Instagram Post & Reels Scraper — Fast & Comprehensive Media Extractor

High-speed, enterprise-grade Apify Actor to scrape Instagram profile feeds, chronological posts, reels, and individual post/reel URLs. Extracts full high-resolution carousel photos, direct downloadable MP4 video links, view counts, like counts, comment counts, hashtags, mentions, captions, timestamps, and author metadata.

Powered by a lightweight Chrome TLS impersonation engine that runs in milliseconds with 0% browser overhead and zero heavy headless browser delays.

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🌟 Key Features

• ⚡ Ultra-Fast & Lightweight: Built on advanced Chrome TLS impersonation with zero browser overhead, saving compute and starting up in less than 2 seconds.
• 📸 Complete Multi-Image Carousels: Extracts all full-resolution image links in multi-photo carousel posts (carousel_images array and carousel_media_count).
• 🎬 Direct Downloadable Video URLs: Delivers direct MP4 links (post_downloadable_url) for Instagram Reels and video posts.
• 📊 Accurate Engagement Metrics: Real-time extraction of view counts (views_count), likes (like_count), comments (comment_count), shares, and reposts.
• 👤 Full Profile & Author Info: Verified badge status, follower count, following count, bio, and author IDs.
• 🏷️ Hashtags & Mentions: Cleanly parsed lists of #hashtags and @mentions.
• 💬 Detailed Engagement (Optional): Full latest comments, tagged accounts, and granular carousel sub-items on demand.
• 📋 Spreadsheet & Table Ready: Each post is pushed as an individual dataset item with a rich overview table and 1-click CSV, Excel, or JSON export.

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📥 Input Parameters

Field	Type	Default	Description
profileUrls	Array of strings	[]	Instagram profile URLs or usernames (e.g. ["nba", "https://www.instagram.com/apple/"]).
postUrls	Array of strings	[]	Specific post or reel URLs to scrape directly (e.g. ["https://www.instagram.com/reel/DW1jJbtCMB8/"]).
maxReels	Integer	50	Maximum posts/reels to scrape per profile in chronological order (newest first).
includeDetailedEngagement	Boolean	false	When enabled (true), enriches each post with latest comments, tagged users, and granular carousel items (detailed-engagement-scraped event).
proxyConfiguration	Object	{"useApifyProxy": true}	Apify Proxy configuration (residential or datacenter proxies).
sessionId	String	""	Optional Instagram sessionid cookie value for higher rate limits and private account access.

Input Example

{
  "profileUrls": [
    "https://www.instagram.com/nba/",
    "apple"
  ],
  "postUrls": [
    "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DW1jJbtCMB8/"
  ],
  "maxReels": 20,
  "includeDetailedEngagement": false,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}

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📤 Output Format

Each scraped post is pushed as an individual record in the Apify Dataset. A consolidated summary is also available in Key-Value store records/OUTPUT.

Dataset Item Example

{
  "post_num": 1,
  "shortcode": "DW1jJbtCMB8",
  "post_url": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DW1jJbtCMB8/",
  "post_type": "video",
  "is_video": true,
  "title": "Unbelievable game winner! 🏀🔥",
  "caption": "Unbelievable game winner! 🏀🔥",
  "author_name": "nba",
  "author_url": "https://www.instagram.com/nba/",
  "author_id": 19829283,
  "media_id": "3348123847923482390",
  "thumbnail_url": "https://instagram.faal2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/...",
  "thumbnail_width": 640,
  "thumbnail_height": 1136,
  "post_downloadable_url": "https://instagram.faal2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/o1/v/...",
  "carousel_images": [],
  "carousel_media_count": 0,
  "reactions": "125.4K",
  "like_count": 125400,
  "comments": "1.2K",
  "comment_count": 1205,
  "views": "1.8M",
  "views_count": 1845000,
  "shares": "34.2K",
  "shares_count": 34200,
  "hashtags": ["nba", "basketball", "gamewinner"],
  "mentions": ["stephencurry30"],
  "upload_time": "2026-10-20T14:22:10Z",
  "owner_username": "nba",
  "owner_full_name": "NBA",
  "owner_followers_count": 89400000,
  "owner_is_verified": true,
  "profile_url": "https://www.instagram.com/nba",
  "scraped_at": "2026-10-21T08:14:00Z"
}

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💰 Pay-Per-Event Pricing Model

Event Name	Type	Description
apify-actor-start	Startup	Charged once per run to initialize container and proxy connection.
post-scraped	Per Item	Base event charged for each Instagram post or reel scraped.
detailed-engagement-scraped	Optional Add-on	Charged per post only when includeDetailedEngagement is set to true.

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💻 Local CLI Usage

You can also run this scraper directly via terminal:

# Scrape a profile feed
python -m src --url "https://www.instagram.com/nba/" --max-reels 25 --output nba_reels.json

# Scrape a single post or reel
python -m src --post-url "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DW1jJbtCMB8/" --output single_reel.json

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🛡️ Best Practices & Rate Limits

• Proxies: Always enable Apify Residential Proxies (RESIDENTIAL) when scraping high volumes to avoid Instagram temporary rate-limiting.
• Session ID: Provide your Instagram sessionid cookie in the input if you want to scrape beyond 10-12 posts on restricted profiles.