Instagram Reels Scraper

Overview

An Apify actor that scrapes metadata from Instagram Reels and video posts. It uses a robust proxy fallback strategy to ensure runs succeed even when no proxy is provided in the input. Results are stored in an Apify Dataset and the key-value store.

Key Features

• Scrapes Instagram Reels and single video posts by URL.
• Returns a consistent, structured output object for each input.
• Automatically uses an Apify proxyConfiguration if supplied.
• Fallback proxy system: If no proxy is provided or the Apify proxy fails, the actor uses an embedded residential proxy to complete the run.
• Optional Instagram authentication via environment variables (IG_USER, IG_PASS), used by the underlying Instaloader library.

How to Use

Provide an array of Instagram Reel URLs in the actor input. You can optionally configure a proxy for better reliability. Authentication is handled via environment variables, not the input JSON.

Input

The main input fields are:

Example Input:

{
  "startUrls": [
    "https://www.instagram.com/reels/DN0TD6u5MhM/",
    "https://www.instagram.com/reels/DOQJO_SgROw/"
  ],
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]
  }
}

Output

The actor writes each scraped item to the Apify Dataset and the complete results array to the key-value store under the key OUTPUT.

Each result item includes these fields (best-effort extraction):
* original_url – The input URL.
* id – Instagram media ID.
* ownerFullName, ownerUsername, ownerId – Profile details of the post owner.
* description – Caption text.
* likesCount, commentsCount, videoViewCount – Engagement metrics.
* upload_date – ISO 8601 timestamp of the post.
* thumbnail_url – Main thumbnail URL.
* duration – Video length in seconds (if available).
* resolution – Video dimensions (e.g., 1080x1920).
* type – Content type (video, image, or GraphQL type).
* hashtags, mentions – Lists parsed from the caption.
* formats – Array of available media resources (videos/images) with URLs and dimensions.
* _scraped_at – UTC timestamp when the item was scraped.
* _source_index – 1-based index of the source URL in the input order.