# Instagram Scraper — Profiles, Posts & Engagement Data (`oneary/instagram-scraper`) Actor

Scrapes Instagram profile data including user info, posts, stories, and highlights without requiring login.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/oneary/instagram-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Luan M.](https://apify.com/oneary) (community)
- **Categories:** Social media
- **Stats:** 3 total users, 2 monthly users, 0.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $20.00 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Instagram Profile Scraper

[![Apify Actor](https://img.shields.io/badge/Apify-Actor-blue)](https://apify.com/)
[![Node.js](https://img.shields.io/badge/Node.js-18+-green)](https://nodejs.org/)

Scrape Instagram profile data effortlessly — no login required. Extracts user info, posts, stories, and story highlights from any public Instagram profile.

### Features

- **No Login Required** — scrapes publicly available Instagram profile data without authentication
- **Profile Information** — username, full name, bio, followers count, following count, posts count
- **Profile Picture** — high-resolution profile image URL
- **Verified Badge Status** — detects whether the account is verified
- **External URL & Business Category** — website link and business category if set
- **Posts Scraping** — extracts post URLs, captions, like counts, comment counts, dates, media types (photo/video), and hashtags
- **Story Scraping** — optionally scrape current live stories
- **Highlight Scraping** — optionally scrape story highlights
- **Proxy Support** — Apify proxy integration with residential proxies to avoid IP blocking
- **Human-like Delays** — randomized delays between actions to mimic human behavior
- **Concurrent Scraping** — configurable concurrency for faster scraping

### Input

| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|-------|------|---------|-------------|
| `username` | String | — | Single Instagram username to scrape (e.g., `nasa`). Overrides `startUrls` if provided. |
| `startUrls` | Array | `[]` | List of Instagram profile URLs to scrape. |
| `maxPosts` | Integer | `12` | Maximum number of posts to scrape per profile. `0` = all available. |
| `maxConcurrency` | Integer | `3` | Maximum number of concurrent browser pages. |
| `includeStories` | Boolean | `false` | Scrape current live stories from the profile. |
| `includeHighlights` | Boolean | `false` | Scrape story highlights. |
| `proxyConfiguration` | Object | Apify Residential | Proxy configuration to avoid IP blocking. |

#### Example Input

```json
{
  "username": "nasa",
  "maxPosts": 20,
  "includeStories": true,
  "includeHighlights": true,
  "maxConcurrency": 3,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]
  }
}
```

### Output

Each dataset item contains a profile object with the following structure:

#### Profile Data

```json
{
  "type": "profile",
  "url": "https://www.instagram.com/nasa/",
  "username": "nasa",
  "fullName": "NASA",
  "bio": "Explore the universe and discover our home planet.",
  "followers": 75000000,
  "following": 77,
  "postsCount": 4000,
  "profilePicUrl": "https://scontent-...",
  "isVerified": true,
  "externalUrl": "https://www.nasa.gov/",
  "businessCategory": "Science, Technology & Engineering",
  "posts": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.instagram.com/p/ABC123/",
      "caption": "A beautiful view from space #nasa #space",
      "likes": 123456,
      "comments": 2345,
      "date": "2024-01-15T18:30:00.000Z",
      "mediaType": "IMAGE",
      "displayUrl": "https://scontent-...",
      "videoUrl": "",
      "isVideo": false,
      "hashtags": ["nasa", "space"]
    }
  ],
  "stories": [
    { "url": "https://scontent-...", "type": "image" }
  ],
  "highlights": [
    { "url": "https://scontent-...", "type": "image" }
  ],
  "scrapedAt": "2024-01-20T12:00:00.000Z"
}
```

### Usage

#### On Apify Platform

1. Open the [Instagram Profile Scraper](https://apify.com/) on Apify Console
2. Enter the Instagram username(s) or URL(s) you want to scrape
3. Configure options (max posts, stories, concurrency)
4. Click **Run** and wait for results

#### Local Development

```bash
## Install dependencies
npm install

## Install Playwright browsers
npx playwright install chromium

## Run with environment variables
APIFY_LOCAL_STRATEGY=development node src/main.js
```

#### As a Library

```javascript
import { Actor } from 'apify';

// Configure and run programmatically
const input = {
    username: 'nasa',
    maxPosts: 10,
};

// Run with Apify
await Actor.main(async () => {
    // Your scraping logic here
});
```

### Technical Details

- **Runtime:** Node.js 18+
- **Browser:** Playwright (Chromium)
- **Framework:** Crawlee with PlaywrightCrawler
- **Strategy:** Login-free, DOM-based extraction with graceful fallbacks
- **Anti-blocking:** Session pool, cookie persistence, residential proxies, human-like delays

### Limitations

- Only scrapes **public** profiles
- Instagram may rate-limit or block scrapers — proxy configuration is strongly recommended
- Story and highlight scraping depends on Instagram's current UI structure and may break with layout changes
- Very large profiles (10K+ posts) may take significant time to scrape

### License

Apache-2.0

# Actor input Schema

## `username` (type: `string`):

Single Instagram username to scrape (e.g., 'nasa'). Overrides startUrls if provided.

## `startUrls` (type: `array`):

List of Instagram profile URLs to scrape. Each URL should be like https://www.instagram.com/username/

## `maxPosts` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of posts to scrape from the profile. Set to 0 for all available posts.

## `maxConcurrency` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of concurrent browser pages to run.

## `includeStories` (type: `boolean`):

Scrape current live stories if available.

## `includeHighlights` (type: `boolean`):

Scrape story highlights from the profile.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Apify proxy configuration to avoid IP blocking.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "startUrls": [],
  "maxPosts": 12,
  "maxConcurrency": 3,
  "includeStories": false,
  "includeHighlights": false,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ]
  }
}
```

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("oneary/instagram-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("oneary/instagram-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{}' |
apify call oneary/instagram-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,oneary/instagram-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/Nnd5BHfFcaa0xDOhW/builds/cBd472pTDtzEHzHPY/openapi.json