Send your first Instagram API request

Send synchronous requests to all 4 Bright Data Instagram Scraper API endpoints with copy-paste examples for profiles, posts, reels and comments.

This tutorial walks you through sending a synchronous request to each Bright Data Instagram Scraper API endpoint. By the end, you’ll have working examples for profiles, posts, reels, and comments.

Prerequisites

• A Bright Data account with an active API key
• Completed the Quickstart

Request structure

Every synchronous request follows the same pattern:

POST https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id={DATASET_ID}&format=json
Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY
Content-Type: application/json

[{"url": "https://www.instagram.com/..."}]

The only thing that changes between endpoints is the dataset_id and the input URL format.

Synchronous requests support up to 20 URLs and have a 1-minute timeout. If the request takes longer, the API automatically returns a snapshot_id instead. See async requests.

How to scrape Instagram profiles

Dataset ID: gd_l1vikfch901nx3by4

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id=gd_l1vikfch901nx3by4&format=json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '[{"url": "https://www.instagram.com/instagram"}]'

You should see a 200 response. This takes 10-30 seconds.

Example response

[
  {
    "user_name": "instagram",
    "full_name": "Instagram",
    "biography": "Discover what's next. ✨",
    "followers": 676000000,
    "following": 500,
    "posts_count": 7800,
    "is_verified": true,
    "profile_pic_url": "https://..."
  }
]

Full Profiles response schema

How to scrape Instagram posts

Dataset ID: gd_lk5ns7kz21pck8jpis

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id=gd_lk5ns7kz21pck8jpis&format=json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '[{"url": "https://www.instagram.com/p/Cuf4s0MNqNr"}]'

Example response

[
  {
    "url": "https://www.instagram.com/p/Cuf4s0MNqNr",
    "user_posted": "instagram",
    "description": "Sharing moments that matter...",
    "num_comments": 1250,
    "date_posted": "2024-04-03T14:30:00.000Z",
    "likes": 45230,
    "hashtags": ["photography", "moments"],
    "content_type": "Photo",
    "shortcode": "Cuf4s0MNqNr"
  }
]

Full Posts response schema

How to scrape Instagram reels

Dataset ID: gd_lyclm20il4r5helnj

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id=gd_lyclm20il4r5helnj&format=json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '[{"url": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5Rdyj_q7YN/"}]'

Example response

[
  {
    "url": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5Rdyj_q7YN/",
    "user_posted": "instagram",
    "description": "Watch this reel...",
    "num_comments": 320,
    "date_posted": "2024-03-15T10:00:00.000Z",
    "likes": 15000,
    "views": 250000,
    "video_play_count": 500000,
    "length": "15.033",
    "shortcode": "C5Rdyj_q7YN"
  }
]

Full Reels response schema

How to scrape Instagram comments

Dataset ID: gd_ltppn085pokosxh13

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id=gd_ltppn085pokosxh13&format=json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '[{"url": "https://www.instagram.com/p/Cuf4s0MNqNr"}]'

Example response

[
  {
    "url": "https://www.instagram.com/p/Cuf4s0MNqNr",
    "comment_user": "user123",
    "comment_user_url": "https://www.instagram.com/user123",
    "comment_date": "2024-04-05T12:30:00.000Z",
    "comment": "Amazing post!",
    "likes_number": 5,
    "replies_number": 2,
    "comment_id": "18168596065410257",
    "post_id": "3851148751604100411"
  }
]

Full Comments response schema

Quick reference: dataset IDs

Endpoint	Dataset ID	URL pattern
Profiles	gd_l1vikfch901nx3by4	instagram.com/{username}
Posts	gd_lk5ns7kz21pck8jpis	instagram.com/p/{shortcode}
Reels	gd_lyclm20il4r5helnj	instagram.com/reel/{shortcode}
Comments	gd_ltppn085pokosxh13	instagram.com/p/{shortcode} or instagram.com/reel/{shortcode}

Output formats

Control the response format with the format query parameter:

Value	Description
json	JSON array (default)
ndjson	Newline-delimited JSON, one record per line
csv	Comma-separated values

Next steps

Async batch requests

Scrape hundreds of URLs in a single batch job.

API reference

Full parameter and response field reference.