Instagram Reels Transcript Scraper — AI Speech-to-Text

Turn any Instagram Reel into text with real AI speech recognition. Paste reel links, get back the full spoken transcript plus timestamped sentences as clean JSON — ready for LLMs, RAG pipelines, content research, and subtitle workflows.

This is real ASR, not caption scraping. Most "Instagram transcript" tools only read the captions a creator happened to upload — and most Reels have none. This Actor runs industrial speech recognition on the Reel's audio track, so it works on any Reel with speech, captions or not — across English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Cantonese, German, French, and Russian.

Unofficial. This Actor is not affiliated with, authorized, or endorsed by Instagram / Meta. It is an independent tool that processes publicly available content. Use it in compliance with Instagram's terms and all applicable laws; you are responsible for how you use the retrieved data.

What you get per Reel

• Full transcript (fullText) — the complete spoken content as one string.
• Timestamped sentences (sentences[]) — each with startMs / endMs, ready for subtitles, deep links, and clip selection.
• Reel metadata — author, caption, duration, publish time, play / like / comment counts, verification flag, and cover image URL, so every transcript arrives with its engagement context attached.

Quick start

1. Open the Actor and press Run — the default input works out of the box.
2. Replace the example with your own reel links: reel URLs (https://www.instagram.com/reel/XXXX/), post URLs (/p/XXXX/), or bare shortcodes.
3. Optionally set the spoken language (auto-detect by default; a correct hint improves accuracy).
4. Collect results from the Dataset tab as JSON / CSV / Excel, or pull them via the Apify API and MCP from your own code.

No proxies, no cookies, no login — everything runs server-side.

Example output

{
  "videoId": "DXqiQ-CiXmT",
  "videoUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXqiQ-CiXmT/",
  "description": "Crispy Potato Triangle Recipe | Instant snack…",
  "author": "simrans_kitchen1",
  "authorName": "Simran's Kitchen",
  "isVerified": false,
  "durationSec": 20.7,
  "diggCount": 18400,
  "commentCount": 212,
  "language": "en",
  "detectedSpeech": true,
  "sentenceCount": 9,
  "fullText": "Today we're making the crispiest potato triangles you've ever had…",
  "sentences": [
    { "text": "Today we're making the crispiest potato triangles.", "startMs": 240, "endMs": 3100 }
  ]
}

What people build with it

• Viral-hook research — pull transcripts of the top Reels in your niche and study the exact opening lines, structures, and phrases that earn views.
• LLM & RAG pipelines — index what creators actually say (not just captions) so your assistant can search and cite Reel content like documents.
• Content repurposing — turn Reels into blog posts, newsletters, scripts, and carousels with one LLM step on top of the transcript.
• Brand & compliance monitoring — audit what influencers say about your brand in sponsored Reels, without watching hours of video.
• Subtitles & translation — timestamped sentences drop straight into SRT/VTT generation and dubbing workflows.
• Competitor analysis — track the talking points and offers competitors push in their Reels, verbatim.

Pricing & billing

Pay per started transcript minute ($0.025/minute, one-minute minimum). Failed fetches, deleted/private Reels, image or carousel posts, and failed transcriptions are not charged.

Why this Actor

• Works without captions — real speech recognition on the audio track; caption-scraper alternatives return nothing on most Reels.
• Multi-language — auto-detects, with hints for English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Cantonese, German, French, and Russian.
• Engagement context included — every transcript ships with like / comment / play counts, so you can rank by performance immediately.
• Direct API, no headless browser — fast, stable runs with nothing to babysit.
• No login, no cookies — we never touch your accounts, so there's no ban risk.
• Structured JSON — export to CSV, Excel, or JSON, or pull straight from the API / MCP.

Tips for better results

• Feed it the winners: find the top-performing Reels in your niche first (search / profile / hashtag scrapers), then transcribe just those.
• Sentence timestamps let you deep-link to the exact second a phrase is spoken — handy for review and clip selection.
• detectedSpeech: false flags music-only / no-speech Reels so you can filter them out downstream.

FAQ

Do I need an account, cookies, or to log in anywhere? No. The Actor talks to fast, direct HTTP APIs server-side — you just provide reel links and run it.

Does it work on Reels without captions? Yes — that's the point. It runs real speech recognition on the audio, so captions are never required.

Which languages are supported? English, Chinese (Mandarin + dialects), Japanese, Korean, Cantonese, German, French, and Russian. Auto-detect picks among these. Other languages (e.g. Spanish, Hindi, Arabic) are not supported and will produce poor results, so stick to the listed languages.

Can it transcribe regular video posts, not just Reels? Yes — any Instagram post that contains a video works. Image and carousel posts have no audio and are skipped (and not charged).

How am I billed? $0.025 per started transcript minute. Reels that can't be fetched or transcribed are not charged.

Can I run it on a schedule or call it from my app? Yes — use Apify Schedules, the REST API, the JavaScript / Python clients, or the MCP server. See the API tab.

Is this affiliated with Instagram? No. It's an independent tool that processes publicly available content. Use it in line with the platform's terms and applicable law.