Command line options

This page lists every option of InstaloaderSharp, explains how the command line is read, and lists the exit codes. The options and their meaning are the same as in Instaloader.

Contents

• Synopsis
• What to download of each post
• What to download of each profile
• Which posts to download
• Login
• How to download
• Miscellaneous
• How the command line is read
• Reading options from a file
• Exit codes

Synopsis

InstaloaderSharp.exe [options] target [target ...]
InstaloaderSharp.exe [options] -- -SHORTCODE [...]
InstaloaderSharp.exe +args.txt
InstaloaderSharp.exe --help

Targets are described in Targets. Without targets, the program only logs in (if asked to) and prints No targets were specified, thus nothing has been downloaded.

What to download of each post

Option	Effect	Details
--slide SLIDE	Download only some pictures of posts with several: 1, last, 2-4, 2-last	Choosing what to download
--no-pictures	Do not download pictures. Implies --no-video-thumbnails, not --no-videos. Cannot be combined with --fast-update
-V, --no-videos	Do not download videos
--no-video-thumbnails	Do not download the thumbnails of videos
-G, --geotags	Save the location of each post as _location.txt, with a Google Maps link	Downloaded files
-C, --comments	Save and update the comments of each post as _comments.json. Requires login	Downloaded files
--no-captions	Do not create caption .txt files
--post-metadata-txt TEMPLATE	Template for the .txt file of each post (default {caption}). Can be given several times, one line each	File and folder names
--storyitem-metadata-txt TEMPLATE	Template for a .txt file for each story item (default: none). Can be given several times
--no-metadata-json	Do not create a JSON file with the metadata of each post
--no-compress-json	Write pretty-printed .json files instead of xz-compressed .json.xz files

What to download of each profile

Option	Effect	Details
--no-posts	Do not download the profile's regular posts
--no-profile-pic	Do not download the profile picture
-s, --stories	Also download the profile's stories. Requires login	Choosing what to download
--highlights	Also download the profile's highlights. Requires login
--tagged	Also download the posts in which the profile is tagged
--reels	Also download the profile's reels
--igtv	Accepted for compatibility; IGTV is retired and the option only prints a note

Which posts to download

Option	Effect	Details
-F, --fast-update	For each target, stop at the first post that was downloaded before	Keeping an archive up to date
--latest-stamps [STAMPSFILE]	Remember the time of the newest downloaded items of each profile in STAMPSFILE (default %LOCALAPPDATA%\Instaloader\latest-stamps.ini) and only download newer ones	Keeping an archive up to date
--post-filter FILTER, --only-if FILTER	Only download posts for which the expression is true	Filtering posts and stories
--storyitem-filter FILTER	Only download story items for which the expression is true
-c, --count COUNT	Download at most COUNT posts of each hashtag, location, :feed and :saved	Keeping an archive up to date

Login

Option	Effect	Details
-l, --login YOUR-USERNAME	Log in as this user: load the session file, or ask for the password	Logging in
-p, --password YOUR-PASSWORD	The password, instead of asking for it
-b, --load-cookies BROWSER-NAME	Import the login from a browser: firefox, librewolf, chrome, chromium, edge, brave, vivaldi, opera, opera_gx	Logging in
-B, --cookiefile COOKIE-FILE	The browser's cookie database, for a profile other than the default one
-f, --sessionfile SESSIONFILE	Load and save the session in this file instead of %LOCALAPPDATA%\Instaloader\session-YOUR-USERNAME	Logging in

--login and --load-cookies cannot be combined.

How to download

Option	Effect	Default
--dirname-pattern PATTERN	Folder of the downloads	{target}
--filename-pattern PATTERN	File names of posts and story items	{date_utc}_UTC
--title-pattern PATTERN	File names of profile pictures, hashtag pictures and highlight covers	{date_utc}_UTC_{typename}, or {target}_{date_utc}_UTC_{typename} if --dirname-pattern contains neither {target} nor {profile}
--resume-prefix PREFIX	Prefix of resume file names	iterator
--no-resume	Do not use or create resume files
--sanitize-paths	Make names valid on Windows and other systems; always the case on Windows
--user-agent USER_AGENT	User agent of the requests	Chrome 142 on Linux
--max-connection-attempts N	Attempts per request; 0 retries forever	3
--request-timeout N	Seconds to wait for an answer	300
--abort-on STATUS_CODES	Comma-separated HTTP status codes that stop the download immediately
--no-iphone	Do not use Instagram's app interface for higher-quality pictures and videos

Patterns are explained in File and folder names, resume files in Interrupting and resuming, and the connection options in Rate limits and connections.

Miscellaneous

Option	Effect
-q, --quiet	Print only errors and never ask for input; fail if a password would be needed. Suitable for scheduled tasks
-h, --help	Print a summary of all options and exit
--version	Print the version number and exit

How the command line is read

The command line is read like Instaloader's (Python's argparse):

• Options come before targets, but they may also be mixed with them: InstaloaderSharp.exe profile1 --stories profile2 works.
• Values follow the option, separated by a space or =: --count 50 and --count=50 are the same.
• Abbreviations: long options can be shortened as long as they stay unique: --fast for --fast-update, --no-vid is ambiguous (--no-videos or --no-video-thumbnails) and gives an error.
• Short options can be combined: -sF is -s -F. A value can follow directly: -c50.
• -- ends the options: everything after it is a target, even if it starts with -. This is how single posts (-- -SHORTCODE) are given.
• Optional values: --latest-stamps takes an optional file name. A target right after it would be taken as the file name, so write --latest-stamps -- profilename, or put another option in between.
• Quoting: values with spaces, and hashtags, must be quoted: --dirname-pattern "D:\My Instagram\{target}", "#cats".

Errors in the command line are reported with a short usage text, and the program exits with code 2:

usage: InstaloaderSharp [--comments] [--geotags] ...
InstaloaderSharp: error: unrecognized arguments: --foo

Reading options from a file

Arguments can be put into a text file and passed with + in front of its name:

InstaloaderSharp.exe +args.txt

The file contains one argument per line: options with their values joined by =, and targets:

--login=YOUR-USERNAME
--fast-update
--stories
--post-filter=not is_video
profile1
profile2

• Each line is exactly one argument, so do not quote values, and write --count=50 rather than --count 50.
• Empty lines and comments are not allowed; every line counts as an argument.
• Files and normal arguments can be mixed, and several files can be given: InstaloaderSharp.exe --quiet +login.txt +profiles.txt.
• The file is read as UTF-8 text; a file that is not valid UTF-8 is read in the Windows code page instead.

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	Success
1	Finished, but some errors occurred. They were printed when they happened and are repeated at the end under Errors or warnings occurred:
2	Invalid command line or option values, or an invalid filter
3	Login failed, or Instagram asks to verify the account while the login is checked
4	Download aborted: Instagram demanded a verification, or a status code from --abort-on was received
5	Interrupted by the user (Ctrl+C)
99	Unexpected error; a technical error report (traceback) is printed. Please report it

In a batch file, the exit code is in %errorlevel%:

InstaloaderSharp.exe --quiet --login YOUR-USERNAME --fast-update +profiles.txt
if %errorlevel% equ 3 echo Log in again: the session has expired or the login failed.
if %errorlevel% equ 4 echo Instagram stopped the download; check the account in a browser.

if errorlevel N is true for all codes of N and above, so prefer if %errorlevel% equ N to test for one code.