Instagram Profile & Posts Scraper 2026 — No API Key

Extract complete Instagram profile data and recent posts from any public account. No Facebook Developer account, no Graph API approval, no login required.

⭐ Free to try — if this actor saves you time, leave a quick review. It takes 30 seconds and helps other researchers find it.

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What It Extracts

Pass one or more Instagram usernames. Get back structured JSON in seconds:

Profile data

• Username, full name, biography, website URL
• Follower count, following count, total posts count
• Verified badge status, business account flag, category
• HD profile picture URL
• Profile URL, internal user ID

Recent posts (up to 50 per profile)

• Caption text with embedded hashtags and mentions
• Like count, comment count, video view count
• Post type (image, video, carousel)
• Media URL, post URL, timestamp

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⚠️ Session Cookie for Accurate Counts

Without a session cookie, Instagram caps what unauthenticated requests return — follower counts and post counts may come back as 0 or 1. Add your sessionid cookie value in the sessionCookie field to get accurate numbers.

The rest of the data (bio, name, verification, posts) is available without it.

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Input Parameters

{
  "username": "natgeo, nike, tesla",
  "action": "profile",
  "maxPosts": 24,
  "sessionCookie": ""
}

Field	Type	Default	Description
username	string	required	Instagram handle(s), comma-separated. Accepts @handle, full URL, or plain username.
action	string	"profile"	"profile" returns profile + recent posts. "posts" returns posts only.
maxPosts	integer	24	Max recent posts per profile. Range: 1–50.
sessionCookie	string	""	Your Instagram sessionid cookie value. Optional but recommended for full data.

Accepted username formats:

• natgeo
• @nike
• https://www.instagram.com/tesla/
• natgeo, nike, tesla (comma-separated list)

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Example Output

{
  "username": "natgeo",
  "fullName": "National Geographic",
  "biography": "Experience the world through the eyes of National Geographic photographers.",
  "followerCount": 281500000,
  "followingCount": 132,
  "postCount": 29847,
  "isVerified": true,
  "isPrivate": false,
  "category": "Media",
  "externalUrl": "https://natgeo.com",
  "profilePicUrl": "https://instagram.fcdn.net/v/t51.2885-19/...jpg",
  "profileUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/natgeo/",
  "userId": "787132",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-04-23T09:15:42.000Z",
  "recentPosts": [
    {
      "postId": "3398271049123456789",
      "shortcode": "C6xYzAbC1234",
      "type": "GraphImage",
      "caption": "A lion surveys the plains at dawn in Kenya's Masai Mara. #wildlife #kenya #africa",
      "likeCount": 284932,
      "commentCount": 1842,
      "videoViewCount": 0,
      "isVideo": false,
      "imageUrl": "https://instagram.fcdn.net/v/t51.2885-15/...jpg",
      "postUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/p/C6xYzAbC1234/",
      "timestamp": "2026-04-12T08:30:00.000Z"
    },
    {
      "postId": "3398271049123456790",
      "shortcode": "C6xYzAbC5678",
      "type": "GraphVideo",
      "caption": "Deep inside the Amazon — a species no camera has captured before. #nature #discovery",
      "likeCount": 193041,
      "commentCount": 2310,
      "videoViewCount": 4812000,
      "isVideo": true,
      "imageUrl": "https://instagram.fcdn.net/v/t51.2885-15/...jpg",
      "postUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/p/C6xYzAbC5678/",
      "timestamp": "2026-04-09T14:22:10.000Z"
    }
  ]
}

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Who Uses This

Influencer marketing teams — vet creators before signing contracts. Compare follower counts, post frequency, and engagement rates across dozens of accounts in one run instead of opening each profile manually.

Brand managers — monitor competitor accounts weekly. Catch changes to bios, track follower milestones, watch which content formats drive the most likes.

Marketing agencies — build client reports with real Instagram metrics. Pull profiles for entire client rosters automatically instead of copying numbers by hand.

Market researchers & academics — analyze posting patterns, engagement benchmarks, and content trends across accounts in a niche. Export to CSV for analysis in Python or R.

Lead generation — build lists of active creators filtered by follower thresholds, post frequency, and category.

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Why Not Use the Official Instagram Graph API?

Instagram's Graph API requires a Facebook Developer account, app review, business verification, and only returns data for accounts you manage or that have explicitly granted permissions. For third-party research on public profiles, it is effectively unusable.

This actor works on any public profile instantly — no approvals, no waiting, no account dependencies.

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Integrations & Export

Results export to JSON, CSV, or Excel directly from the Apify console. Connect to:

• Google Sheets — sync actor output automatically
• Webhooks — push results to your own backend on run completion
• Zapier / Make — trigger downstream workflows
• Apify API — call from your own code using the Apify Python or Node.js client

Schedule runs hourly, daily, or weekly to track accounts over time.

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Limits

• Public profiles only — private accounts are skipped
• Maximum 50 posts per profile per run
• Add a session cookie for accurate follower/post counts

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💰 Pricing

This actor uses Pay-Per-Result (PPE) pricing — $0.005 per profile scraped. You only pay for successful results, not for platform compute time.

• 100 profiles = $0.50
• 1,000 profiles = $5.00
• 10,000 profiles = $50.00

Free tier users can run the actor to test before committing to a paid plan.

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