Can you add support to download #hashtag feeds?

[seanpatel]

Would be nice if you can add support to download #hashtag pics and videos.

Since there could be 1000s or even millions for #hashtag feed, maybe you can have parameters for max # of media to download, or from x date to y date, etc.

Here's example Link: #WWF :
Has over 1 million media items.
Here's the URL to get it directly ( graph node json results, with next_cursor / has more pagination)

Pleeaase can you add it ? I can give you amazon gift card or something if you don't want $$ for compensation. Working on a class research project / AI stuff.

[aandergr]

Thanks for your interest and for involving Instaloader in your research project. My latest commit, 3e13601, implements the download_hashtag() function as well as downloading a hashtag with ./instaloader.py #hashtag. The --fast-update flag is also supported, to abort the download as soon as the first already-downloaded picture is encountered.

To download only a certain number of pictures, you'd have to write a small Python snippet:

from instaloader import download_hashtag, get_anonymous_session

download_hashtag('cat', session=get_anonymous_session(), max_count=30)

Thanks a lot for offering compensation. Instaloader is an open source project, developed in our free time as a hobby. It is a pleasure for us to provide this script to the community for free. However, donations may act as a huge motivation for maintaining this project 😊 We can discuss details per email.

[seanpatel]

Wow! That was fast! Thank so much. I'll try it out. Yes, I can donate to the project. Let me know how. My email = sean_patel @ icloud.com

[seanpatel]

Hi, I tried the new code and it's not doing anything. I am on Windows. I did the following cmd like u suggest in u r readme.md

pip3 install git+https://github.com/Thammus/instaloader

That's not updating my installation as it's saying I am already on latest 1.2.2 version.

How do I update the library locally?

I also tried a git clone on the url to get latest. But when I run it it's quietly exiting on existing hashtag without doing anything.

Sorry, not a python guy.

[aandergr]

To update Instaloader via pip, you'd have to do
pip3 install --upgrade git+https://github.com/Thammus/instaloader
Without the --upgrade flag it doesn't update the package as it notices that the version string didn't change yet.

Anyway there is another thing I just noticed: The # character indicates the beginning of a comment in bash, thus calling instaloader #hashtag will just silently terminate as no arguments will be passed to Instaloader. It is necessary to escape or quote the hashtag:

instaloader "#cat"

(We certainly should mention that in our README.md)

[seanpatel]

Thank you! I ran the upgrade as you suggested and this was the output.

Installing collected packages: instaloader
  Found existing installation: instaloader 1.2.2
    Uninstalling instaloader-1.2.2:
      Successfully uninstalled instaloader-1.2.2
  Running setup.py install for instaloader: started
    Running setup.py install for instaloader: finished with status 'done'
Successfully installed instaloader-1.2.2

Then I tried the following #hashtag import...

instaloader "#boxingmeme"

and it download a few and then errors out as shown below.

$ instaloader "#boxingmeme"
Retrieving pictures with hashtag #boxingmeme
[  1] #boxingmeme 2017-04-19_15-29-49 [Running the mitts with the IB▒] Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Python352-32\Scripts\instaloader-script.py", line 9, in <module>
    load_entry_point('instaloader==1.2.2', 'console_scripts', 'instaloader')()
  File "c:\python352-32\lib\site-packages\instaloader.py", line 813, in main
    not args.no_sleep, args.shorter_output, args.quiet)
  File "c:\python352-32\lib\site-packages\instaloader.py", line 726, in download_profiles
    sleep=sleep, quiet=quiet)
  File "c:\python352-32\lib\site-packages\instaloader.py", line 582, in download_hashtag
    shorter_output=shorter_output, quiet=quiet)
  File "c:\python352-32\lib\site-packages\instaloader.py", line 490, in download_node
    video_data['entry_data']['PostPage'][0]['media']['video_url'],
KeyError: 'media'

Seems to work for other hashtags... not sure if the content of that #hashtag stream is messing up your script.

Please advice!

[aandergr]

Indeed, they seem to have changed some details of video node metadata. Thanks for reporting this!

My latest commit, 6b345e1, should fix it.

[seanpatel]

That works. Wow, you are awesome!!! Thanks ~!!!