# Instagram Reel Scraper (`parseforge/instagram-reel-scraper`) Actor

Scrape Instagram Reels from any public profile or direct reel URL. Extract video links, view counts, likes, comments, captions, hashtags, mentions, music info, and thumbnails. Filter by date, limit per profile, skip pinned reels, and collect top comments. No login required.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/parseforge/instagram-reel-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [ParseForge](https://apify.com/parseforge) (community)
- **Categories:** Social media, Lead generation, Other
- **Stats:** 164 total users, 17 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 1 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per event

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

![ParseForge Banner](https://github.com/ParseForge/apify-assets/blob/ad35ccc13ddd068b9d6cba33f323962e39aed5b2/banner.jpg?raw=true)

## 🎬 Instagram Reel Scraper

> 🚀 **Pull Instagram Reels from any public profile in minutes.** Video URLs, views, likes, comments, captions, music, duration, thumbnails. No login.

Pull live Instagram Reels from any public profile. The actor accepts a list of usernames, profile URLs, or direct Reel URLs and walks each profile's Reels feed to return one structured record per Reel ready for content research, social listening, brand monitoring, or creator-marketing analysis.

Every run fetches data live so you get the current state of Instagram at run time. Records include the Reel URL, video URL, thumbnail, view count, like count, comment count, caption, music track, duration, posted date, and optional top comments.

| 👥 Built for | 🎯 Primary use cases |
|---|---|
| Content marketers | Track top-performing Reels by competitor |
| Brand teams | Monitor brand mentions across creator Reels |
| Influencer-marketing | Source creators by Reel performance |
| Music discovery | Surface trending audio and music tracks |
| Researchers | Study short-video content trends |
| Engineering teams | Power Reel-archival or analytics products |

### 📋 What the Instagram Reel Scraper does

- 🎬 **Three input types.** Username (natgeo), profile URL, or direct Reel URL.
- 🗓️ **Date filter.** newerThan cutoff (absolute date or relative like `30 days`).
- 📌 **Skip pinned.** Optional flag to skip pinned (often older) Reels.
- 💬 **Optional comments.** Fetch top N comments per Reel.
- 🎵 **Music data.** Track name and artist where exposed.
- 📊 **Engagement.** Views, likes, comments, duration.

The scraper walks each profile's Reels feed in parallel, fetches each Reel's metadata, and pushes structured records to the dataset.

> 💡 **Why it matters:** Reels are Instagram's highest-engagement format but its UI is paginated, JS-rendered, and lacks bulk export. A live, structured pull beats manual scraping for creator-marketing intel, brand monitoring, and content research.

### 📊 Data fields

Each record includes: `audioType`, `caption`, `commentCount`, `duration`, `hashtags`, `height`, `isBrandedContent`, `likeCount`, `mentions`, `musicArtist`, `musicId`, `musicTitle`, `position`, `reelUrl`, `scrapedAt`, `shortcode`, `thumbnailUrl`, `timestamp`, `username`, `videoUrl`, `viewCount`, `width`. All 22 field names come from a real production run, so what you see here is what lands in your dataset.

### 🚀 How to use

1. 📝 **Sign up.** [Create a free account with $5 credit](https://console.apify.com/sign-up?fpr=vmoqkp) (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 **Open the Actor.** Go to the Instagram Reel Scraper page on the Apify Store.
3. 🎯 **Set inputs.** Add usernames, profile URLs, or Reel URLs to urls and configure filters.
4. 🚀 **Run it.** Click **Start** and let the Actor collect your data.
5. 📥 **Download.** Grab your results in the **Dataset** tab as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

> ⏱️ Total time from signup to downloaded dataset: **3-5 minutes.** No coding required.

### 🔗 Recommended Actors

- [**📸 Instagram Posts Scraper**](https://apify.com/parseforge/instagram-posts-scraper) - Instagram posts and reels with metadata
- [**📸 Instagram Profile Scraper**](https://apify.com/parseforge/instagram-profile-scraper) - Profile data, follower counts, bio
- [**📱 TikTok Video Scraper**](https://apify.com/parseforge/tiktok-video-scraper) - TikTok videos with engagement
- [**🎬 YouTube AI Transcriber**](https://apify.com/parseforge/youtube-ai-transcriber) - Transcribe YouTube videos
- [**💼 LinkedIn Posts Scraper**](https://apify.com/parseforge/linkedin-posts-scraper) - LinkedIn posts from profiles

> 💡 **Pro Tip:** browse the complete [ParseForge collection](https://apify.com/parseforge) for more reference-data scrapers.

> ⚠️ **Disclaimer.** This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Meta or Instagram. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The scraper accesses only publicly available pages and is intended for legitimate research, analytics, and content-marketing use. Users are responsible for compliance with Instagram's Terms of Service and applicable law.

### 🆘 Need Help?

If you hit a bug, have questions about setup, or need a scraper we haven't built yet, open our [contact form](https://tally.so/r/BzdKgA) or write to parseforge@protonmail.com. We also take on paid custom data projects.

For faster answers, join our [Discord](https://parseforge.co/discord). It's the best place to get support and suggest new actors.

# Actor input Schema

## `urls` (type: `array`):

Instagram usernames, profile URLs, or direct reel URLs (e.g. 'natgeo', '@nasa', 'https://www.instagram.com/instagram/', 'https://www.instagram.com/reel/ABC123/').

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

How many reels to collect per run.

## `maxReelsPerProfile` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of reels to collect per profile. Leave empty to collect all up to Max Items.

## `newerThan` (type: `string`):

Only collect reels published after this date. Accepts YYYY-MM-DD or relative formats like '30 days', '3 months', '1 year'.

## `skipPinnedReels` (type: `boolean`):

Skip reels pinned at the top of the profile. Pinned reels are often older and skipping them gives more chronologically accurate results.

## `commentsPerReel` (type: `integer`):

Number of top comments to extract per reel (0 to skip comments, max ~15 from public page). Set to 0 for fastest extraction.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "urls": [
    "natgeo"
  ],
  "maxItems": 10,
  "skipPinnedReels": false,
  "commentsPerReel": 0
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `overview` (type: `string`):

Overview of reels with key fields

## `fullData` (type: `string`):

Complete dataset with all reel fields

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "urls": [
        "natgeo"
    ],
    "maxItems": 10
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("parseforge/instagram-reel-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "urls": ["natgeo"],
    "maxItems": 10,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("parseforge/instagram-reel-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "urls": [
    "natgeo"
  ],
  "maxItems": 10
}' |
apify call parseforge/instagram-reel-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=parseforge/instagram-reel-scraper",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/EPamjJ008zCVfVvAb/builds/7RqoaBwOnTsczPY1C/openapi.json