Instagram Posts & Reels Scraper

📌 Overview

The Instagram Posts & Reels Scraper is a simple tool for collecting a public Instagram profile plus their recent posts or reels — no login or cookies required. Just provide a username, choose posts or reels, say how many you want, and get back structured JSON.

🚀 Features

• Works without login or cookies ✅
• Scrapes both feed posts and reels — your choice per run
• Returns key profile details (name, followers/following, verification, etc.) alongside the scraped items
• Resume a previous run exactly where it left off, with no duplicates or gaps (paid)
• Clean, predictable JSON output every time

🔧 How It Works

1. Enter an Instagram username.
2. Choose posts or reels, and how many items you want.
3. Get the profile info, then each scraped item, streamed to the dataset as structured JSON while the run is still going.
4. (Optional) Pass the cursor from a previous run's output to continue exactly where it left off.

📥 Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
username	String	Yes	The Instagram username to scrape.
contentType	String (posts or reels)	Yes	Whether to scrape feed posts or reels. Default: reels.
quantity	Integer	Yes	Minimum number of items to return. The actual count may be slightly higher than requested. Default: 24.
cursor	String	No	Resume cursor from a previous run's output, to continue where it left off.

Example Input

{
  "username": "instagram",
  "contentType": "reels",
  "quantity": 24
}

🔐 Usage Limits

Plan	Runs per day	Items per run	Resume cursor
FREE	1	Up to 12	❌ Not included
Paid	Unlimited ✅	As requested ✅	✅ Included

Upgrade to a paid plan to remove the daily run limit, scrape more than 12 items per run, and get a resume cursor to continue exactly where you left off.

📤 Output Data

Items land in the dataset one row at a time as they're scraped, not as one big record at the end — so if a run is ever interrupted, everything already scraped (and, on a paid run, already charged) is still there. Each row has a type field telling you what it is:

type	When it's pushed	What it contains
profile	Once, right after your username resolves	Public profile details + what was requested
item	Once per post/reel, as each is scraped	One post or reel
summary	Once, at the end of the run	Totals, resume cursor, and any warning
error	Instead of the above, if the run couldn't proceed at all	A short, safe error message

🧑‍💼 profile Row

A deliberately small, relevant set of profile fields — not the full profile record — plus the run's own settings:

Field	Description
username	Instagram handle
fullName	Profile display name
profilePicUrl	Profile picture URL
followersCount	Follower count
followsCount	Following count
postsCount	Total posts on the profile (not the number returned by this run)
verified	Whether the account is verified
private	Whether the account is private
user_id	Instagram numeric user ID
content_type	posts or reels, echoing your input
requested_quantity	What you asked for
quantity_capped_to	Present only if the free-tier cap reduced your requested quantity

🎬 item Rows

Each row is one post or reel, depending on contentType:

Field	Description
id	Media ID
media_type	1 = image, 2 = video/reel, 8 = carousel
product_type	e.g. "clips" for reels
code	Shortcode used in the post URL (instagram.com/p/<code>/)
caption	Caption text
like_count	Number of likes
comments_count	Number of comments
timestamp	When it was posted (Unix epoch seconds)
play_count / ig_play_count / fb_play_count	Play/view counts by source
view_count / content_views_count	Additional view metrics, when available
impressions	Best-available view estimate
reach	Reach, when available
video_views	View count for reels
share_count / reshare_count / media_repost_count	Share and repost counts
share_count_disabled / like_and_view_counts_disabled	Whether those counts are hidden by the creator

🔁 summary Row

Field	Description
returned_count	Actual number of items returned
next_cursor	Resume cursor — pass back as cursor on your next run to continue (paid only)
has_more	Whether more content exists beyond what was returned
warning	Present only if scraping stopped early due to a temporary error, after some items were still collected

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📦 Example Output

Three rows from a single run (an item row repeats once per scraped post/reel):

{
  "type": "profile",
  "username": "instagram",
  "fullName": "Instagram",
  "followersCount": 686294115,
  "followsCount": 155,
  "postsCount": 7500,
  "verified": true,
  "private": false,
  "user_id": "25025320",
  "content_type": "reels",
  "requested_quantity": 24
}

{
  "type": "item",
  "username": "instagram",
  "content_type": "reels",
  "id": "3958651149055237302",
  "media_type": 2,
  "product_type": "clips",
  "code": "DLxxxxxxxx",
  "caption": "New drop 🔥",
  "like_count": 45210,
  "comments_count": 812,
  "timestamp": 1771528094,
  "video_views": 1245000
}

{
  "type": "summary",
  "username": "instagram",
  "user_id": "25025320",
  "content_type": "reels",
  "returned_count": 24,
  "next_cursor": null,
  "has_more": true
}

Example error output (private or nonexistent account)

{
  "type": "error",
  "username": "someprivateaccount",
  "error": "Restricted Profile"
}

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⚙️ Notes & Limitations

⚠️ Free users get 1 run per day, capped at 12 items per run. Paid users get unlimited runs, full requested quantities, and resumable pagination.

• Only works with public profiles — private or restricted accounts return an error row, not data.
• Nonexistent or unreachable profiles return {"type": "error", "error": "Does not exist"} instead of failing the run.
• Items are written to the dataset one by one as they're scraped, so an interrupted run still keeps everything scraped up to that point.
• Engagement numbers reflect what's publicly visible and may differ slightly from Instagram's own app in real time.

🧠 Use Cases

• Influencer and creator research
• Competitive content benchmarking
• Reels/posts performance analytics
• Building social media dashboards

❓ FAQ

Do I need an Instagram login or cookies? No — this scraper only reads publicly visible data.

Can it scrape private accounts? No. A private account returns {"error": "Restricted Profile"} instead of data.

What happens if I request more items than the free plan allows? Your quantity is silently capped at 12; the profile row includes quantity_capped_to so you know it happened.

How do I run it more than once a day? Upgrade to a paid plan — free accounts are limited to one run per day.

How does the resume cursor work? A paid run's summary row includes a next_cursor. Pass that value back as the cursor input on your next run to continue exactly where the previous one left off — no duplicates, no gaps.

Can I scrape posts and reels in the same run? Not in a single run — set contentType to posts or reels and run it twice if you need both.

💡 Keywords

Instagram scraper, Instagram posts scraper, Instagram reels scraper, scrape Instagram without login, Instagram public data extractor, Instagram engagement data, Instagram API alternative

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⚠️ Disclaimer

This tool should be used responsibly. It collects only publicly available data that is viewable without logging in — it does not access private accounts or bypass Instagram's authentication. Instagram's terms of service restrict certain scraping practices; the developer is not responsible for misuse.

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🚀 Scrape Instagram posts and reels — quickly, safely, and reliably.