Fast Instagram Reel Scraper (Transcript AI & Video Download)

What does Instagram Reel Scraper do?

Instagram Reel Scraper is an automated data extraction tool designed to collect comprehensive data from public Instagram reels. Whether you need to analyze video performance, monitor trending creator content, audit brand mentions, or archive video assets for creative analysis, this Actor extracts structured video data directly into your preferred storage format.

You can initiate extraction using individual Instagram usernames, creator profile URLs, profile IDs, or direct reel links. The Actor processes each target systematically and returns rich, structured records containing essential engagement metrics (likes, comments, views, and plays), creator details, video descriptions, automated audio track details, tagged accounts, sponsor information, and recent audience comments.

By automating the retrieval of public video posts, Instagram Reel Scraper eliminates tedious manual copy-pasting, provides standardized datasets across multiple profiles, and unlocks scalable short-form video intelligence for competitive analysis, influencer vetting, and social media research.

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Why use Instagram Reel Scraper?

• Multi-target flexibility — Provide direct reel URLs, creator profile links, user IDs, or simple account handles. The Actor automatically identifies the target type and extracts the requested reel data.
• Deep engagement metrics — Collect public likes count, comments count, video views count, video plays count, and video duration for every extracted reel to benchmark audience resonance.
• Granular video metadata — Extract complete captions, publication timestamps in UTC ISO format, video pixel dimensions (height and width), accessibility alt text, and display cover thumbnails.
• Audience comment extraction — Retrieve the top ten most recent viewer comments for each reel, including comment text, commenter username, verified badge status, like counts, and comment timestamps.
• Hashtag and mention intelligence — Automatically parses captions into distinct arrays of hashtags and user mentions, enabling swift hashtag trend analysis and co-marketing audits.
• Commercial and collaboration tracking — Detect whether a reel is marked as a paid partnership, extract associated brand sponsor handles, and list all tagged accounts appearing in the video.
• Music and sound attribution — Gather details on the accompanying audio track, including artist name, song title, sound identifier, and whether the reel uses original creator audio.
• Content filtering controls — Pre-filter collection jobs by publication date (onlyPostsNewerThan), exclude pinned reels (skipPinnedPosts), or filter out creator trial reels (skipTrialReels).
• Flexible video retrieval — Access direct MP4 video stream URLs or optionally store full video media directly inside your Apify Key-Value Store for persistent access.

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Who is Instagram Reel Scraper for?

Social media managers and agencies

Benchmark competitor video strategies, identify viral creative hooks, track client campaign reach, and analyze engagement velocity across dozens of creator profiles simultaneously.

Influencer marketing specialists

Audit prospective creator collaborations by evaluating authentic comment feedback, average view-to-play ratios, sponsored post history, and consistency of posting before committing brand sponsorship budgets.

E-commerce and brand marketers

Monitor user-generated content (UGC), identify customer reactions to unboxing or product review reels, track brand tags across sponsored campaigns, and discover emerging short-form video trends.

Data scientists and market researchers

Build large-scale short-form video corpora for sentiment analysis, computer vision research, audio classification, and longitudinal social trend forecasting across global industries.

Content creators and digital producers

Analyze top-performing reels in your niche, understand what audio tracks and caption structures correlate with high engagement, and archive personal portfolio content with complete metadata.

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What data can you extract with Instagram Reel Scraper?

Each record in your output dataset represents a single Instagram reel and includes the following structured information:

Data category	Extracted attributes
Identifiers & Links	Canonical reel URL, media ID, alphanumeric shortcode, and original input query URL.
Creator profile	Creator username handle, full name, unique Instagram account ID, and verified status.
Content & Captions	Full caption text, extracted hashtags array, extracted user mentions array, accessibility alt text, and product type.
Engagement statistics	Total likes count, total comments count, video view count, and video play count.
Media specifications	Video duration in seconds, video pixel height, video pixel width, thumbnail image URL, direct MP4 video link, and optional downloaded video storage link.
Audio information	Audio track title, artist name, original audio flag, audio mute status, and audio asset identifier.
Audience comments	Up to 10 latest comments with commenter username, profile image, comment text, comment like count, and comment timestamp.
Collaborations & Tags	Paid partnership indicator, sponsor brand accounts list, and tagged profile accounts list.
Publishing timeline	Standardized UTC ISO 8601 publication timestamp and grid pinned indicator.

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Getting started with Instagram Reel Scraper

Running your first extraction is straightforward and requires only a target username or reel link.

Step-by-step console guide

1. Navigate to the Instagram Reel Scraper page in the Apify Console.
2. In the Instagram usernames or URLs field, enter one or more target profiles or reel links (for example, natgeo or https://www.instagram.com/reel/DX7lzTOJ1p6/).
3. Set your desired Results limit per profile (start with a small limit, such as 5 or 10, to preview results).
4. (Optional) Configure date filters or media options, such as onlyPostsNewerThan or includeDownloadedVideo.
5. Click Start to run the Actor.
6. Once the status changes to Succeeded, navigate to the Storage tab to preview or export your dataset in JSON, CSV, or Excel.

Configuration examples

Example 1: Basic profile reels extraction

Scrape up to five recent reels from a specific public creator account:

{
  "username": [
    "natgeo"
  ],
  "resultsLimit": 5,
  "skipPinnedPosts": false,
  "skipTrialReels": false
}

Example 2: Targeted reel inspection

Extract detailed statistics, captions, and comments from direct reel URLs:

{
  "username": [
    "https://www.instagram.com/natgeo/reel/DdJomaZFWkW/"
  ],
  "includeSharesCount": true,
  "includeTranscript": true
}

Example 3: Filtered date range with media backup

Collect only reels published within the last thirty days, exclude pinned older posts, and download video copies:

{
  "username": [
    "https://www.instagram.com/sephora/reels/"
  ],
  "resultsLimit": 20,
  "onlyPostsNewerThan": "30 days",
  "skipPinnedPosts": true,
  "includeDownloadedVideo": true
}

---

Input reference

The Actor accepts the following input parameters in its configuration object:

Parameter	Type	Default	Required	Description
username	array	(prefilled)	Yes	Array of target Instagram usernames (e.g. natgeo), profile URLs (e.g. https://www.instagram.com/natgeo/reels/), numeric profile IDs, or direct reel links (e.g. https://www.instagram.com/natgeo/reel/DdJomaZFWkW/).
resultsLimit	integer	25	No	Maximum number of reels to extract per profile. This setting is ignored when scraping direct reel URLs.
onlyPostsNewerThan	string	null	No	Limits extraction to reels published after a specific point in time. Accepts relative terms (e.g. 1 day, 2 weeks, 3 months, 1 year) or absolute calendar dates (YYYY-MM-DD or full ISO 8601 strings).
skipPinnedPosts	boolean	false	No	When enabled, reels pinned to the top of a creator profile are excluded from results, preventing older pinned posts from distorting date-sorted feeds.
skipTrialReels	boolean	false	No	When enabled, excludes creator trial reels (short-form videos tested with non-followers prior to primary audience release).
includeSharesCount	boolean	false	No	Requests extraction of video share counts when publicly reported by the platform.
includeTranscript	boolean	false	No	Requests automated speech-to-text transcription of reel audio using AI. If the reel contains restricted/licensed audio protected by Instagram, media stream is unavailable, or audio contains only non-speech music/silence, transcript remains null.
includeDownloadedVideo	boolean	false	No	Downloads the MP4 video asset and stores a copy in your default Key-Value Store, returning a persistent storage link in downloadedVideoUrl.

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Output data format

Extracted records are saved to the default dataset. Below is an illustrative example of an extracted reel item:

{
  "inputUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/natgeo/reel/DdJomaZFWkW/",
  "id": "3983893906924595478",
  "type": "Video",
  "shortCode": "DdJomaZFWkW",
  "caption": "What does it mean to live life after you've been given a second chance? Twenty-five years after 9/11, survivors reflect on the people who helped them make it home.\n\nSee the reunions in #911Reunited, now streaming on @DisneyPlus and @hulu. For more first-person accounts, explore the National Geographic archive at the link in bio.",
  "hashtags": [
    "911Reunited"
  ],
  "mentions": [
    "DisneyPlus",
    "hulu"
  ],
  "url": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdJomaZFWkW/",
  "commentsCount": 128,
  "firstComment": "👏❤️🙏🤗",
  "latestComments": [
    {
      "id": "18042445580819746",
      "text": "👏❤️🙏🤗",
      "ownerUsername": "hapnerbrenda",
      "ownerProfilePicUrl": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/sample_pic1.jpg",
      "timestamp": "2026-09-14T02:32:29.000Z",
      "repliesCount": null,
      "replies": null,
      "likesCount": 0,
      "owner": {
        "username": "hapnerbrenda",
        "profile_pic_url": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/sample_pic1.jpg",
        "is_verified": false,
        "id": "6906605066",
        "full_name": null,
        "is_mentionable": null,
        "is_private": false,
        "profile_pic_id": null,
        "latest_reel_media": null
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "18033981830656872",
      "text": "🙏🙏🙏",
      "ownerUsername": "katfoley1",
      "ownerProfilePicUrl": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/sample_pic2.jpg",
      "timestamp": "2026-09-13T23:55:28.000Z",
      "repliesCount": null,
      "replies": null,
      "likesCount": 0,
      "owner": {
        "username": "katfoley1",
        "profile_pic_url": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/sample_pic2.jpg",
        "is_verified": false,
        "id": "75401175087",
        "full_name": null,
        "is_mentionable": null,
        "is_private": false,
        "profile_pic_id": null,
        "latest_reel_media": null
      }
    }
  ],
  "dimensionsHeight": 1920,
  "dimensionsWidth": 1080,
  "displayUrl": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/sample_thumbnail.jpg",
  "images": [
    "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/sample_thumbnail.jpg"
  ],
  "videoUrl": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/o1/v/video.mp4",
  "audioUrl": null,
  "alt": null,
  "likesCount": 28706,
  "videoViewCount": null,
  "videoPlayCount": null,
  "timestamp": "2026-09-11T16:00:04.000Z",
  "timestampText": "2 days ago",
  "childPosts": [],
  "ownerFullName": "National Geographic",
  "ownerUsername": "natgeo",
  "ownerId": "787132",
  "productType": "clips",
  "videoDuration": 85.1,
  "isPinned": false,
  "paidPartnership": false,
  "sponsors": [],
  "taggedUsers": [
    {
      "full_name": "National Geographic TV",
      "id": "18091046",
      "is_verified": true,
      "profile_pic_url": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/natgeotv.jpg",
      "username": "natgeotv"
    },
    {
      "full_name": "Hulu",
      "id": "191074609",
      "is_verified": true,
      "profile_pic_url": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/hulu.jpg",
      "username": "hulu"
    },
    {
      "full_name": "National Geographic History",
      "id": "379895100",
      "is_verified": true,
      "profile_pic_url": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/natgeohistory.jpg",
      "username": "natgeohistory"
    }
  ],
  "coauthorProducers": [
    {
      "full_name": "Hulu",
      "id": "191074609",
      "is_unpublished": false,
      "is_verified": true,
      "profile_pic_url": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/hulu.jpg",
      "username": "hulu"
    },
    {
      "full_name": "National Geographic History",
      "id": "379895100",
      "is_unpublished": false,
      "is_verified": true,
      "profile_pic_url": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/natgeohistory.jpg",
      "username": "natgeohistory"
    },
    {
      "full_name": "National Geographic TV",
      "id": "18091046",
      "is_unpublished": false,
      "is_verified": true,
      "profile_pic_url": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/natgeotv.jpg",
      "username": "natgeotv"
    }
  ],
  "musicInfo": {
    "artist_name": "natgeo",
    "song_name": "Original audio",
    "uses_original_audio": true,
    "should_mute_audio": false,
    "should_mute_audio_reason": "",
    "audio_id": "28116481904639182"
  },
  "isCommentsDisabled": false,
  "transcript": "I always tell people, it isn't me, it's we. And the heroes of that day are the guys that never made it out. Without Jan, without the last second sticking his hand in that elevator door, we wouldn't be talking right now, guaranteed. I say to them, why you call me hero? That's not only me hero. Firefighters, police, there's a lot of hero. My biggest word that I've used since 9-11 is resilience. Even though you will go through terrible things, you can do this. You lived. How do you thank people like you? You lived. You lived a good life. That's how you thank us. My hopes, my dreams is because of Stefan. It makes me think about this movie called Saving Private Ryan. Private Ryan looks to his family and he says, have I lived well enough to deserve this life? And my hope is that all my efforts will prove to just be good enough to deserve him saving my life. We have a responsibility to those who didn't make it to make a good life out of what we have. You get a second chance, live life. You know, live it.",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-14T11:01:55.617Z"
}

Dataset field reference

Field name	Type	Description
inputUrl	string	The exact URL or username string supplied in your input configuration.
id	string	Unique permanent Instagram media identifier for the video.
type	string	Media asset classification, typically Video for reels.
shortCode	string	Alphanumeric identifier appearing in the reel URL path (e.g., DdJomaZFWkW).
caption	string or null	Full creator caption text, including emojis, descriptions, and hashtags.
hashtags	array	Clean list of hashtag keywords extracted from the caption text without #.
mentions	array	Usernames mentioned inside the caption text without leading @.
url	string	Standardized canonical URL to view the reel on Instagram.
commentsCount	integer or null	Total public comment count on the reel.
firstComment	string or null	Plain text of the top or first visible comment.
latestComments	array	List of recent comments with text, timestamps, like counts, and author profile details.
dimensionsHeight	integer or null	Pixel height of the primary video canvas.
dimensionsWidth	integer or null	Pixel width of the primary video canvas.
displayUrl	string or null	URL of the high-resolution cover thumbnail or video poster image.
images	array	Array of available cover or frame rendition image links.
videoUrl	string or null	Direct stream URL for the MP4 video asset.
audioUrl	string or null	Direct audio track URL when separated or specifically referenced.
alt	string or null	Automated accessibility caption or alt text if generated by Instagram.
likesCount	integer or null	Total number of likes received by the reel.
videoViewCount	integer or null	Number of distinct video views recorded by the platform.
videoPlayCount	integer or null	Total play count recorded across platform feeds.
timestamp	string or null	Exact publication date and time in UTC ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss.sssZ).
timestampText	string or null	Human-readable relative publication age (e.g. 2 days ago, 1 month ago).
childPosts	array	Nested items if the post is part of a multi-item sequence.
ownerFullName	string or null	Profile full name registered by the creator account.
ownerUsername	string	Instagram handle of the account that authored the reel.
ownerId	string	Permanent numeric user ID of the creator account.
productType	string	Content category identifier, typically clips.
videoDuration	number or null	Playback duration of the video expressed in seconds.
isPinned	boolean	True if the reel is pinned to the top of the creator profile.
paidPartnership	boolean	True if marked with a commercial sponsorship or paid partnership disclosure.
sponsors	array	Sponsor brand accounts associated with the paid collaboration.
taggedUsers	array	Profiles tagged directly in the video asset.
coauthorProducers	array	Collaborative co-authors and producers sharing attribution on the reel.
musicInfo	object or null	Metadata regarding background audio, track title, artist, and audio ID.
isCommentsDisabled	boolean	True if the creator has turned off audience comments for this reel.
sharesCount	integer or null	Total shares count if available and enabled in inputs.
transcript	string or null	Automated audio transcript text if includeTranscript is enabled and spoken dialogue is present (returns null if audio contains only non-speech music or silence).
downloadedVideoUrl	string or null	Apify Key-Value Store link if includeDownloadedVideo is enabled.
scrapedAt	string	ISO 8601 UTC timestamp recording exactly when the reel was scraped.

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Tips for best results

• Use direct reel URLs for targeted audits — When analyzing a specific campaign or set of viral posts, provide exact reel URLs instead of full profile handles. The Actor fetches targeted reels immediately without traversing profile feeds.
• Start with conservative results limits — For large accounts with thousands of posts, set resultsLimit to 20 or 50 to inspect recent performance without retrieving years of historical archive.
• Filter older pinned reels — Creators often pin high-performing videos from past years to the top of their profiles. Enable skipPinnedPosts to ensure your dataset contains only chronological, recent content.
• Target recent content with relative dates — Use intuitive filters such as onlyPostsNewerThan: "14 days" or "2 months" to maintain rolling weekly or monthly competitor tracking workflows.
• Handle CDN link expiration — Public CDN links returned by Instagram expire after a period of time. If you need permanent access to video files for offline editing, machine learning datasets, or long-term archiving, enable includeDownloadedVideo: true.
• Deduplicate across repeat runs — When running scheduled scraping tasks, store the id or shortCode values in your destination database to avoid processing duplicate reels.

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Applied workflows and automation tutorials

Tutorial 1: Competitor viral content benchmarking

Identify which video formats, lengths, and captions generate the highest engagement within your industry vertical.

1. Define target accounts — Compile a list of five to ten top competitor Instagram handles.
2. Configure input parameters — Set resultsLimit: 25, onlyPostsNewerThan: "30 days", and skipPinnedPosts: true.
3. Execute the run — Launch the Actor and export the dataset as CSV.
4. Compute engagement ratios — In your spreadsheet software, calculate the engagement rate for each reel using the formula (likesCount + commentsCount) / videoPlayCount.
5. Identify patterns — Sort by engagement rate to isolate top-performing outliers. Inspect videoDuration, hashtags, and musicInfo to identify whether shorter videos (under 20 seconds) or specific audio tracks correlate with higher audience retention.

Tutorial 2: Influencer campaign verification and sentiment analysis

Audit a paid sponsorship campaign to confirm post compliance and gauge authentic audience reaction.

1. Set target URLs — Input the sponsored reel links submitted by your influencer partners.
2. Enable enrichment — Toggle includeSharesCount: true and ensure standard comment capture is active.
3. Inspect sponsorship disclosures — Verify that paidPartnership is true and that your brand handle appears in sponsors or taggedUsers.
4. Analyze comment sentiment — Extract the latestComments array and route comment text to a sentiment analysis API or natural language processor to evaluate audience reaction to the product promotion.

Tutorial 3: Automated content archiving for creative teams

Maintain an automated digital asset archive of inspirational short-form video content.

1. Input creator accounts — Add handles of leading creative directors, brand studios, or visual artists.
2. Enable media download — Set includeDownloadedVideo: true and resultsLimit: 10.
3. Schedule weekly runs — Use Apify Schedules to trigger the Actor once every Monday at 08:00 UTC with onlyPostsNewerThan: "7 days".
4. Webhook delivery — Set an Apify Webhook on run completion to push the resulting downloadedVideoUrl and caption metadata directly to your team Notion workspace, Airtable base, or cloud storage bucket.

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Programmatic integration with Apify API

Instagram Reel Scraper can be controlled programmatically using the Apify API and official client libraries.

Node.js (JavaScript / TypeScript)

Install the client via npm:

$npm install apify-client

Run the Actor and iterate through extracted reel items:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN',
});

const input = {
    username: [
        'natgeo'
    ],
    resultsLimit: 10,
    onlyPostsNewerThan: '1 month',
    skipPinnedPosts: true,
};

// Start the Actor run and wait for it to complete
const run = await client.actor('karamelo/instagram-reel-scraper').call(input);

// Fetch items from the run's default dataset
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

for (const reel of items) {
    console.log(`[${reel.shortCode}] @${reel.ownerUsername}: ${reel.likesCount} likes, ${reel.videoViewCount} views`);
    console.log(`Caption: ${reel.caption?.slice(0, 80)}...`);
    console.log(`Video URL: ${reel.videoUrl}\n`);
}

Python

Install the client via pip:

$pip install apify-client

Execute a run and stream results:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")

run_input = {
    "username": ["https://www.instagram.com/reel/DX7lzTOJ1p6/"],
    "includeSharesCount": True,
}

    #  and wait for completion
run = client.actor("karamelo/instagram-reel-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

    #  reel items
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(f"Reel ID: {item.get('id')}")
    print(f"Creator: {item.get('ownerUsername')}")
    print(f"Likes: {item.get('likesCount')}")
    print(f"Comments: {item.get('commentsCount')}")
    print(f"Video URL: {item.get('videoUrl')}")

Apify CLI

Execute a run directly from your terminal:

echo '{
  "username": ["natgeo"],
  "resultsLimit": 5
}' | apify call karamelo/instagram-reel-scraper --output-dataset

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Supported integrations and data exports

Once your extraction run completes, Apify provides native mechanisms to route and export your data:

• Direct file downloads — Export your dataset instantly in JSON, JSONL, CSV, Excel (.xlsx), or XML directly from the Apify Console.
• Google Drive and Google Sheets — Automatically append newly scraped reels to a shared Google Sheet for executive reporting.
• Workflow automation platforms — Connect Apify with Make, Zapier, or n8n to trigger downstream actions (such as posting alerts to Slack, filing records into Airtable, or notifying creators via email).
• Webhooks — Configure webhooks to deliver payload notifications to your custom API or backend endpoint immediately upon run success or failure.
• Cloud data warehouses — Stream datasets into BigQuery, Snowflake, Amazon S3, or PostgreSQL using Apify integration connectors or scheduled ETL jobs.

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Limitations and important considerations

• Public content only — The scraper operates strictly on publicly accessible Instagram reels. Content from private accounts, restricted age-gated media, or posts requiring personal account login cannot be accessed.
• Logged-out public metrics — Metrics collected reflect what Instagram displays to public, logged-out visitors. Engagement from private accounts or personalized logged-in feeds may cause slight differences between logged-in mobile app numbers and public web metrics.
• Platform metric snapshots — View counts, play counts, and like counts represent a point-in-time snapshot at the exact moment of extraction. Video metrics on viral content naturally fluctuate over subsequent hours.
• Temporary CDN media links — Video stream URLs (videoUrl) and thumbnail URLs (displayUrl) provided by Instagram's CDN contain signed access tokens that expire after several days or weeks. Use the includeDownloadedVideo option if you require persistent, long-term media storage.
• Trial reels visibility — Creator trial reels are an Instagram feature allowing creators to test content with non-followers. While trial reels are captured by default, you can enable skipTrialReels if you prefer to evaluate only canonical feed releases.

---

Troubleshooting common issues

Symptom	Probable cause	Recommended action
Zero reels returned for a profile	The target account is private, has changed its handle, or has no published reels.	Verify that the profile is public and that videos appear under the /reels tab when viewed in an incognito browser window.
Direct reel link fails to scrape	The reel was deleted, archived, or restricted by country or age settings.	Confirm the URL loads in a logged-out web browser window without requiring an account login prompt.
All extracted posts are older than expected	The profile has pinned several older reels to the top of its grid.	Set skipPinnedPosts: true in your input to bypass older pinned content and extract true chronological posts.
Date filter returns fewer items than results limit	The creator has not published enough reels within the requested timeframe.	Expand the onlyPostsNewerThan threshold (e.g. from 1 week to 1 month) or omit the date filter to collect older posts.
Downloaded video link is empty	includeDownloadedVideo was not toggled on, or the reel contained only static frames.	Confirm that includeDownloadedVideo: true is set in your input configuration before launching the run.
Request timeouts on large profile lists	Input contains too many profiles without sufficient timeout or memory allocation.	Split large lists into smaller batches (e.g. 20–50 profiles per run) or increase the Actor run timeout in Console settings.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Do I need an Instagram account or login cookies to use this Actor?

No. Instagram Reel Scraper functions completely without requiring your personal Instagram credentials, login cookies, or account sessions. It collects only public data visible to any web visitor.

Can I scrape reels from private Instagram accounts?

No. This Actor respects privacy settings and cannot access content from accounts that have been set to private.

What is the difference between video views and video plays?

Video views represent the standard view count reported by the platform interface, whereas video plays represent the total number of times the video stream was initiated across Instagram feeds. Both metrics are provided when reported by the source.

Why do CDN video links stop working after a few weeks?

Instagram signs its content delivery network (CDN) URLs with temporary security tokens. To prevent broken links in your archives, enable the includeDownloadedVideo option, which saves a persistent MP4 copy to your Apify Key-Value Store.

Can I schedule this Actor to collect new reels automatically?

Yes. Using Apify Schedules, you can set the Actor to run on an hourly, daily, or weekly schedule. Combine scheduled runs with onlyPostsNewerThan: "1 day" or "1 week" to build an automated incremental tracking pipeline.

How many comments are extracted per reel?

The Actor extracts the top ten latest public comments for each reel, including author username, verification status, comment like count, and comment timestamp.

Can I extract reels by searching for hashtags?

This Actor focuses specifically on user profiles and direct reel URLs. If you want to discover reels across general hashtags or topics, you can use dedicated hashtag discovery tools and pass the resulting reel URLs to this Actor for deep extraction.

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Responsible and legal data collection

Instagram Reel Scraper is intended for collecting publicly accessible content for legitimate analytical, business intelligence, market research, and content archiving purposes.

When utilizing scraped social media data, users should adhere to applicable data privacy frameworks, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and other jurisdictional regulations governing the processing of public personal data. Respect copyright laws regarding video and audio assets, do not use extracted creator content to misrepresent intellectual property, and ensure your collection frequency adheres to fair-use principles.