Instagram Following Scraper - Export the Accounts Any Profile Follows

Scrape the full list of accounts any public Instagram profile follows. Get every followed account's username, display name, numeric user ID, private and verified flags, and profile picture URL, without an Instagram API key, login, or cookies.

What this Instagram following scraper does

Pass a list of Instagram usernames (plain handles, @handles, or profile URLs, mixed freely) and the actor returns one clean JSON row per followed account. Pagination is walked automatically page after page until it hits the cap you set or the list runs out, so a request for 5,000 accounts really does walk deep into the list rather than stopping at the first page.

A following list is a stated interest graph: it is what an account chose to pay attention to. That makes it a sharper research signal than a follower list for niche mapping, competitor discovery, interest profiling, and partnership research.

Why use this Instagram following scraper

• No API key, no login, no cookies. Works on any public Instagram account. You never hand over an Instagram account or a password.
• Deep pagination. Ask for 100 accounts or 200,000 and the scraper keeps fetching until your cap is reached.
• Verified and private flags on every row, so you can separate the notable accounts from the personal ones instantly.
• Numeric user IDs included, which stay stable even when someone changes their handle, so repeat runs stay comparable.
• Bulk by username. Several accounts processed in parallel in a single run, each row tagged with the account it came from.
• Residential proxies built in with rotating IPs.
• Clean, flat JSON. Every field is always present, with null where a value genuinely does not exist, so CSV exports never shift columns.

What data you get per followed account

Field	Type	Description
type	string	Record type, always "following"
queryUsername	string	The account whose following list you asked for
username	string	Handle of the followed account
fullName	string	Display name of the followed account
id	string	Numeric Instagram user ID of the followed account
isPrivate	boolean	Whether the followed account is private
isVerified	boolean	Whether the followed account has a verified badge
profilePicUrl	string	Profile picture URL of the followed account
scrapedAt	string	When the row was scraped (ISO 8601 UTC)

How to use the Instagram Following Scraper

1. Click Try for free on the actor page.
2. Enter Instagram usernames in the usernames input. Plain usernames, @handles, and profile URLs all work and are deduplicated.
3. Set maxFollowingPerUser (default 1,000, up to 200,000) to cap how many accounts come back per profile.
4. Tune concurrency (default 3, up to 10) for your speed and safety tradeoff.
5. Click Save & start. Download in JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or HTML, or stream via API.

Example input

{
  "usernames": ["example_brand", "example_user"],
  "maxFollowingPerUser": 5000,
  "concurrency": 3
}

Example output

{
  "type": "following",
  "queryUsername": "example_brand",
  "username": "example_user",
  "fullName": "Jane Doe",
  "id": "100000001",
  "isPrivate": false,
  "isVerified": true,
  "profilePicUrl": "https://example.com/avatar.jpg",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-07-21T09:00:00.000Z"
}

Top use cases

• Niche mapping. Scrape the following lists of several key accounts in a category and the repeat names are that niche's centre of gravity.
• Competitor discovery. The accounts a brand follows often include its partners, suppliers, agencies and rivals.
• Interest profiling. Build a picture of what a target account actually cares about from what it chose to follow.
• Partnership and sponsorship research. Spot which creators and brands an account already engages with before pitching.
• Influencer vetting. An account following tens of thousands of profiles behaves very differently from a curated one.
• Lead qualification. Check whether a prospect already follows accounts in your category.
• Interest-graph building. Combine several following lists to rank the most-followed accounts across a segment.

Integrations

Apify API

$curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/{DATASET_ID}/items?format=json"

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient
from collections import Counter

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_API_TOKEN")

run = client.actor("goat255/instagram-following-scraper").call(run_input={
    "usernames": ["example_brand", "example_user"],
    "maxFollowingPerUser": 5000,
})

rows = list(client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items())

# Accounts followed by more than one of your targets: the niche's core.
shared = Counter(r["username"] for r in rows if r.get("username"))
for username, count in shared.most_common(20):
    if count > 1:
        print(f"@{username}: followed by {count} of your targets")

JavaScript / Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_API_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('goat255/instagram-following-scraper').call({
    usernames: ['example_brand'],
    maxFollowingPerUser: 5000,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
const verified = items.filter((r) => r.isVerified);
console.log(`Follows ${items.length} accounts, ${verified.length} of them verified`);

No-code integrations

Stream results to Google Sheets, Slack, Zapier, Make, Amazon S3, HubSpot, or any webhook via Apify Integrations.

Pricing

Pay per result. No subscription. No per-run start fee. You only pay for the rows you actually receive.

Event	Price
Following scraped (primary)	$0.0025

Apify's $5 platform free credit applies on first use, which is roughly 2,000 free rows to start.

FAQ

Do I need an Instagram account or API key?

No. The scraper works on any public Instagram account without a login, cookies, or the Instagram Graph API.

Can it scrape the following list of a private account?

No. Private accounts do not expose their following list. A private target returns a single row with ok: false and error: "private_account", so you can tell it apart from an account that follows nobody.

What is the difference between this and the followers scraper?

This actor returns the accounts a profile follows. The Instagram Followers Scraper returns the accounts that follow it. Following lists tend to be smaller, more deliberate and better for interest research. Follower lists are better for audience sizing.

How many accounts can I get per profile?

Up to 200,000 per profile per run. Pagination is walked automatically, so setting maxFollowingPerUser to 5,000 returns 5,000 rows if the profile follows that many, not just the first page.

Why did I get fewer rows than I asked for?

The list ran out. Ask for 5,000 on a profile following 300 accounts and you get 300 real rows rather than 5,000 padded ones. The run log states the count per account.

In what order does the list come back?

In the order Instagram serves it, which is roughly most recently followed first. It is not a stable ranking, so match rows by id rather than by position when comparing runs.

Can I export to CSV, Google Sheets or Excel?

Yes. JSON, CSV, Excel, XML and HTML are all supported, plus direct integrations to Google Sheets, Zapier, Make, Slack and S3.

What happens if an account cannot be reached?

The run does not fail. The actor emits a row with ok: false and a generic reason for that account, then carries on with the rest of your list.

Related Apify actors

• 👥 Instagram Followers Scraper - the accounts that follow a profile, same clean row format.
• 👤 Instagram Profile Scraper - bios, follower counts, public emails, phone numbers, business info.
• 📝 Instagram Posts Scraper - bulk export posts, captions, likes, comments, media.
• 🔎 Instagram Hashtag Scraper - top and recent posts for any tag.

Support

Found a bug or a missing field? Open an issue on the actor page. Reviews are read and replied to.

Privacy

To improve our actors we collect anonymized usage telemetry (run stats and input patterns). No personal account data is collected.