Instagram User Search Scraper — Keyword to Profiles

Search Instagram for accounts by keyword and get back the matching profiles, in the order Instagram ranks them. No login, no cookie, no session.

This is where a workflow starts when you don't yet know whose accounts you want.

Input

Field	Type	Default	What it does
keyword	string	—	Required. Name, brand, topic, or handle fragment.
addonProfile	boolean	false	Swaps each result for its full public profile.

{
  "keyword": "street photography",
  "addonProfile": false
}

One keyword per run, and one request — this is a lookup, not a paginated crawl.

Output

One row per account.

Field	What it holds
username	Account username
full_name	Display name
is_verified	Whether it's verified
is_private	Whether it's private
position	Where Instagram ranked it, starting at the top
enriched	Whether the full profile was fetched

{
  "username": "streetphotographyinternational",
  "full_name": "Street Photography International",
  "is_verified": true,
  "is_private": false,
  "position": 1,
  "enriched": false
}

position is Instagram's own ranking, preserved. It's a relevance signal in its own right — the top few results for a brand term are usually the accounts that actually own it, and everything after is imitation and fan accounts.

Questions

How many accounts come back? Whatever Instagram returns for that keyword in a single response — a ranked shortlist, typically a few dozen at most, not an exhaustive index. There's no pagination and no limit field, because there's nothing to page through.

Why is position worth keeping? Because relevance ordering is information you can't reconstruct afterwards. Sorting by follower count gives you a different and usually worse answer — the biggest account matching "nike" isn't necessarily Nike.

Does it search names, or only usernames? Both. Instagram matches the keyword against usernames and display names, so a search for a person's real name finds them even when their handle looks nothing like it.

What does addonProfile cost? One extra request and one billable event per result. Result sets here are small, so unlike the bulk Actors this addon is usually worth leaving on — enriching thirty accounts is cheap and saves a second run.

Can I search several keywords in one run? No — one keyword per run. Run it once per term, or use Instagram Hashtag & Keyword Search if what you actually want is posts about a subject rather than accounts.

Do private accounts appear? Yes, if they match. They're marked with is_private, and their content isn't reachable — but knowing the account exists is often the point.

Do I need an Instagram login? No. Nothing logs in and no session is passed.

Other Instagram Actors

Actor	Use when
Instagram Profile Content	You've found accounts and want their posts
Instagram Followers & Following	You want their audience
Instagram Hashtag & Keyword Search	You want posts about a subject, not accounts
Instagram Media Engagement	You want comments and likers on a post

Support

Questions, bugs, or feature requests: contact@toolzerhub.com

Browse the rest: apify.com/toolzerhub