Instructables Scraper

Overview

This actor scrapes data from Instructables.com, providing structured access to content since a free public API is not available. It's designed for developers who need to extract project details, user information, search results, and comments at scale.

Key Features

• Search: Scrape results for any keyword.
• List Scraping: Extract data from category pages, user project lists, and other listing pages.
• User Details: Retrieve profile information from a user's page URL.
• Project Details: Get structured data for individual projects, including title, description, likes, comments, and steps.
• Comments: Optionally scrape all comments from a project page.

How to Use

Configure the actor using a JSON input. The scraper supports multiple target types via startUrls or a direct search keyword. You must use a proxy; Apify Proxy is supported.

Performance Note: The actor is optimized for speed. With minimal blocking, it can scrape approximately 100 listings in 2 minutes, consuming ~0.15-0.35 compute units.

Input/Output

Input Parameters (JSON)

{
  "search": "(Optional) String. Keyword to search for.",
  "startUrls": ["(Optional) Array of Instructables URLs (list, search, category, user, or project pages)."],
  "includeComments": "(Optional) Boolean. Adds comments to project objects. Increases time and resource usage.",
  "endPage": "(Optional) Number. Final page number to scrape for paginated results (search/startUrls). Default is infinite.",
  "maxItems": "(Optional) Number. Limit the total number of scraped items.",
  "proxy": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  },
  "extendOutputFunction": "(Optional) String. Custom function to extract additional data.",
  "customMapFunction": "(Optional) String. Custom function to transform each scraped object."
}

Usage Tip: To scrape a specific page range from a list, set a startUrl to the first desired page and define the endPage. For example, a start URL of page 5 with "endPage": 6 will scrape only pages 5 and 6.

Example Input

{
  "startUrls": [
    "https://www.instructables.com/member/zaphodd42/",
    "https://www.instructables.com/Make-PVC-Look-Like-Wood/",
    "https://www.instructables.com/search/?q=project&projects=all",
    "https://www.instructables.com/living/",
    "https://www.instructables.com/member/zaphodd42/instructables/"
  ],
  "includeComments": false,
  "maxItems": 10,
  "endPage": 2,
  "proxy": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}

Output

The actor outputs structured data (typically as JSON) containing the scraped entities—users, projects, lists, or search results—based on the input URLs and parameters. Project details include title, description, metrics, steps, and optionally, comments.

Development & Support

This scraper is under active development. For bug reports or feature requests, create an issue on the GitHub repository.