Instagram Reels Search & Viral Finder

Find trending Instagram Reels by keyword — not just by profile. Search any topic and get back the reels ranking for it, each with play count, likes, comments, video URL, caption, audio, and creator. No login, no cookies, zero risk to your account. Export as JSON, CSV, or Excel.

Input	What you get
A keyword (e.g. coffee)	Reels ranking for that search, newest/most-relevant first
Multiple keywords	All of them in one run, each row tagged by its query

Pure HTTP. No browser, no CAPTCHA solver, no cookies. Search by keyword, not just by account — the angle most Instagram scrapers miss.

Why Use This Scraper?

• Keyword discovery, not just profiles — find viral reels and rising creators by topic, which per-profile scrapers can't do.
• Full engagement metrics — play count, likes, comments, and video duration on every reel, so you can rank by what's actually performing.
• Creator + audio included — each reel carries its creator (username, verified) and audio, ready for influencer and trend research.
• Historical archive (opt-in) — every run adds the reels it finds to a permanent archive. Turn on includeHistorical to also get reels captured for the keyword on earlier runs that today's search no longer surfaces — reels that have since stopped trending, with their engagement metrics as captured. Coverage grows the more a keyword is run.
• No account risk — no login, no cookies, no session handover.
• Fast — pure HTTP, paginated automatically until your result cap.

How It Works

1. Search — each keyword is run against Instagram's reels search.
2. Paginate — results are fetched page by page until your maxResultsPerQuery cap (or the results run out).
3. Emit — every reel is pushed to the dataset as its own row, tagged with the query it came from.

Input

Field	Type	Required	Notes
queries	array of strings	Yes	Keywords/topics to search (not usernames).
maxResultsPerQuery	integer	No	Cap reels per keyword. Omit for as many as the search returns.
includeHistorical	boolean	No	Also return archived reels for the keyword from earlier runs (ones the live search no longer surfaces), tagged source:"archive" with firstSeenAt/lastSeenAt. Default: false.

Example input

{
    "queries": ["coffee", "home workout"],
    "maxResultsPerQuery": 200
}

Output Schema

One dataset row per reel.

{
    "query": "coffee",
    "mediaPk": "3902687427486805850",
    "shortCode": "DYpIYm4u-9a",
    "url": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYpIYm4u-9a/",
    "playCount": 34729273,
    "likeCount": 651179,
    "commentCount": 1551,
    "videoDuration": 15.6,
    "videoUrl": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/o1/v/…",
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/…",
    "caption": "Spanish iced fluffy coffee! …",
    "takenAt": "2026-05-22T13:32:35.000Z",
    "username": "coffeebro0",
    "userId": "4920…",
    "userFullName": "Coffee Bro",
    "userIsVerified": false,
    "musicTitle": null,
    "musicArtist": null,
    "downloadUrl": null                // set only when media archiving is enabled; otherwise null
}

When includeHistorical is on, archived reels carry three extra fields: source: "archive", firstSeenAt, and lastSeenAt (ISO timestamps for when the reel was first and last captured). Live reels have no source field.

Both live and archived reels expose videoUrl — Instagram's own CDN link, which expires after a few hours, so fetch the video promptly if you need the file itself.

Pricing

Pay-per-event — you're charged only for the reels you collect. Rates decrease with your Apify plan tier.

Event	When it's charged	Rate (Free → Gold+)
Reel scraped	Once per reel row returned (live or archived)	$0.0015 → $0.001

No subscription, no per-run start fee. Historical reels (via includeHistorical) are charged at the same reel-scraped rate as live results.

Use Cases

Audience	How they use it
Marketers / trend analysts	Track what's going viral for a topic and who's driving it
Influencer scouts	Surface rising creators posting high-performing reels in a niche
Content teams	Study top-performing hooks, formats, and audio for a subject
Researchers	Build topic-level datasets of short-video engagement

FAQ

Do I search by keyword or by username? By keyword — this Actor finds reels for a topic across all creators. For a single account's reels, use a per-profile Instagram scraper.

Do I need to log in or provide cookies? No. It never asks for a login, password, or session.

How fresh are the results? Fetched live at run time from Instagram's own reels search ranking.

Can I get reels that dropped out of the search? Yes, if they were captured on an earlier run for that keyword. Every run adds its reels to a permanent archive; turn on includeHistorical to also return archived reels the live search no longer surfaces, tagged source:"archive". Coverage depends on what's already in the archive, so it pays to run a keyword regularly.

Notes & Limitations

• Results follow Instagram's search ranking for the keyword; exact ordering and volume vary by term.
• playCount is Instagram's own play/view metric and can differ from likes/comments.
• includeHistorical returns only reels already in the archive (captured on earlier runs). A keyword never run before has no history yet and returns nothing extra.

🤖 For AI Agents & LLM Apps

Purpose: Find Instagram Reels by keyword with engagement metrics and creator info.

Minimal tested input:

{ "queries": ["coffee"], "maxResultsPerQuery": 50 }

Optional flags: includeHistorical: true also returns archived reels for the keyword from earlier runs (reels the live search no longer surfaces), tagged source:"archive" with firstSeenAt/lastSeenAt.

Output: array of flat objects, one per reel. Fields: query, mediaPk, shortCode, url, playCount, likeCount, commentCount, videoDuration, videoUrl, thumbnailUrl, caption, takenAt, username, userId, userFullName, userIsVerified, musicTitle, musicArtist, downloadUrl. Archived rows (with includeHistorical) add source: "archive", firstSeenAt, lastSeenAt.

Behavior & billing: Pay-per-event, tiered — reel-scraped ($0.0015→$0.001 per reel, charged for both live and archived rows). No login or cookies required.

Support

Found a bug or need a field added? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab in Apify Console, or email muhamed.didovic@gmail.com.

⚠️ Disclaimer

This Actor scrapes only publicly available data and does not log into any Instagram account. Use it in compliance with Instagram's Terms of Use, applicable laws, and data-protection regulations (such as GDPR and CCPA). You are responsible for how you collect and use the data.

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