Instagram Profile Crawler

Discover similar Instagram creators, brands, and public figures from a small set of seed accounts.

This actor starts with one or more Instagram usernames, scrapes each public profile, collects recent post and profile metrics, then follows Instagram's related-profile suggestions to expand the network. It is built for influencer discovery, lead generation, competitor mapping, and niche research.

What You Can Scrape

• Public Instagram profile data
• Follower, following, media, verification, business, and creator account signals
• Bio text, external URL, bio links, category, pronouns, and profile picture URLs
• Recent post metadata, captions, likes, comments, media URLs, and post dates
• Related profiles suggested by Instagram
• Crawl depth and discovery path for every result
• Error rows for profiles that cannot be scraped, when enabled by your settings

Popular Use Cases

• Find similar creators from a known influencer or brand account
• Build influencer prospect lists in a specific niche
• Map competitor or community account networks
• Discover lookalike profiles from a small seed list
• Analyze recent post engagement across discovered profiles
• Export structured profile data to CSV, JSON, Google Sheets, or your CRM

How It Works

1. Add one or more seed usernames.
2. The actor scrapes those public profiles.
3. It reads each profile's related-profile suggestions.
4. It adds those related profiles to the crawl queue.
5. It continues until it reaches your profile or depth limit.

Each row includes:

• crawlDepth: how many hops away the profile is from your seed
• discoveredFrom: which profile led to this result

For example, with maxDepth set to 1, the output contains your seed profiles plus their directly related profiles. With maxDepth set to 2, the actor also follows related profiles from the first layer.

Input Options

• seedUsernames: Instagram usernames to start from
• maxProfiles: maximum number of profiles to process
• maxDepth: how many related-profile layers to crawl
• minFollowers: only save successful profiles with at least this many followers
• skipPrivateProfiles: skip private profiles instead of saving private-profile error rows
• onlyPostsNewerThan: optional recent-post filter, such as 30 days, 6 months, or 2026-01-01
• proxyConfiguration: Apify Proxy settings; residential proxies are recommended
• delayBetweenRequests: delay between profile requests
• maxRetries: retry attempts per profile

Sample Inputs

Quick test crawl

{
  "seedUsernames": ["instagram"],
  "maxProfiles": 10,
  "maxDepth": 1,
  "minFollowers": 0,
  "skipPrivateProfiles": true,
  "onlyPostsNewerThan": "6 months",
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]
  }
}

Influencer discovery from multiple seed accounts

{
  "seedUsernames": ["nike", "gymshark"],
  "maxProfiles": 250,
  "maxDepth": 2,
  "minFollowers": 10000,
  "skipPrivateProfiles": true,
  "onlyPostsNewerThan": "90 days",
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]
  },
  "delayBetweenRequests": 2000
}

Only scrape the seed profiles

{
  "seedUsernames": ["cristiano", "leomessi"],
  "maxProfiles": 2,
  "maxDepth": 0,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]
  }
}

Output Fields

Each successful dataset row can include:

• username, userId, fullName, biography
• followerCount, followingCount, mediaCount
• isVerified, isPrivate, isBusiness, isProfessional
• profilePicUrl, profilePicUrlHd
• externalUrl, bioLinks, pronouns, categoryName
• posts with recent post captions, media, dates, likes, comments, and post type
• relatedProfiles with usernames, names, verification, privacy, and profile picture URLs
• engagementRate
• crawlDepth, discoveredFrom, scrapedAt

Sample Output

{
  "username": "creator_account",
  "userId": "12345678",
  "fullName": "Creator Name",
  "biography": "Creator, founder, and photographer.",
  "followerCount": 150000,
  "followingCount": 500,
  "mediaCount": 240,
  "isVerified": true,
  "isPrivate": false,
  "isBusiness": false,
  "isProfessional": true,
  "profilePicUrl": "https://...",
  "profilePicUrlHd": "https://...",
  "externalUrl": "https://example.com",
  "bioLinks": [
    {
      "title": "Website",
      "url": "https://example.com",
      "link_type": "external"
    }
  ],
  "categoryName": "Digital Creator",
  "posts": [
    {
      "shortcode": "ABC123",
      "postType": "image",
      "likeCount": 1200,
      "commentCount": 45,
      "caption": "New work from this week.",
      "takenAt": 1770000000
    }
  ],
  "relatedProfiles": [
    {
      "username": "similar_creator",
      "fullName": "Similar Creator",
      "isVerified": false,
      "isPrivate": false
    }
  ],
  "engagementRate": 3.2,
  "crawlDepth": 1,
  "discoveredFrom": "seed_account",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-22T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Notes

This actor scrapes public Instagram profile information only. Private profiles cannot be fully scraped. Instagram may change the related profiles shown for an account, so repeated crawls can discover different profiles over time.