Instagram Comments Scraper — Extract Comments from Any Instagram Post, Reel & TV

Scrape Instagram comments at scale — text, usernames, timestamps, user IDs, and profile pictures — from any public post, reel, or TV video. Built for marketers, researchers, and data teams who need structured, reliable comment data without writing a single line of code.

🔗 Try it free on Apify →

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What This Actor Does

The Instagram Comments Scraper connects to Instagram's internal GraphQL API using your session cookie and extracts every comment from the posts you specify. It handles pagination automatically — whether a post has 50 comments or 50,000, the scraper pages through them all and pushes structured results directly to Apify's dataset storage.

Supported URL formats:

• https://www.instagram.com/p/<shortcode>/
• https://www.instagram.com/reel/<shortcode>/
• https://www.instagram.com/tv/<shortcode>/
• https://www.instagram.com/<username>/reel/<shortcode>/
• Raw shortcodes (e.g. DXeSaXmk2yg)

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Who Is This For?

Digital Marketers — measure real audience sentiment on your posts and competitor content. Know what your audience actually feels, not just how many likes they clicked.

Social Media Researchers — collect longitudinal comment datasets for NLP, trend analysis, and behavioral studies at scale without scraping limits.

Brand Managers — monitor brand mentions, detect negative feedback early, and track campaign performance comment-by-comment.

Content Creators — understand which posts spark real conversations. Read every comment without scrolling endlessly on mobile.

Growth Hackers & Agencies — build outreach lists from engaged commenters, find niche influencers, and discover high-intent leads hiding in comment sections.

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Key Features

Handles All Post Types — works on posts (/p/), reels (/reel/), and IGTV (/tv/) URLs. Pass any mix of URL formats in one run.

Full Pagination — automatically fetches all comment pages (50 comments per request). No manual next-page clicking.

Safe Rate Limiting — built-in 3.7-second delay between paginated requests mimics human browsing behaviour and reduces detection risk.

Concurrent Post Scraping — scrapes multiple posts simultaneously (up to 2 in parallel) for faster runs on large URL lists.

Automatic Retry with Backoff — if a request fails, the scraper retries up to 3 times with exponential backoff before moving on.

Deduplication — if you pass the same post in different URL formats, it is only scraped once.

Flexible Comment Limits — set a cap (e.g. 500 comments per run) or, on paid plans, set maximum_comments to 0 to scrape every single comment with no limit.

Multiple Export Formats — download results as JSON, CSV, or Excel directly from Apify's dataset interface.

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Input Schema

Field	Type	Required	Description
post_urls	array of strings	✅ Yes	One or more Instagram post/reel/TV URLs or raw shortcodes
cookiesID	string	✅ Yes	Your Instagram sessionid cookie value
maximum_comments	integer	❌ No	Max comments to collect. Defaults to 50 for free users. Paid users: set 0 for unlimited

Example input:

{
  "post_urls": [
    "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXeSaXmk2yg/",
    "https://www.instagram.com/jacksparrow_0908/reel/DXeSaXmk2yg/",
    "https://www.instagram.com/p/DHb-b-qOn_M/",
    "https://www.instagram.com/tv/CQMv9tHFBsD/"
  ],
  "cookiesID": "348885830%3AgQY5HtJbSv9iYP%3A4%3AAYf_ylDIe5_uBzR7U_G88TbxHFXGoiCzv8S6WBlx8CKi",
  "maximum_comments": 0
}

Note on maximum_comments: Free users are always capped at 50 comments regardless of this value. Paid users who set this to 0 get unlimited scraping — every comment on every post.

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Output Schema

Results are pushed to Apify's dataset and exportable as JSON, CSV, or Excel.

{
  "CommentID": "17858893269000001",
  "CommentText": "This is exactly what I needed to see today 🔥",
  "CommentDate": "2025-04-20 14:30",
  "UserID": "987654321",
  "username": "jane_doe_official",
  "profile_pic_url": "https://instagram.fxxx1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/.../profile.jpg",
  "PostID": "DXeSaXmk2yg",
  "PostURL": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXeSaXmk2yg/"
}

Field	Description
CommentID	Unique Instagram comment ID
CommentText	Full text of the comment
CommentDate	Timestamp formatted as YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM
UserID	Numeric Instagram user ID of the commenter
username	Instagram handle of the commenter
profile_pic_url	Direct CDN URL to the commenter's profile picture
PostID	Shortcode of the scraped post
PostURL	Original URL you provided for this post

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How to Get Your Instagram Session ID (cookiesID)

The scraper authenticates via your Instagram sessionid cookie. This never exposes your password — it works the same way your browser stays logged in.

Step-by-step (Chrome):

1. Install Cookie-Editor from the Chrome Web Store
2. Go to instagram.com and make sure you are logged in
3. Click the Cookie-Editor icon in your Chrome toolbar
4. Search for sessionid in the cookie list
5. Copy the Value field — it looks like: 348885830%3AgQY5HtJbSv9iYP%3A4%3A...
6. Paste it into the cookiesID field in the Apify actor input

⚠️ Security: Never share your sessionid publicly. It grants access to your account. Rotate it every 2–3 weeks by logging out and back into Instagram.

Alternative (DevTools):

1. Open Instagram in Chrome → press F12 → go to Application tab
2. Under Storage → Cookies → https://www.instagram.com, find sessionid
3. Copy the value from the Value column

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Free vs. Paid Plan

Feature	Free Plan	Paid Plan
Max comments per run	50	Up to your maximum_comments value
Unlimited scraping (maximum_comments: 0)	❌	✅
Multiple URL support	✅	✅
All post types (post/reel/tv)	✅	✅
JSON / CSV / Excel export	✅	✅

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Automate with Make.com

Combine this actor with Make.com to build zero-code automated workflows:

• Scheduled monitoring — run the scraper every 24 hours and push new comments to Google Sheets
• Sentiment pipeline — route comments through an AI classifier and tag them automatically
• CRM enrichment — match commenters to leads in your CRM using their username
• Slack alerts — get notified instantly when a keyword appears in a comment

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Tips for Best Results

• Rotate your session ID every 1–2 weeks to prevent cookie expiration errors
• Start with 1–5 URLs on your first run to verify everything works before scaling up
• Use maximum_comments: 0 (paid) to collect everything without worrying about limits
• Mix URL formats freely — the scraper normalises all formats and deduplicates automatically
• Check the Apify run log for per-post progress, error details, and retry counts

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Troubleshooting

"Expired session" / no data returned Your sessionid has expired. Log out of Instagram, log back in, re-copy the sessionid, and update your actor input.

Private post returns no comments This scraper only works on public posts. Private accounts and age-gated content are not accessible.

Rate limit / temporary ban Instagram flagged unusual activity. Wait 10–15 minutes, reduce the number of URLs per run, and ensure you are not running multiple actor instances simultaneously.

URL not recognised Verify the URL contains /p/, /reel/, or /tv/. Story URLs and profile URLs are not supported.

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More Actors by devil_port369-owner

• Instagram Followers Scraper — extract follower lists from public profiles
• Instagram Followers — No Cookies — cookieless follower scraping for quick runs
• Instagram Followings Scraper — collect following lists for network analysis
• Instagram Posts Scraper — scrape post metadata, hashtags, and captions
• Instagram Profile Scraper — bios, follower counts, and contact info
• Instagram Email & Phone Scraper — public contact info for lead generation
• Instagram Complete Profile Scraper PPR — deep profile data with pay-per-result pricing
• Skool Followers Scraper — scrape community member data from Skool.com

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Contact & Support

• Apify Support Chat: apify.com/contact
• Upwork: upwork.com/freelancers/~019f20afe191f8bfb3
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/karkimanoj2020

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⚠️ Responsible Use

This actor is built for scraping public Instagram content only. Use it in accordance with Instagram's Terms of Service and your local data protection laws. Do not use it to scrape private accounts, collect data on minors, or build spam lists. The built-in rate limiting protects both your account and Instagram's infrastructure — do not disable or bypass it.

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