Instagram Profile Scraper

Scrape Instagram user profiles to extract detailed information including follower count, biography, profile pictures, verification status, and more.

Features

• 🔍 Scrape multiple Instagram profiles in one run
• 🔄 Hybrid Scraping Engine: Automatically switches between API and Selenium (with Meta Tag extraction) for maximum reliability
• 📱 Mobile Emulation Fallback: Automatically switches to mobile device emulation if desktop scraping is blocked, often bypassing simple login walls.
• 📊 Extract comprehensive profile information (biography, follower count, posts, etc.)
• 🛡️ Robust: Validation logic ensures no incomplete data is returned
• 🔄 Automatic data export to Apify dataset

Input

The actor accepts the following input parameters:

Input Parameters

• usernames (required): Array of Instagram usernames to scrape (without @ symbol)

  • Type: Array<string>
  • Example: ["instagram", "cristiano", "nasa"]

• use_legacy (optional): Boolean flag to force usage of Selenium/DOM scraping (bypassing API)

  • Type: boolean
  • Default: false

Sample Input

{
  "use_legacy": false,
  "usernames": ["nasa"]
}

Output

The actor extracts comprehensive profile data including basic info, statistics, posts, and related profiles.

Output Fields

Basic Information:

• inputUrl: Full Instagram profile URL
• id: Instagram user ID
• username: Instagram username
• url: Instagram profile URL
• fullName: Display name
• biography: Profile bio/description

About Object:

• about.country: Country (if available)
• about.date_joined: Join date
• about.is_verified: Verification status
• about.id: User ID
• about.username: Username

Statistics:

• followersCount: Number of followers
• followsCount: Number of accounts following
• postsCount: Number of posts
• highlightReelCount: Number of highlight reels
• igtvVideoCount: Number of IGTV videos

Account Details:

• isBusinessAccount: Business account status
• joinedRecently: Recently joined flag
• hasChannel: Has channel flag
• businessCategoryName: Business category
• private: Private account status
• verified: Verified badge status

Links & Media:

• externalUrl: Primary link in bio
• externalUrlShimmed: Shimmed external URL
• externalUrls: Array of all bio links with titles
• profilePicUrl: Profile picture URL (150x150)
• profilePicUrlHD: High-res profile picture (320x320)

Social Data:

• relatedProfiles: Array of related Instagram profiles
• latestPosts: Array of recent posts (up to 12) with full metadata
• latestIgtvVideos: Array of IGTV videos with details

Sample Output

{
  "inputUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/nasa",
  "id": "528817151",
  "username": "nasa",
  "url": "https://www.instagram.com/nasa",
  "fullName": "NASA",
  "biography": "🚀 🌎  Exploring the universe and our home planet. Verification: nasa.gov/socialmedia",
  "about": {
    "accounts_with_shared_followers": null,
    "country": null,
    "date_joined": null,
    "date_joined_as_timestamp": null,
    "date_verified": null,
    "date_verified_as_timestamp": null,
    "former_usernames": 0,
    "id": "528817151",
    "is_verified": true,
    "username": "nasa"
  },
  "followersCount": 98209149,
  "followsCount": 92,
  "postsCount": 4591,
  "highlightReelCount": 7,
  "igtvVideoCount": 171,
  "isBusinessAccount": true,
  "joinedRecently": false,
  "hasChannel": false,
  "businessCategoryName": null,
  "private": false,
  "verified": true,
  "externalUrl": "https://www.nasa.gov/",
  "externalUrlShimmed": "https://l.instagram.com/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nasa.gov%2F&e=...",
  "externalUrls": [
    {
      "title": "Launches & Landings",
      "lynx_url": "https://l.instagram.com/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fnasa.gov%2Fevents&e=...",
      "url": "http://nasa.gov/events",
      "link_type": "external"
    },
    {
      "title": "NASA+",
      "lynx_url": "https://l.instagram.com/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fplus.nasa.gov%2F&e=...",
      "url": "https://plus.nasa.gov",
      "link_type": "external"
    }
  ],
  "profilePicUrl": "https://instagram.famd21-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/...",
  "profilePicUrlHD": "https://instagram.famd21-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/...",
  "relatedProfiles": [
    {
      "id": "953293389",
      "full_name": "International Space Station",
      "is_private": false,
      "is_verified": true,
      "profile_pic_url": "https://...",
      "username": "iss"
    }
  ],
  "latestPosts": [
    {
      "id": "3710009743416087462",
      "type": "Video",
      "shortCode": "DN8mjSFjdOm",
      "caption": "We're going up, up, up, it's our moment! 🎶...",
      "hashtags": ["NASARoman", "Astrophysics", "SpaceTelescope"],
      "mentions": ["NASAGoddard", "NASAUniverse"],
      "url": "https://www.instagram.com/p/DN8mjSFjdOm/",
      "commentsCount": 429,
      "dimensionsHeight": 853,
      "dimensionsWidth": 480,
      "displayUrl": "https://scontent-lga3-3.cdninstagram.com/v/...",
      "images": [],
      "videoUrl": "https://scontent-lga3-2.cdninstagram.com/o1/v/...",
      "alt": null,
      "likesCount": 53833,
      "videoViewCount": 926847,
      "timestamp": "2025-08-29T17:16:11.000Z",
      "childPosts": [],
      "ownerUsername": "nasa",
      "ownerId": "528817151",
      "productType": "clips",
      "taggedUsers": [
        {
          "full_name": "NASA Goddard",
          "id": "3808579",
          "is_verified": true,
          "profile_pic_url": "https://...",
          "username": "nasagoddard"
        }
      ],
      "isCommentsDisabled": false
    }
  ],
  "latestIgtvVideos": [
    {
      "id": "3073651751604454027",
      "type": "Video",
      "shortCode": "CqnzfuxpAKL",
      "title": "",
      "caption": "On April 3, we announced the team of space explorers...",
      "commentsCount": 2378,
      "dimensionsHeight": 1920,
      "dimensionsWidth": 1080,
      "displayUrl": "https://...",
      "likesCount": 330976,
      "videoDuration": 1122.054,
      "videoViewCount": 2430081,
      "videoUrl": "https://...",
      "timestamp": "2023-04-04T17:04:37.000Z",
      "ownerUsername": "nasa",
      "ownerId": "528817151"
    }
  ]
}

Usage

Running on Apify Platform

1. Go to the Apify Console
2. Navigate to Actors → Your Actor
3. Click "Run" and provide input
4. View results in the Dataset tab

Avoiding Rate Limits

Instagram has strict rate limiting. To avoid 429 errors:

1. Enable Apify Proxy (Recommended)

   • In input settings, enable "Proxy configuration"
   • Select "Use Apify Proxy"
   • This rotates IPs and reduces rate limit issues

2. Scrape Fewer Profiles

   • Start with 1-3 profiles per run
   • Wait 5-10 minutes between runs

3. Automatic Retry Logic

   • Actor automatically retries failed requests with exponential backoff
   • Waits 5s, 10s, 20s between retries

4. Error Messages

   • 429 Rate limit = Instagram blocked your IP temporarily
   • Timeout waiting for profile = Page took too long to load
   • Solution: Enable proxy or wait before retrying

Notes

⚠️ Important:

• Instagram may rate-limit or block requests if you scrape too aggressively
• Use Apify Proxy for production scraping to avoid rate limits
• Always respect Instagram's Terms of Service and robots.txt
• Use reasonable delays between requests
• This actor is for educational purposes