Instagram Stories Scraper & Link Extractor · No Login

Scrape Instagram Stories from any public profile — media URLs, swipe-up link URLs, interactive sticker data, music metadata, mentions, and timestamps. 83 data fields per story. No login, no session cookies, no Instagram account needed. Capture ephemeral content before it disappears in 24 hours.

Why This Actor

The Instagram Stories scraper market splits into two tiers: simple downloaders that give you a media URL and nothing else, and one premium scraper that returns rich metadata but requires you to log into Instagram, copy session cookies from DevTools, and manage cookie rotation when they expire.

This actor is the only one that gives you rich structured metadata without any login.

	This Actor	automation-lab	datavoyantlab	Other downloaders
Login / cookies required	No	Yes (session cookies)	No	No
Fields per story	83	~60	~15	~10
Swipe-up / link sticker URL	✅ flat field	✅ nested	❌	❌
Poll / quiz / countdown stickers	✅	✅	❌	❌
Music metadata	✅	✅	❌	❌
@Mentions	✅	✅	❌	❌
Highlights support	Use our Highlights Scraper	✅ (same actor)	❌	❌
Reliability	Direct API (stable)	Direct API (stable)	Reverse-engineers 3rd parties (breaks often)	Varies
Price	$2.50/1K	Per-story pricing	Per-story pricing	Varies

Bottom line: If you need structured story data for competitive intelligence, campaign monitoring, or link extraction — and don't want to deal with Instagram login cookies — this is the actor.

How It Works

Step 1. Enter one or more Instagram usernames.

Step 2. Click "Start." The actor captures all currently active stories from each profile.

Step 3. Download as JSON, CSV, or Excel from the Dataset tab.

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What You Get

83 fields per story. Here are the ones that matter:

Media & content

Field	Description
media_url	Direct image or video URL (flat top-level field)
story_type	image or video
video_url	Video file URL (for video stories)
video_duration	Video length in seconds
thumbnail_url	Thumbnail image URL
code	Story shortcode

Link extraction

Field	Description
story_link_url	Swipe-up / link sticker destination URL (flat top-level field)
story_link_stickers	Full link sticker objects with position, size, and URL

Interactive stickers

Field	Description
story_polls	Poll question + options
story_questions	Question sticker data
story_quizzes	Quiz sticker with options and correct answer
story_countdowns	Countdown sticker with target date
story_sliders	Emoji slider sticker data
story_hashtags	Hashtags placed as stickers
story_locations	Location stickers
reel_mentions	@Mentioned accounts

Music & audio

Field	Description
music_metadata	Track name, artist, album
story_music_stickers	Music sticker position and details
has_audio	Whether story has audio

Timing

Field	Description
taken_at_date	When the story was posted (ISO format)
expiring_at	When it will disappear (Unix timestamp)

Profile

Field	Description
user.username	Who posted the story
user.full_name	Display name
user.is_verified	Blue check status

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Sample Output

{
  "media_url": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.82787-15/...",
  "story_type": "image",
  "story_link_url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2026/05/14/...",
  "story_link_stickers": [
    {
      "story_link": {
        "url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2026/05/14/..."
      },
      "height": 0.069,
      "width": 0.585
    }
  ],
  "taken_at_date": "2026-05-14T15:52:53+00:00",
  "expiring_at": 1778860373,
  "thumbnail_url": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/...",
  "is_video": false,
  "code": "DYUyWKQgSyl",
  "user": {
    "username": "forbes",
    "full_name": "Forbes",
    "is_verified": true
  }
}

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Use Cases

Swipe-up link extraction and monitoring. Stories are the primary way brands drive traffic — link stickers point to product pages, blog posts, landing pages, and campaign URLs. This actor extracts every link from any account's stories. Monitor where your competitors are sending their audience in real time.

Competitive intelligence. Competitors announce flash sales, product launches, and partnerships through Stories that vanish in 24 hours. Schedule this actor to run daily and capture everything. Build a permanent archive of competitor messaging that they assume is temporary.

Influencer campaign tracking. Stories are a key deliverable in influencer deals — often more valuable than feed posts. Capture the exact story content, verify it includes the agreed link sticker and @mentions, and archive the data for campaign reporting after the story expires.

Interactive sticker analysis. Polls, quizzes, and question stickers reveal how brands engage their audience. Scrape competitor stories to study which interactive formats they use, how often, and what questions they ask. Build a data-driven Stories strategy instead of guessing.

Music and audio trend research. The music_metadata field shows which songs and sounds brands use in their Stories. Track audio trends across multiple accounts to identify what's popular in your industry's Story content.

Anonymous viewing at scale. View any public account's stories without your username appearing in their viewer list. Process dozens of accounts in a single run — no manual checking, no trace left.

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Key Features

No login, no cookies. This is the critical difference. Most rich-metadata story scrapers require Instagram session cookies — meaning you have to log in, copy cookies from browser DevTools, and rotate them when they expire. This actor needs nothing. Enter a username and go.

83 fields per story. The most comprehensive cookieless story dataset on Apify. Includes interactive stickers (polls, quizzes, countdowns, sliders), music metadata, link sticker URLs, @mentions, location stickers, and hashtag stickers.

Flat media_url and story_link_url fields. Most story scrapers bury media URLs in nested objects (image_versions.items[0].url) and link URLs inside sticker arrays. This actor surfaces both as top-level fields — clean for CSV export and automation workflows.

Bulk processing. Enter multiple usernames and process all their stories in a single run.

Export-ready. JSON, CSV, Excel. Works with Make, Zapier, n8n, Clay, Google Sheets.

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FAQ

Can I scrape stories anonymously? Yes. Your username never appears in the account's story viewer list. The actor accesses public story data through Instagram's API without any authentication.

Stories disappear after 24 hours — does this affect the actor? The actor captures what's currently live. It cannot retrieve expired stories. For persistent content, use our Highlights Scraper which captures saved story highlights that don't expire.

Can I get stories from private accounts? No. Only public profiles' stories are accessible without login.

What's the difference between media_url and thumbnail_url? media_url is the full-resolution image or video URL. thumbnail_url is a lower-resolution preview image. For video stories, use video_url for the video file and thumbnail_url for the cover frame.

What if a profile has no active stories? The actor completes successfully with an empty result set. Stories are ephemeral — if someone hasn't posted in the last 24 hours, there's nothing to capture.

How is this different from "story viewer" tools like DolphinRadar or AnonyIG? Those are consumer web apps for manually viewing one account at a time. This actor returns structured data (83 fields per story) that you can export, automate, and feed into analytics pipelines. It's built for data extraction, not manual browsing.

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🧩 Other Instagram Actors by Data Slayer

Actor	What it does	Link
Instagram Highlights Scraper	Saved story highlights (permanent)	Try it →
Instagram Contact & Email Finder	Emails, phones, websites from profiles	Try it →
Instagram Profile Posts Scraper	All posts from a profile	Try it →
Instagram Reels Search	Discover trending Reels by keyword	Try it →
Instagram Profile Reels	All Reels from any profile	Try it →
Instagram Tagged Posts	Posts where an account is tagged	Try it →

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💬 Feedback & Support

We actively maintain this actor and ship improvements weekly. If you run into issues or want new features, open an issue on the Issues tab or leave a rating. We respond within 24 hours.