Insta-Post-Insight-Fetcher

Apify actor that scrapes publicly visible Instagram post and reel metrics by username, usernames list, or direct Instagram URLs.

What it does

• Accepts an Instagram username, @handle, or full profile URL.
• Accepts bulk usernames input with up to 1000 usernames per run.
• Accepts direct Instagram urls for posts and reels.
• Scrapes recent public posts from a profile and/or direct media details from URLs.
• Returns public metrics such as likes, comments, views, caption, post URL, and timestamp.
• Uses CheerioCrawler with a request queue to process profile and pagination requests.
• Retries blocked requests with a fresh session, which is closer to how stable Apify marketplace actors behave.
• Uses cursor pagination to collect more than the default first page when Instagram allows it.

Input

{
  "username": "instagram",
  "usernames": [
    "instagram",
    "natgeo"
  ],
  "postCount": 12,
  "urls": [
    "https://www.instagram.com/p/ABC123XYZ/",
    "https://www.instagram.com/reel/XYZ123ABC/"
  ],
  "proxyConfig": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}

Input fields

• username - optional Instagram username, @handle, or profile URL.
• usernames - optional list of up to 1000 usernames or profile URLs.
• postCount - optional number of recent posts to collect from the username profile, from 1 to 100. Default is 12.
• urls - optional list of direct Instagram post or reel URLs. The actor auto-detects the media type.
• proxyConfig - optional Apify proxy configuration for blocked or throttled requests.

How it works

• The actor can start with one profile request, many profile requests, one or more direct media URL requests, or any combination of them.
• For usernames, it parses the first page of public posts from each profile response.
• If more profile posts are needed, it adds GraphQL pagination requests to the queue.
• For direct Instagram URLs, it extracts the shortcode and detects whether the URL is a post, reel, or TV media URL automatically.
• When Instagram blocks a request, the crawler retires that session and retries the request.
• After the queue is drained, the actor pushes the collected posts to the dataset.

Output

Each dataset item contains one post or reel:

{
  "sourceType": "profile_post",
  "inputUrl": null,
  "username": "instagram",
  "fullName": "Instagram",
  "userId": "25025320",
  "profileUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/instagram/",
  "postId": "1234567890",
  "shortcode": "ABC123XYZ",
  "postUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/p/ABC123XYZ/",
  "mediaType": "image",
  "isVideo": false,
  "caption": "Example caption",
  "hashtags": ["example"],
  "mentions": ["example_user"],
  "likeCount": 1000,
  "commentCount": 42,
  "firstComment": "",
  "latestComments": [],
  "viewCount": null,
  "playCount": null,
  "takenAt": "2026-05-25T10:00:00.000Z",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://...",
  "dimensions": {
    "height": 1350,
    "width": 1080
  },
  "dimensionsHeight": 1350,
  "dimensionsWidth": 1080,
  "productType": "clips",
  "videoUrl": "https://...",
  "audioUrl": "https://...",
  "videoDuration": 58.266,
  "taggedUsers": [],
  "coauthorProducers": [],
  "isCommentsDisabled": false,
  "musicInfo": {
    "artist_name": "Example Artist",
    "song_name": "Example Song",
    "audio_id": "123456789"
  },
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-25T11:00:00.000Z"
}

Important notes

• This actor extracts public web data only.
• It does not return private creator insights such as reach, impressions, saves, or shares.
• Reel/video viewCount and playCount (videoViewCount / videoPlayCount in output) are best-effort public metrics and can differ from the live Instagram app UI.
• If only one of view/play is available from Instagram, the actor leaves the other field unset (they are different metrics — do not treat them as interchangeable).
• Instagram can throttle anonymous traffic. For better success, use proxyConfig.
• Proxy cost tip: do not enable Residential by default. Use plain Apify Proxy ("useApifyProxy": true with no apifyProxyGroups). Turn on Residential only when you see frequent blocks:

  "proxyConfig": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]
  }
  

• For missing reel videoViewCount / videoPlayCount, the actor uses anonymous enrichment (no login):
  1. Browser in-page Polaris + profile Reels tab scroll
  2. Targeted Residential HTTP probe only when counts are still missing
  3. Residential browser as last resort
• Do not enable Residential for the whole crawl unless you need it; count fallback creates it automatically when needed.
• The actor is queue-based and session-aware, but Instagram can still change internal endpoints at any time.
• Direct URL scraping uses shortcode-based GraphQL lookup. If Instagram changes its doc_id or payload shape, that part may need maintenance.
• Pagination relies on Instagram's current web behavior, so long-range scraping may require maintenance if Instagram changes internal endpoints.
• The actor allows up to 1000 usernames per run, but large batches can still return partial results if Instagram blocks pagination.
• For large jobs, split profile scraping into smaller sequential batches such as 100 usernames per run for better reliability.