Instagram Followings Scraper

Introduction

This Apify actor scrapes the accounts that any public Instagram user is following (their "followings"). Provide a username or profile URL, and the actor will fetch up to your specified number of followings. For each following, the actor can also extract comprehensive profile data including contact information, business details, and social links from their bio (optional).

Features

• Scrape followings (accounts a user is following) by username or profile URL
• Set a maximum number of followings to fetch
• Comprehensive profile data extraction including contact information, business details, and social links
• Enhanced profile information including followers count, posts count, business category, and more
• Requires Instagram authentication cookies
• Uses residential proxy by default (no proxy setup needed)
• Outputs detailed profile information for each following with contact extraction

Input

Example Input

{
  "username": "cristiano",
  "max_results": 50,
  "extract_contacts": true,
  "cookies": [
    { "name": "sessionid", "value": "YOUR_SESSIONID" },
    { "name": "csrftoken", "value": "YOUR_CSRFTOKEN" },
    { "name": "ds_user_id", "value": "YOUR_USERID" }
  ]
}

or

{
  "username": "https://www.instagram.com/cristiano/",
  "extract_contacts": false,
  "cookies": [
    { "name": "sessionid", "value": "YOUR_SESSIONID" },
    { "name": "csrftoken", "value": "YOUR_CSRFTOKEN" },
    { "name": "ds_user_id", "value": "YOUR_USERID" }
  ]
}

How to Get Instagram Cookies

1. Log into Instagram in your browser
2. Install the Cookie Editor extension (Chrome/Edge)
3. Open Instagram and click the Cookie Editor icon
4. Export cookies as JSON and paste the array in the cookies field
5. For a video guide, see this tutorial

Output

Each following is output as a comprehensive object with detailed profile information:

{
  "pk": "58812734417",
  "username": "kiyak_iyu",
  "full_name": "kiyakiyu🌸",
  "is_private": false,
  "is_verified": false,
  "profile_pic_url": "https://instagram.fadd1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t51.2885-19/521744297_17958103781966418_6490265124352276860_n.jpg?...",
  
  "user_id": "123456789",
  "biography": "Digital marketer and content creator",
  "external_url": "https://kiyakiyu.com",
  "profile_pic_url_hd": "https://instagram.fadd1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t51.2885-19/521744297_17958103781966418_6490265124352276860_n.jpg?...",
  "profile_pic_url_standard": "https://instagram.fadd1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t51.2885-19/521744297_17958103781966418_6490265124352276860_n.jpg?...",
  "is_business_account": true,
  "is_professional_account": true,
  "business_category_name": "Digital Creator",
  "business_email": "business@kiyakiyu.com",
  "business_phone_number": "+1-555-123-4567",
  "followers_count": 15000,
  "following_count": 500,
  "posts_count": 250,
  "saved_count": 50,
  "highlight_reel_count": 5,
  "has_clips": true,
  "has_guides": false,
  "has_channel": false,
  "pronouns": "she/her",
  "hide_like_and_view_counts": false,
  "is_embeds_disabled": false,
  "is_joined_recently": false,
  "category_name": "Digital Creator",
  "overall_category_name": "Digital Creator",
  "category_enum": "DIGITAL_CREATOR",
  "fbid": "123456789",
  "biography_with_entities": "Digital marketer and content creator",
  "bio_links": [
    {
      "title": "Website",
      "url": "https://kiyakiyu.com",
      "link_type": "external"
    }
  ],
  
  "emails": ["contact@kiyakiyu.com", "business@kiyakiyu.com"],
  "phones": ["+1-555-123-4567"],
  "social_links": ["https://twitter.com/kiyakiyu", "https://linkedin.com/in/kiyakiyu"],
  "website_links": ["https://kiyakiyu.com"]
}

Enhanced Profile Data Fields

• Basic Info: username, full_name, user_id, biography, external_url
• Profile Images: profile_pic_url, profile_pic_url_hd, profile_pic_url_standard
• Account Status: is_private, is_verified, is_business_account, is_professional_account
• Business Info: business_category_name, business_email, business_phone_number
• Statistics: followers_count, following_count, posts_count, saved_count, highlight_reel_count
• Features: has_clips, has_guides, has_channel, pronouns
• Settings: hide_like_and_view_counts, is_embeds_disabled, is_joined_recently
• Categories: category_name, overall_category_name, category_enum
• Contact Info: emails, phones, social_links, website_links
• Bio Links: bio_links (array of structured link objects)

Usage

Apify Console

1. Go to Apify Console
2. Find this actor (instagram-followings-scraper)
3. Enter the username or profile URL, max_results, cookies, and (optionally) extract_contacts
4. Run the actor and view/download results in the dataset

Apify API

curl -X POST \
  https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/logical_scrapers~instagram-followings-scraper/runs \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN' \
  -d '{
    "username": "cristiano",
    "max_results": 50,
    "extract_contacts": true,
    "cookies": [
      { "name": "sessionid", "value": "YOUR_SESSIONID" },
      { "name": "csrftoken", "value": "YOUR_CSRFTOKEN" },
      { "name": "ds_user_id", "value": "YOUR_USERID" }
    ]
  }'

Apify CLI

apify run -d '{
  "username": "cristiano",
  "max_results": 50,
  "extract_contacts": false,
  "cookies": [
    { "name": "sessionid", "value": "YOUR_SESSIONID" },
    { "name": "csrftoken", "value": "YOUR_CSRFTOKEN" },
    { "name": "ds_user_id", "value": "YOUR_USERID" }
  ]
}'

Notes

• Instagram authentication cookies are required.
• Uses residential proxy by default for reliability.
• Only public profiles can be scraped.
• If extract_contacts is true (default), the actor makes an additional request per following to extract comprehensive profile data including emails, phones, and social links from their bio. If false, only the followings list is fetched (faster, less data).
• Enhanced profile data includes business information, follower counts, and detailed account statistics.
• Contact extraction includes both bio-extracted and business contact information.

Support

For help or custom solutions, contact: coredev.dan@gmail.com

Built with ❤️ by logical_scrapers