🎙️ Instagram Reels Transcript Scraper

🚀 Export Instagram Reels transcripts in seconds. 30 fields per Reel, including the full spoken text, timestamped segments, detected language, views, likes, caption and owner, with no Instagram login and no cookies.

Paste Reel links, or give a username and get the transcripts of that profile's latest Reels. The Actor reads the public Reel page, listens to the Reel's own audio track, and writes one flat row per Reel: the words spoken, when each sentence starts and ends, and the language, next to the numbers that tell you how the Reel performed. In our last verified run, 5 Reels in English and Spanish came back fully transcribed in 14 seconds.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Content marketers	Hooks and scripts of top performing Reels in a niche, to repurpose into posts and blogs
Social media agencies	Competitor Reel scripts next to their views and likes, for weekly creative reviews
Brand and PR teams	What creators actually say about a brand in sponsored and co-authored Reels
Researchers and data scientists	Spoken-text datasets from Reels for sentiment, topic and trend analysis
AI builders	Clean Reel transcripts with timestamps for search, RAG and summarization

📋 What the Instagram Reels Transcript Scraper does

💡 Why it matters: captions are often one line and a hashtag. The words spoken in the Reel carry the product names, claims and calls to action.

• Transcribes the audio of public Reels, in the original language and never translated.
• Returns timestamped segments, one {start, end, text} entry per sentence or phrase, in seconds from the start of the Reel.
• Detects the main spoken language and returns its ISO 639-1 code (en, es, pt).
• Reports an honest status: Transcribed, No speech (music or ambience only) or No audio.
• Adds the Reel metadata: caption, owner username, name, verified badge and ID, likes, comments, duration, size, posting date, thumbnail and video URL.
• Adds the view count Instagram shows on a profile's reels tab (profile mode).
• Adds hashtags and mentions from the caption, tagged users and co-authors of collab Reels.
• Takes Reel URLs (/reel/, /reels/, /p/, /tv/), usernames, or both.
• Filters by posting date, skips pinned Reels and skips Reels longer than a limit you set.

🧱 What Instagram allows without a login

Instagram puts a login wall in front of almost everything except the public Reel page and a profile's reels tab. This Actor reads only those two public, server-rendered pages. It never logs in, so it cannot go past what a logged-out visitor sees:

• The latest 12 Reels of a profile, with no pagination.
• View counts only on a profile's reels tab. For a Reel you paste directly, viewCount is Not Disclosed.
• No music title, location or comments.
• Private, deleted or age-restricted Reels come back as an error row that is not charged.

If Instagram throttles an exit IP, the Actor retries through residential proxies by itself.

🎬 Full Demo (🚧 Coming soon)

📊 Output

Every row is one Reel.

Field	Type	Description
🖼 imageUrl	string	Thumbnail
🔖 shortCode	string	Instagram short code
🔗 reelUrl	string	Reel link
🆔 id	string	Media ID
👤 ownerUsername	string	Owner handle
🪪 ownerFullName	string	Owner display name
✅ ownerIsVerified	string	Yes or No
🆔 ownerId	string	Owner ID
📝 caption	string	Caption text
📅 postedAt	string	ISO 8601 posting time
⏱ durationSeconds	number	Reel length
👁 viewCount	number	Views, profile mode only, otherwise Not Disclosed
❤️ likeCount	number	Likes, Not Disclosed when the creator hides counts
💬 commentCount	number	Comment count
🎞 videoUrl	string	Video file URL
↔️ width	number	Width in pixels
↕️ height	number	Height in pixels
🔊 hasAudio	string	Yes or No
📌 isPinned	string	Yes or No in profile mode, N/A otherwise
🎙 transcriptStatus	string	Transcribed, No speech, No audio or Failed
🌐 transcriptLanguage	string	ISO 639-1 code, or N/A
🗒 transcript	string	Full spoken text, or N/A
🔢 transcriptWordCount	number	Words in the transcript
#️⃣ hashtags	array	Hashtags from the caption
📣 mentions	array	Mentions from the caption
🏷 taggedUsers	array	Tagged users
🤝 coauthors	array	Co-authors of a collab Reel
⏲ transcriptSegments	array	{start, end, text} per sentence
🕒 scrapedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp of the extraction
❌ error	string	Error message on a failed row, null on a real Reel

One row from a verified run on September 24, 2026 (image and video URLs shortened for reading):

[
  {
    "imageUrl": "https://scontent-dfw5-2.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.82787-15/811137741_18700328572019133_5289341061833588239_n.jpg?...",
    "shortCode": "DdotQALCHZz",
    "reelUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdotQALCHZz/",
    "id": "3992640081453676147",
    "ownerUsername": "natgeo",
    "ownerFullName": "National Geographic",
    "ownerIsVerified": "Yes",
    "ownerId": "787132",
    "caption": "Phenomenal life lessons from our friend @paige_tingey, part of the Creator Cohort campaign 👏 \n\nCatch the full #NatGeo9 interview with Paige on the Nat Geo YouTube Channel at the link in bio.",
    "postedAt": "2026-09-23T16:10:34.000Z",
    "durationSeconds": 22.31,
    "viewCount": "Not Disclosed",
    "likeCount": 10574,
    "commentCount": 87,
    "videoUrl": "https://scontent-dfw6-2.cdninstagram.com/o1/v/t2/f2/m86/AQPlLaf1n8x-bEzu0VE_wlcSWR-qEFsM8Gn32BenH2_oiDA6MuOnR_lVf-GxwSaxJ0tfBDn0lblgChbanknxQ-N4hwHwU70XhN9_OT8.mp4?...",
    "width": 1080,
    "height": 1920,
    "hasAudio": "Yes",
    "isPinned": "N/A",
    "transcriptStatus": "Transcribed",
    "transcriptLanguage": "en",
    "transcript": "If you're not willing to do the uncomfortable thing today, you're never going to be where you want to be tomorrow. to surround yourself with people that celebrate your wins with you and get rid of relationships that just no longer serve you. And if someone wants you to fail, it's because of their insecurity, not because you don't deserve to succeed.",
    "transcriptWordCount": 62,
    "hashtags": ["NatGeo9"],
    "mentions": ["paige_tingey"],
    "taggedUsers": ["paige_tingey"],
    "coauthors": ["paige_tingey"],
    "transcriptSegments": [
      { "start": 0, "end": 5.5, "text": "If you're not willing to do the uncomfortable thing today, you're never going to be where you want to be tomorrow." },
      { "start": 5.5, "end": 12.5, "text": "to surround yourself with people that celebrate your wins with you and get rid of relationships that just no longer serve you." },
      { "start": 12.5, "end": 18.8, "text": "And if someone wants you to fail, it's because of their insecurity, not because you don't deserve to succeed." }
    ],
    "scrapedAt": "2026-09-24T20:57:31.684Z",
    "error": null
  }
]

Reels taken from a profile also carry viewCount (for example 1,251,904 for this Reel on the natgeo reels tab) and isPinned. A Reel with only music comes back with transcriptStatus: "No speech" and an empty transcript.

✨ Why choose this Actor

• Transcript and metadata in one row. No second tool: the words, the timing, the language and the Reel's numbers side by side.
• Timestamps on every sentence. transcriptSegments is ready for subtitles or for finding the hook.
• Original language, detected. English, Spanish and other languages work without setup. Add a language hint only if you want to.
• Profile mode. A username returns the latest Reels of that profile, with their view counts.
• Fair billing. A failed transcription is delivered free, and there is no start fee. Reels over 3 minutes pay a small per-minute extra, so short Reels stay cheap.
• No login. Public Reels only, no cookies or account at risk.

📈 How it compares to alternatives

	This Actor	Typical Reel transcript Actor	Manual transcription
Timestamped segments	✅	Sometimes	✅ one Reel at a time
Detected language	✅	Sometimes	❌
Views, likes, caption and owner on the same row	✅	Sometimes	❌
Profile mode with view counts	✅	Sometimes	❌
Failed transcription charged	❌ free	Sometimes	n/a
Run-start fee	❌ none	Often	n/a
More than 12 Reels per profile	❌ login wall	Needs a logged-in session	✅
Music title, location, comments	❌ login wall	Needs a logged-in session	✅

🚀 How to use

1. Create a free Apify account. New accounts get $5 in free credit: sign up here.
2. Open the Instagram Reels Transcript Scraper and click Try for free.
3. Paste Reel links in Reel URLs, or usernames in Profile usernames, or both.
4. Set Max Items. Optionally set a date filter, skip pinned Reels, or cap the Reel length.
5. Click Start and watch the run log.
6. Open the Storage tab and download CSV, Excel, JSON or XML, or pull the rows through the Apify API.

Transcribe the latest 5 Reels of two creators, skipping pinned ones:

{ "profileUsernames": ["natgeo", "garyvee"], "maxReelsPerProfile": 5, "skipPinnedReels": true }

Transcribe specific Reels, skip anything longer than 3 minutes, and hint that they are in Portuguese:

{ "reelUrls": ["https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdrAGMwowmZ/"], "maxDurationSeconds": 180, "languageHint": "pt" }

💼 Business use cases

Creative research

Transcribe a creator's latest 12 Reels and sort by viewCount. The first segment of each transcript is the hook, with its exact timing.

Brand monitoring

Search the transcript column for your brand and product names. Spoken mentions never show up in captions or hashtags.

Content repurposing

Turn your own Reels into blog drafts, newsletter snippets, subtitles or show notes from the timestamped segments.

Dataset building

Collect Reel transcripts across creators and languages for classification, sentiment, trend or LLM work.

🔌 Automating Instagram Reels Transcript Scraper

• Make and Zapier: run the Actor on a schedule and push new transcripts into a spreadsheet or a CRM.
• Slack: post an alert when a watched creator publishes a Reel that mentions your brand.
• Airbyte: sync the dataset into a warehouse for text analysis.
• Google Sheets: send each run straight into a shared sheet for the content team.
• Apify Scheduler: run daily or weekly with no external tooling at all.
• API: start runs and read the dataset from JavaScript or Python with the Apify client.

🌟 Beyond business use cases

• Research: study how hooks, topics and languages relate to views across a niche.
• Accessibility: get a text version of Reels for people who cannot listen to audio.
• Education: build a searchable archive of expert Reels for a course.
• Experimentation: feed transcripts to a model for summaries, tagging or translation.

🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Paste this into ChatGPT, Claude or any assistant:

I am using the Instagram Reels Transcript Scraper on Apify. It returns fields such as shortCode, ownerUsername, caption, durationSeconds, viewCount, likeCount, transcriptStatus, transcriptLanguage, transcript and transcriptSegments. Help me analyze the transcripts of the latest Reels of a creator: find the hooks, the topics and the calls to action.

You can also connect it to an AI agent over MCP:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/instagram-reels-transcript-scraper"

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🔑 Do I need an Instagram account or cookies?

No. The Actor reads public Reels as a logged-out visitor.

🌍 Which languages are supported?

The spoken language is detected automatically. English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Hindi and most major languages work. The transcript stays in the original language.

🔤 Does it translate?

No. The transcript is always in the language spoken in the Reel.

⏲ Are timestamps included?

Yes. transcriptSegments has start and end seconds for every sentence or phrase.

👥 Can I transcribe a whole profile?

Only the latest 12 Reels of each profile, which is everything Instagram shows a logged-out visitor. Going deeper needs a logged-in session, which this Actor does not use.

👁 Why is viewCount "Not Disclosed"?

Instagram shows view counts to logged-out visitors only on a profile's reels tab. Add the creator's username to Profile usernames to get views for their latest Reels.

🔇 Why did a Reel come back as "No speech"?

The Reel has only music, sound effects or silence. That is its real state, and the row still carries all its metadata.

🎞 Does it download the video?

No. It listens to the Reel's audio track only, and gives you the videoUrl if you want the file.

🎵 Are music and song names included?

No. Instagram hides the audio track name, the location and the comments from logged-out visitors.

⏳ What about long videos?

They work (a 16-minute video was transcribed in testing). Each started minute after the third is billed as an extra. Use Skip reels longer than to leave them out.

💵 How much does it cost?

It is pay per event. A transcribed Reel with up to 3 minutes of audio costs $0.018 on the free Apify plan tier, and less on higher tiers (down to $0.0125). Each started minute after the third costs $0.0065. There is no run-start fee, and a Reel whose transcription fails is delivered free.

🛑 Why did a Reel fail?

It may be private, deleted, age-restricted, or Instagram rate-limited the request. The row says which, and failed rows are never charged. Run it again a few minutes later.

📦 How many Reels per run?

Free plan: 10 as a preview. Paid plans: up to 1,000,000.

🔌 Integrate with any app

Every run writes to an Apify dataset you can read over the REST API, stream into a webhook, or export as CSV, Excel, JSON or XML. Apify's integrations cover Make, Zapier, Airbyte, Slack, Google Drive, GitHub, Google Sheets and plain HTTP webhooks, so the transcripts can land wherever your team already works.

🔗 Recommended Actors

• Instagram Reel Scraper for Reel metadata, views and captions at scale, without transcripts.
• Audio Transcriber for speech to text on any audio file you upload or link.
• YouTube Transcript Scraper for timestamped transcripts of YouTube videos.
• TikTok Profile Scraper for bio, counts and videos of TikTok creators.

💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection.

🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form

⚠️ Disclaimer: This is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Instagram or Meta Platforms, Inc. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the data in compliance with Instagram's terms and applicable laws, including GDPR and CCPA.