Instagram Posts Scraper

Instagram Posts Scraper

Scrape public Instagram posts and reels in guest mode: no login, no cookies. Get post metadata including the exact total comment count, not just the guest-visible subset.

What you get per post

• Metadata: type (post/reel), owner, like count, post date, caption
• Media: CDN URL of the cover image, video flag
• Exact comment count: the true total reported by Instagram, including comments hidden from guests

Two ways to run

1. Direct: pass post/reel URLs (https://www.instagram.com/reel/CODE/, /p/CODE/): each is fetched and emitted.
2. Profile harvest: pass profile URLs (https://www.instagram.com/username/): the Actor first reads the profile's recent post grid, then fetches each post (up to maxPosts, default 12; the guest grid exposes up to 12).

How it works

The Actor runs a lightweight native extraction engine (not a full browser) in guest mode. Instagram renders posts fully only through exit IPs with guest reputation, so residential proxies are recommended. Datacenter exits typically receive a login redirect; the Actor reports that honestly as an error instead of returning empty data.

Input

Field	Type	Description
directUrls	array	Post/reel URLs and/or profile URLs
maxPosts	integer	Max posts to fetch per profile URL (1–100, default 12)
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify proxy settings; residential group recommended

Output

One dataset record per post: url, kind, owner, likes, commentCountExact, postDate, caption, mediaUrl, isVideo, and error when a post could not be retrieved.

Use cases

• Content performance tracking (likes + exact comment volume per post)
• Feeding post URLs into the Instagram Comments Scraper for full comment threads
• Profile-to-post pipelines for competitor or influencer monitoring
• Detecting video vs. image content mix on a profile

Notes

• This Actor returns post metadata only. For individual comment records (author, text, timestamps, replies), use the Instagram Comments Scraper.
• commentCountExact is the exact total from Instagram's own data; the guest-visible subset is intentionally not reported here.

Migrating from other Apify Actors

Cravl Actors accept Apify-style inputs and emit familiar field names alongside Cravl-specific fields, so most pipelines migrate with minimal changes.

Input compatibility

• startUrls (array of URLs, or objects with a url key) is accepted as an alias for directUrls.
• resultsLimit and maxItems are accepted as aliases for maxPosts.

Output compatibility

Cravl field	Compatible alias	Notes
owner	ownerUsername
likes (text)	likesCount	numeric when parseable
commentCountExact	commentsCount
(new)	shortCode	derived from the post URL
(new)	inputUrl	original input URL

Structure: one item per post. Profile inputs are expanded to their recent posts first.

Limitations

• Extraction runs in guest mode: results reflect what the source displays to logged-out visitors. Where the source reports a total (for example, a comment count), results state both the returned count and the source total, so partial visibility is always explicit.
• Extraction depends on the reputation of the exit IP with the source. A run may occasionally return an explicit error item for a URL; re-running typically succeeds.
• Instagram rate-limits per IP. For very large runs (hundreds of URLs), split the input into batches for best throughput.

Changelog

• 0.1.7 — Post records now carry ownerId (numeric Instagram user id, for post-to-profile joins), postDateExact (ISO 8601 UTC instant from the source's taken_at; postDate remains the display string), likesExact (exact like count from the source's media object; likesCount uses it when present instead of parsing the rounded display string), and viewCount. Guest surfaces do not expose play/view counts, so viewCount is null in guest mode; photos have no views.