	string	Only posts from this UTC date on (YYYY-MM-DD). Reading stops at older posts
postedBefore	string	Only posts up to this UTC date

Example input

Everything two accounts posted in September 2026:

{
  "usernames": ["natgeo", "nasa"],
  "maxResults": 1000,
  "postedAfter": "2026-09-01",
  "postedBefore": "2026-09-30"
}

⬆️ Output

A real carousel post (media links shortened, two of twelve slide links shown):

{
  "record_type": "post",
  "id": "3868552181066538345",
  "code": "DWv27ZTiJ1p",
  "url": "https://www.instagram.com/p/DWv27ZTiJ1p/",
  "username": "natgeo",
  "full_name": "National Geographic",
  "author_id": "787132",
  "is_verified": true,
  "caption": "There’s a tiny little friend for every bee-son 🐝\n\n#SecretsOfTheBees is now streaming on @DisneyPlus and @hulu",
  "posted_at": "2026-04-05T11:09:38+00:00",
  "likes": 31835,
  "comments": 108,
  "plays": null,
  "media_type": "carousel",
  "image_url": "https://scontent-iad6-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.82787-15/660238139_1864...",
  "video_url": null,
  "slide_urls": [
    "https://scontent-iad6-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.82787-15/660238139_1864...",
    "https://scontent-iad6-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.82787-15/660082933_1864..."
  ],
  "hashtags": [
    "SecretsOfTheBees"
  ],
  "mentions": [
    "DisneyPlus",
    "hulu"
  ],
  "tagged_users": [
    "natgeoanimals"
  ],
  "coauthors": [
    "natgeoanimals"
  ],
  "location_name": null,
  "location_id": null,
  "music_title": null,
  "music_artist": null,
  "alt_text": null,
  "is_edited": false,
  "likes_hidden": false,
  "is_pinned": false,
  "is_paid_partnership": false,
  "scraped_at": "2026-10-03T08:31:18.125509+00:00"
}

Media links are signed by Instagram and stop working after some hours, so download the files soon after the run if you need them.

💰 How much does it cost?

You pay per saved post, plus a tiny start fee per run.

Apify plan	Price per 1,000 posts
Free	$1.50
Starter	$1.40
Scale	$1.30
Business and above	$1.20

The default run (20 posts) costs 3 cents. Set Maximum cost per run in the run options and the Actor stops saving at that amount and says so in the status message.

💡 Use cases

• 📊 Competitor and brand monitoring: a daily run with postedAfter set to yesterday collects only the new posts of every account you watch.
• 🧪 Content analysis: compare likes and comments by format, hashtag, collaborator and posting time.
• 🤝 Influencer vetting: read real engagement on recent posts instead of trusting a follower count.
• 🧠 Datasets for AI and research: captions with dates, tags and alt text for classification, trend studies or RAG.

❓ FAQ

Do I need an Instagram account or cookies? No. The Actor never logs in.

How far back does it go? As far as maxResults allows. The grid is read page by page from the newest post.

How fast is it? About 20 posts per second: 600 posts in 29 seconds in our test. On long exports Instagram limits how much one address may read; the Actor then continues through another address without starting over.

Does maxResults count per account or per run? Per account. Three usernames with maxResults: 100 can save up to 300 rows. To cap the whole run, set Maximum cost per run.

What about pinned posts? They come first, whatever their age, with is_pinned: true. The date window still applies to them.

Why does a row show another username? It is a collaboration post. It sits on the grid of the account you asked for, which is in from_profile and coauthors, while username is the account that published it.

Why is plays empty? Play counts are shown on the reels tab only. The Instagram Reels Scraper returns them.

What happens with private or missing accounts? They are skipped and listed in the status message and the SUMMARY record. The run still succeeds with everything else. Instagram also hides a few public accounts from visitors who are not logged in; those are reported the same way.

Can I get the comments? Pass the post links to the Instagram Comments Scraper.

Is it legal to scrape Instagram posts? The Actor reads only what Instagram shows publicly to any visitor and does not log in. Posts contain personal data, so GDPR, CCPA and similar rules apply to how you store and use them, and Meta's terms apply to you as well. If in doubt, ask a lawyer.

Something is missing or broken? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab with the run ID. Issues are answered within one business day.

🔗 You might also like

• Instagram Reels Scraper
• Instagram Profile Scraper
• Instagram Comments Scraper
• Instagram Post Scraper by URL
• Threads User Posts Scraper

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