Instagram Following Scraper Pro (No Cookie)

An Apify actor that scrapes the list of users a given Instagram profile follows, and fetches detailed profile data for each of those users. It operates without requiring Instagram cookies and includes built-in rate limiting.

Overview

This actor takes one or more Instagram usernames, scrapes their "following" lists, and enriches that data with comprehensive profile information for each followed account. It's designed for reliability, with automatic rate limiting to respect Instagram's thresholds.

Key Features

• Following List Scraping: Extracts the "following" list from any public Instagram profile.
• Detailed Profile Enrichment: For each followed user, retrieves an extensive set of profile data.
• Built-in Rate Limiting: Automatically limits requests to ~1.5 per second to avoid blocks.
• Freemium Model: Free users have limits; premium users have none.
• Structured Output: Returns clean, formatted data in JSON, CSV, and other formats via Apify datasets.

Data Collected

For each followed profile, the actor can collect:
* Basic Info: Username, full name, profile picture URL, verification and privacy status.
* Engagement Metrics: Follower count, following count, total posts count, reels/clips count.
* Profile Details: Biography, external website link, location, pronouns.
* Business Information: Account type, category, business status, and badges.
* Additional Data: Bio links, mutual follower count, latest story timestamp.

How to Use

1. Build the Actor in your Apify Console.
2. Configure Input: Set the target usernames and adjust parameters like max_count.
3. Run: Start the actor and monitor its progress in the console.
4. Export: Download your results from the dataset in JSON, CSV, Excel, or other formats.

Input Parameters

Configure these in the actor's input before a run:

• usernames (Required): An array of Instagram usernames, user IDs, or profile URLs to scrape.
• max_count (Default: 50): The maximum number of "following" users to scrape per input username.
• scrape_profiles (Default: true): If true, fetches detailed data for each followed user. If false, returns only basic following list data.

Freemium Limits

• Free Users: Maximum of 5 input usernames, with up to 25 following scraped per username.
• Premium Users: No limits on the number of usernames or items scraped.

Output

The actor outputs an array of items, one for each scraped "following" user. Each item is a structured object containing the scraped profile fields.

Example Output Item:

{
  "username": "example_user",
  "user_id": "123456789",
  "full_name": "Example User",
  "profile_pic_url": "https://...",
  "is_private": false,
  "is_verified": true,
  "following_of": "target_profile",
  "biography": "User's bio text",
  "external_url": "https://example.com",
  "follower_count": 1000,
  "following_count": 500,
  "media_count": 100,
  "is_business": false,
  "category": "Personal Blog",
  "city_name": "New York",
  "pronouns": ["he/him"],
  "account_badges": [],
  "bio_links": [],
  "latest_story_ts": 1640995200,
  "total_clips_count": 10,
  "mutual_followers_count": 5,
  "scraped_at": 1640995200,
  "profile_data_source": "enhanced"
}