Instagram Followers Scraper — export the follower list of any Instagram account

An Instagram followers scraper for instagram.com. Give it a username or profile URL and it exports the Instagram follower list of that account: each follower's username, display name, user ID, profile picture and verified and private flags, as structured data. Teams use it for audience research, competitor analysis, influencer vetting and lead lists.

Turn on contact extraction and the Actor also reads every follower's public profile for email addresses, phone numbers and social links in the bio and bio links, so the follower list comes back as a contact list you can export to JSON, CSV or Excel.

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🚀 Key Features

• 🔎 Flexible input — a plain username, an @handle or a full profile URL
• 🧾 Follower data — username, full name, user ID, profile picture, verified and private flags for every follower
• 📧 Contact extraction (optional) — emails, phone numbers and social links parsed out of each follower's bio and bio links
• 📑 Automatic pagination — pages through the follower list until it reaches max_results or the end of the list
• 🛡️ Rate-limit aware — when Instagram throttles the session, the run waits and retries, and keeps the followers already collected if it has to stop
• 📤 Multiple export formats — JSON, CSV, Excel, XML via the Apify dataset
• 🔁 Schedulable runs — re-run weekly to see who started following an account

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👥 Who Is This Actor For?

• Influencer marketers — check who actually follows a creator before a campaign
• Brand and competitor analysts — export a competitor's followers to study the audience
• Sales and growth teams — build an outreach list from the followers of a niche account
• 🤖 AI builders — feed a follower list to an agent or enrichment pipeline via the Apify API or MCP server

💡 Common Use Cases

• Export Instagram followers of a competitor brand to a spreadsheet
• Scrape Instagram followers of a creator and keep the ones with an email in the bio
• Compare the follower list of an account month over month
• Find the verified accounts that follow a given profile

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📥 Input

Field	Type	Description	Default
username	String	Instagram username (e.g. cristiano) or profile URL (e.g. https://www.instagram.com/cristiano/).	Required
max_results	Integer	Maximum number of followers to fetch for this account (1 to 10,000).	100
cookies	Array	Cookies from a logged-in Instagram session, exported as JSON. Instagram only shows follower lists to logged-in accounts.	Required
extract_contacts	Boolean	Also read each follower's public profile for emails, phone numbers and social links. Slower: one extra page per follower.	true
proxyConfiguration	Object	Proxy for all requests. Residential is recommended, because Instagram throttles datacenter IPs.	Apify residential proxy

The Actor takes one account per run, so max_results is the number of followers for that account.

Example Input

{
    "username": "bigfootvlog",
    "max_results": 100,
    "extract_contacts": true,
    "cookies": [
        { "name": "sessionid", "value": "YOUR_SESSIONID" },
        { "name": "csrftoken", "value": "YOUR_CSRFTOKEN" },
        { "name": "ds_user_id", "value": "YOUR_USERID" }
    ],
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true,
        "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]
    }
}

How to get your Instagram cookies

1. Log in to Instagram in your browser. A secondary account is a good idea, see the FAQ.
2. Install the Cookie Editor extension.
3. Open instagram.com, click the Cookie Editor icon and export the cookies as JSON.
4. Paste the JSON array into the Instagram Cookies field. There is a video walkthrough.

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📤 Output

One dataset item per follower:

Field	Type	Description
pk	String	Instagram user ID of the follower
username	String	Follower's username
full_name	String	Display name
is_private	Boolean	Whether the follower's account is private
is_verified	Boolean	Whether the follower has a verified badge
profile_pic_url	String	Profile picture URL
emails	Array	Email addresses found in the follower's bio (with extract_contacts)
phones	Array	Phone numbers found in the bio (with extract_contacts)
social_links	Array	Links to other social networks found in the bio and bio links (with extract_contacts)
id, pk_id, strong_id__	String	The same user ID as pk, as Instagram repeats it
fbid_v2	String	Instagram's secondary account ID
profile_pic_id	String	ID of the profile picture
has_anonymous_profile_picture	Boolean	Whether the follower still has the default avatar
latest_reel_media	Integer	Timestamp of the follower's latest story, 0 if none
account_badges	Array	Badges shown on the account
third_party_downloads_enabled	Integer	Instagram's download setting for the account

Contact fields are empty arrays when the bio has no contact details, or when the profile could not be read.

Example Output

Trimmed item:

{
    "pk": "58812734417",
    "username": "kiyak_iyu",
    "full_name": "kiyakiyu🌸",
    "is_private": false,
    "is_verified": false,
    "profile_pic_url": "https://instagram.fadd1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t51.2885-19/521744297_17958103781966418_6490265124352276860_n.jpg?...",
    "emails": [],
    "phones": [],
    "social_links": []
}

You can export the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, RSS, or HTML from the Apify Console or via the Apify API.

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💰 Pricing

This Actor is pay per event (you pay per result): $0.0025 per follower, so 1,000 followers cost $2.50 plus Apify platform usage. Contact extraction does not change the per-follower price. A free Apify account is enough to try it.

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❓ FAQ

What is the Instagram Followers Scraper?

It is an Instagram followers scraper that exports the follower list of one account per run. Each follower comes back as a structured item, optionally with contact details from their bio.

Do I need an account, cookies or an API key?

You need cookies from a logged-in Instagram account, because Instagram only shows follower lists to logged-in users. No API key is needed.

Will this affect my Instagram account?

It can. The follower list is read as the account whose cookies you provide, and large lists can make Instagram rate limit that account for a while. Contact extraction reads public profile pages without your cookies, so it does not add to that. Use a secondary account rather than one you depend on.

Do I need a proxy?

The default Apify residential proxy is recommended and needs no setup. Instagram throttles datacenter IPs on follower lists, so runs without a residential proxy are likely to fail.

How many followers can I get per run?

Up to max_results, with a maximum of 10,000 per run. With extract_contacts on, the Actor opens one public profile page per follower, so large runs take longer.

What happens if Instagram rate limits the run?

The run waits and retries several times. If Instagram keeps refusing, the run stops with a message explaining what to do, and the followers collected so far stay in the dataset. If follower profiles cannot be read, those followers are still saved, with empty contact fields, and the log says how many.

Can I scrape the followers of a private account?

Only if the account whose cookies you use already follows that private account. Instagram does not show the follower list of a private account to anyone else.

Can I schedule it or integrate it with my app?

Yes — every Apify Actor exposes a REST API, webhooks, and integrations with Zapier, Make, Google Sheets and Slack, and can be called from an AI agent via the Apify MCP server.

Is it legal to scrape Instagram?

This Actor reads the follower list that Instagram shows to the logged-in account you provide, and public profile pages. You are responsible for making sure your use complies with Instagram's terms of service and data-protection laws such as GDPR in your jurisdiction.

What if Instagram changes and the Actor breaks?

Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab with the run link, and we will look into it.

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🧩 Part of the Instagram Scraper Suite

Profiles, followers, followings and comments from Instagram, from one account. Also try:

• Instagram Profile Scraper — profile details, follower counts and bio contacts for a list of usernames, no login needed
• Instagram Followings Scraper — the accounts a given profile follows

See every Goldmine Actor at apify.com/logical_scrapers.

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📷 Image Credit

Image credit: instagram.com

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📬 Contact & Support

• Issues & feature requests: use the Issues tab on this Actor's page — that is the most direct route to a fix.
• Email: coredev.dan@gmail.com
• If this Actor saved you time, please leave a ⭐ rating on the Apify Store. It helps us keep it maintained.
• Instagram Post Comments Scraper — every comment on a post or reel, with the commenter, timestamp and like count