Instagram

Scrapes followers and posts off Instagram and emails changes.

Running

node . ${handles}

handles is a comma-separated string of Instagram handles. It can also be provided through a INSTAGRAM_HANDLES environment variable.

A file name ${handle}.data.json will be created.

If ../self-email is present on the system, a notification email will be sent with follower/following/posts changes.

You can also require('./insta') to get a promise of the running scraper and wait for success (no return value) or catch an error.

Data

The Instagram page HTML source sets a window.sharedData variable which at the entry_data.ProfilePage[0].graphql.user path contains the following:

• biography - the user bio
• external_url - the user web
• edge_followed_by.count - followers #
• edge_follow.count - following #
• full_name - the full name
• id
• profile_pic_url - timestamped!
• profile_pic_url_hd - timestamped!
• username
• edge_owner_to_timeline_media.count - posts #
• edge_owner_to_timeline_media.edges[].node - posts
  • __typename - GraphImage/GraphVideo
  • id
  • edge_media_to_caption.edges[0].node.text post description
  • shortcode - URL ID
  • display_url - timestamped!
  • edge_liked_by.count - likes #
  • media_preview - Base64 unknown format
  • thumbnail_src - timestamped!
  • thumbnail_resources - src (timestamped), config_width, config_height
  • is_video - how related to __typename
  • video_view_count - if is_video

It might be necessary to send a cookie to download the timestamped images.

To-Do

Create a direcctory instead of a single JSON

Download the posts to back them up