📸 Instagram Posts Scraper

🚀 Extract Instagram posts, Reels, and profile data in minutes. Pull from any public account by username, profile URL, or post URL. Filter by media type and date range. No login, no API keys, no Instagram developer approval.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-04-21 · 📊 25 fields per post · 🎬 Reels/images/video/carousel · 📅 Date filtering · 🚫 No auth required

🎁 Paid plan adds

📈 Virality metrics

📝 Caption intelligence

💸 Sponsorship detection

📍 Location coords

The Instagram Posts Scraper collects post data from any public Instagram profile, returning 25 fields per post: caption, hashtags, mentions, like count, comment count, view count, play count, media type, video URL, image URLs, location, tagged users, collaborators, alt text, video duration, and timestamps. Runs support up to 1,000,000 posts on a paid plan.

The Actor accepts three input formats in the same run: usernames (nike), profile URLs (https://instagram.com/nike), and individual post URLs (https://instagram.com/p/ABC123). Filter by media type (image, video, Reel, carousel) and date range (absolute dates, ISO timestamps, or relative like "30 days"). No Instagram account, Graph API credentials, or developer approval needed.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Social media analysts, influencer marketing teams, brand managers, growth hackers, academic researchers, content strategists	Competitor analysis, engagement benchmarking, influencer vetting, hashtag research, content audits, trend tracking

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📋 What the Instagram Posts Scraper does

Three input formats with media and date filters:

• 👤 Username mode. Enter usernames like nike or cristiano to pull their recent posts.
• 🔗 URL mode. Paste profile URLs (instagram.com/nike) or individual post URLs (instagram.com/p/ABC123).
• 🎬 Media type filter. Restrict to image, video, reel, or carousel posts only.
• 📅 Date filter. Limit results by absolute dates (2025-01-01), ISO timestamps, or relative periods (30 days, 3 months, 1 year).

Each post record includes caption, parsed hashtag and mention arrays, engagement metrics (likes, comments, views, plays), media type and product type, video URL, all image URLs, carousel count, location, tagged users, collaborators, alt text, video duration, post URL, shortcode, and timestamps.

💡 Why it matters: the official Instagram Graph API only returns data for accounts you own or manage. This Actor reads the same public data any visitor sees and returns it as structured JSON, CSV, or Excel, making competitor analysis, influencer vetting, and hashtag research practical at scale.

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🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon: a 3-minute walkthrough showing how to go from sign-up to a downloaded dataset.

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⚙️ Input

Input	Type	Default	Behavior
startUrls	array	[]	Usernames, profile URLs, or individual post URLs. All three formats accepted in the same run.
maxItems	integer	10	Max posts per profile. Free: up to 10. Paid: up to 1,000,000.
maxItemsTotal	integer	-	Optional total cap across all profiles combined.
mediaTypeFilter	string	"all"	Filter: all, image, video, reel, or carousel.
dateFilter	string	""	Date range: 2025-01-01, 30 days, 3 months, 1 year.
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify residential	Residential proxies recommended for large runs.

Example: last 30 days of Reels from two profiles.

{
    "startUrls": ["cristiano", "https://www.instagram.com/nike/"],
    "maxItems": 50,
    "mediaTypeFilter": "reel",
    "dateFilter": "30 days"
}

Example: all posts from a single profile URL.

{
    "startUrls": ["https://www.instagram.com/natgeo/"],
    "maxItems": 100
}

⚠️ Good to Know: residential proxies are recommended for runs over 50 posts. Instagram rate-limits aggressively on datacenter IPs. The proxy configuration is pre-filled with recommended settings.

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📊 Output

Each post record contains 25 fields. Download the dataset as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

🧾 Schema

Field	Type	Example
🖼️ thumbnailUrl	string	"https://scontent-..."
📝 caption	string	"Golden hour over the canyon."
👤 username	string	"natgeo"
👍 likeCount	number	42891
💬 commentCount	number	1204
📈 viewCount	number	980000
▶️ playCount	number	850000
🎬 mediaType	string	"video"
🎬 productType	string	"feed"
🎥 videoUrl	string	"https://scontent-..."
🖼️ imageUrls	array	["https://scontent-..."]
🖼️ carouselCount	number	0
#️⃣ hashtags	array	["goldenhour", "canyon"]
@ mentions	array	[]
📍 location	string	"Grand Canyon National Park"
👥 taggedUsers	array	[]
🤝 collaborators	array	[]
🔇 commentsDisabled	boolean	false
🙈 likesHidden	boolean	false
🌿 altText	string | null	null
⏱️ videoDuration	number | null	45.2
🔗 postUrl	string	"https://www.instagram.com/p/DPwJzEVDbwC/"
🆔 shortcode	string	"DPwJzEVDbwC"
📅 timestamp	ISO 8601	"2025-10-13T14:40:07.000Z"
🕒 scrapedAt	ISO 8601	"2026-04-16T00:00:00.000Z"

📦 Sample records

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✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
📸	25 fields per post. Caption, hashtags, mentions, engagement, media URLs, location, tagged users, and timestamps.
🎬	Media type filter. Restrict to images, videos, Reels, or carousels in a single parameter.
📅	Date filtering. Absolute dates, ISO timestamps, or relative periods like "30 days" or "3 months".
🔗	Three input formats. Usernames, profile URLs, and individual post URLs in the same run.
⚡	Fast. Pulls hundreds of posts per minute with residential proxy.
📊	Per-profile and total caps. Control exactly how many posts to collect from each account.
🚫	No authentication. No Instagram login, Graph API credentials, or developer approval needed.

📊 Instagram has over 2 billion monthly active users. Having structured access to public post data is the foundation for any social media analysis, influencer marketing, or competitive intelligence workflow.

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Coverage	Refresh	Filters	Setup
⭐ Instagram Posts Scraper (this Actor)	$5 free credit, then pay-per-use	Any public profile	Live per run	media type, date range, per-profile cap	⚡ 2 min
Instagram Graph API	Free with restrictions	Only your own accounts	Real-time	Many	🐢 Days (app review)
Third-party social analytics tools	$99-499/month	Multi-platform	Varies	Many	⏳ Hours
Manual browsing	Free	Manual	Manual	Instagram UI only	🕒 Hours per account

Pick this Actor when you want public Instagram data on demand, without Graph API credentials, without managing tokens, and without paying for a full social analytics subscription.

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🚀 How to use

1. 📝 Sign up. Create a free account with $5 credit (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 Open the Actor. Go to the Instagram Posts Scraper page on the Apify Store.
3. 🎯 Set input. Add usernames, profile URLs, or post URLs. Set media type filter, date range, and maxItems.
4. 🚀 Run it. Click Start and let the Actor collect your data.
5. 📥 Download. Grab your results in the Dataset tab as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

⏱️ Total time from signup to downloaded dataset: 3-5 minutes. No coding required.

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💼 Business use cases

📊 Social Media Analytics Track engagement across competitor accounts Benchmark posting cadence and content mix Build weekly reports on share of voice by hashtag Monitor brand mention volume over time	🤝 Influencer Marketing Vet creators by engagement rate and posting frequency Filter for Reels-only to evaluate short-form content Compare collaborator and tagged-user networks Build shortlists filtered by date range and media type
🎨 Content Strategy Research which content formats drive engagement Analyze competitor caption and hashtag strategies Track trending visual styles via alt-text data Build content calendars from competitor posting patterns	🎓 Academic & Market Research Build public-discourse datasets from Instagram Analyze brand representation across categories Study visual content trends with image URLs Export structured data for quantitative analysis

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

Data like this powers more than commercial workflows. The same structured records support research, education, civic projects, and personal initiatives.

🎓 Research and academia Empirical datasets for papers, thesis work, and coursework Longitudinal studies tracking changes across snapshots Reproducible research with cited, versioned data pulls Classroom exercises on data analysis and ethical scraping	🎨 Personal and creative Side projects, portfolio demos, and indie app launches Data visualizations, dashboards, and infographics Content research for bloggers, YouTubers, and podcasters Hobbyist collections and personal trackers
🤝 Non-profit and civic Transparency reporting and accountability projects Advocacy campaigns backed by public-interest data Community-run databases for local issues Investigative journalism on public records	🧪 Experimentation Prototype AI and machine-learning pipelines with real data Validate product-market hypotheses before engineering spend Train small domain-specific models on niche corpora Test dashboard concepts with live input

🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Open a ready-to-send prompt about this ParseForge actor in the AI of your choice:

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity
• 🅒 Copilot

💰 How much does it cost?

Apify gives you $5 in free monthly credits on the Apify Free plan, enough to test Instagram Posts Scraper and pull a real sample dataset. For ongoing usage:

• Starter plan ($49/month) — Recommended for individuals running Instagram Posts Scraper regularly. Includes higher concurrency and larger datasets.
• Scale plan ($499/month) — Recommended for teams running Instagram Posts Scraper at production scale.

Pay-Per-Event pricing means you only pay for what you actually use. Failed runs are never charged. See the Pricing tab on this Actor's page for exact event prices.

💡 Tips for using Instagram Posts Scraper

• Start with a small maxItems (3-10) to validate output format before running larger jobs.
• Use Apify Schedules to run Instagram Posts Scraper on a recurring basis and keep your dataset fresh.
• Export via Integrations: Apify connects to Google Sheets, Airbyte, Make, Zapier, and direct webhooks — pipe your data anywhere.
• Monitor with webhooks: trigger downstream workflows the moment a run finishes.
• Re-run failed items: if any individual records error out, re-run with their inputs only. Failed events are not charged.

⚖️ Is it legal to use Instagram Posts Scraper?

Yes. Instagram Posts Scraper only collects publicly available data. Web scraping public data has been confirmed as legal by US courts (see hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn) and is widely used for research, market analysis, and business intelligence.

However, you are responsible for:

• Respecting the source website's Terms of Service.
• Complying with GDPR, CCPA, and other applicable data-protection laws when personal data is involved.
• Not republishing copyrighted content without permission.

If you have specific compliance concerns, consult your legal team. See the Apify legal docs for more.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🔌 Automating Instagram Posts Scraper

Control the scraper programmatically for scheduled runs and pipeline integrations:

• 🟢 Node.js. Install the apify-client NPM package.
• 🐍 Python. Use the apify-client PyPI package.
• 📚 See the Apify API documentation for full details.

The Apify Schedules feature lets you trigger this Actor on any cron interval. Weekly pulls keep your social-listening dashboards in sync automatically.

🔌 Integrate with any app

Instagram Posts Scraper connects to any cloud service via Apify integrations:

• Make - Automate multi-step workflows
• Zapier - Connect with 5,000+ apps
• Slack - Get run notifications in your channels
• Airbyte - Pipe Instagram data into your warehouse
• GitHub - Trigger runs from commits and releases
• Google Drive - Export datasets straight to Sheets

You can also use webhooks to trigger downstream actions when a run finishes. Push fresh Instagram data into your social-listening dashboard, or alert your team in Slack.

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🔗 Recommended Actors

• 👤 Instagram Profile Scraper - Bio, follower counts, verification, and profile metadata
• 🎬 Instagram Reel Scraper - Reels data with views, likes, comments, and audio tracks
• #️⃣ Instagram Hashtag Analytics Scraper - Top and recent posts by hashtag with volume stats
• 🐦 X.com Tweets Scraper - Tweet data, engagement metrics, and author details
• 📱 Reddit Posts Scraper - Reddit posts with score, comments, and flair filters

💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection for more social media scrapers.

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🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form to request a new scraper, propose a custom data project, or report an issue.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: this Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Instagram, Meta Platforms, Inc., or any of their subsidiaries. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Only publicly available post data is collected.