Instagram Downloader — Photos, Videos, Reels & Carousels

Instagram Downloader — Photos, Videos, Reels, IGTV & Carousels by URL

Download Instagram photos, videos, reels, IGTV and carousel posts in bulk. Paste one or more Instagram links and get a ready-to-use download link for every piece of media, plus the direct CDN media URL, a poster thumbnail, the media type and how many items the post contains — one tidy row per URL, ready to export as JSON, CSV or Excel.

This is the cheap, no-nonsense way to save Instagram media at scale for content creators, editors, marketers, researchers, social-media managers and anyone building an automated media pipeline.

Why use this Instagram downloader

• 🖼️ Photos, videos, reels, IGTV & carousels — one tool for every kind of public Instagram post.
• 🔗 Ready download links + direct media URLs — each result gives you a reliable download link and the direct media URL, so you can grab the file however you like.
• 🎠 Full carousels — multi-image and multi-video carousel posts come back with every slide, not just the first.
• 🖼️ Poster thumbnail — every post includes a thumbnail image URL for quick previews and galleries.
• 🏷️ Clean structure — media type (image / video / carousel), media count, shortcode and a canonical post URL on every row.
• 📦 Bulk in one run — drop in a whole list of URLs and get one clean record per post.
• 💸 Cheapest per-item pricing — pay only for the posts you actually process, with volume discounts as you scale.
• 🧩 Built for automation — feed URLs from a spreadsheet, Make or n8n and get structured records with direct download links back.
• 📤 Export anywhere — JSON, CSV or Excel, or pull straight from the dataset into your own tools.

What you get

Each Instagram URL is one dataset record like this:

{
  "source": "instagram",
  "inputUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/p/BsOGulcndj-/",
  "shortcode": "BsOGulcndj-",
  "url": "https://www.instagram.com/p/BsOGulcndj-/",
  "mediaType": "image",
  "downloadUrls": [
    "https://.../download-link-for-the-media"
  ],
  "directUrls": [
    "https://.../direct-media-file.jpg"
  ],
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://.../thumbnail.jpg",
  "mediaCount": 1,
  "status": "ready"
}

For a reel or video post, mediaType is video and the links point to an MP4. For a carousel, mediaType is carousel and downloadUrls / directUrls contain one entry per slide, with mediaCount telling you how many.

Input

Give the downloader a list of Instagram URLs. That's it.

{
  "postUrls": [
    "https://www.instagram.com/p/BsOGulcndj-/",
    "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPFAEX3jLzJ/"
  ],
  "maxItems": 0
}

Input options

Field	Type	Description
postUrls	array	One or more Instagram post, reel, IGTV or photo URLs. Plain strings or { "url": "..." } objects both work.
maxItems	integer	Maximum number of URLs to process. 0 means no limit — process everything you provide.
proxyConfiguration	object	Optional. Not required — leave it off to run on a direct connection.

Supported link formats

All of these work, with or without www and with or without a query string:

• https://www.instagram.com/p/{shortcode}/ — photo and carousel posts
• https://www.instagram.com/reel/{shortcode}/ and /reels/{shortcode}/ — reels
• https://www.instagram.com/tv/{shortcode}/ — IGTV
• https://instagr.am/p/{shortcode}/ — short domain

Output

Every run writes a dataset with one row per URL. Use the Overview table in the app, or export to JSON, CSV or Excel from the Storage tab. Key fields:

Field	Description
shortcode	The post's Instagram shortcode.
url	The canonical https://www.instagram.com/p/{shortcode}/ link.
mediaType	image, video or carousel.
downloadUrls	Links to the saved media files in the run's storage (one per item), stable for as long as the run's data is kept.
savedCount	How many media files were saved.
directUrls	The direct media file URLs (one per media item).
thumbnailUrl	Poster thumbnail for the post.
mediaCount	How many media items the post contains.
status	ready when media was found, failed when it could not be resolved.

Every URL always produces exactly one record — even when a post can't be resolved — so your output stays aligned with your input list.

Common use cases

• 📥 Back up your own content — archive your photos, reels and carousels in full resolution.
• 🎬 Content repurposing — pull reels and videos to re-edit or reshare across platforms.
• 📊 Research & analysis — collect media at scale for datasets, moderation or trend studies.
• 🗂️ Media libraries — build a searchable library of posts with thumbnails and direct links.
• 🤖 Automated pipelines — wire it into Make, n8n or your own scripts and download in bulk.

Tips

• Provide clean public post URLs. Private, deleted or story-only URLs may return status: "failed".
• Download links are time-limited — fetch the files soon after the run.
• For very large lists, set maxItems to cap a run, or split your URLs across runs.

Related Actors

Explore more data tools from the same author:

• Threads Downloader — Photos, Videos & Carousels
• Bilibili Scraper — Trending, Ranking & Video Stats
• Douban Scraper — Movies, TV & Ratings
• Facebook Video Downloader — MP4 & MP3 by URL

Plug the results straight into your stack with Make, Zapier or any of Apify's integrations.

FAQ

Which posts can I download? Public photos, videos, reels, IGTV and carousels. Private or removed posts can't be retrieved and come back as status: "failed".

Do carousels return every image? Yes — downloadUrls and directUrls contain one entry per slide, and mediaCount tells you how many.

Do I need a proxy? No. The downloader runs fine on a direct connection. A proxy option is available if you specifically want one.

What formats can I export? JSON, CSV or Excel — or read the dataset directly through the API.

How much does it cost? You pay a small, flat price per URL processed, with automatic volume discounts as you scale — one of the cheapest ways to download Instagram media in bulk.