How to Scrape Instagram Posts Without Coding in 2026 [No Login Needed]

15-Second Summary

1. What you'll learn... how to scrape all posts from any public Instagram profile (or a single post URL) using lobstr.io's no-code Instagram Post Scraper.
2. Why the official Instagram API won't help... it doesn't expose public post data from arbitrary profiles. You get your own media, or nothing.
3. Why building your own scraper hurts... login redirects, account bans, dynamic content, proxies that cost more than your rent, and scripts that die every time Instagram ships a tweak.
4. Why lobstr.io is the fix... 60+ data points per post including captions, hashtags, music, carousel media, top 15 comments, and tagged users. No Instagram login required. Cloud-based, scheduled, and done in under 2 minutes.
5. What the step-by-step covers... create a Squid, add post/profile URLs, tweak settings, launch (once or on a schedule), and auto-deliver results to Google Sheets, S3, SFTP, or email.
6. Bonus... pair with the Profile Scraper, Reels Scraper, and Post Comments Scraper for a full Instagram pipeline.

So you finally made it here?

After smoking through a dozen burner accounts and still nowhere close to scraping Instagram posts at scale? 🙂

Don't worry, you're not the first.

Most people start with a programmatic solution. Selenium scripts, Instaloader cookies, internal API hacks. Looks easy on day 1.

By day 7 you're elbow-deep in proxy configs, account rotations, and rate-limit retries... and your script still breaks every time Instagram ships a tiny UI tweak.

So you give up and try a no-code tool. Same disappointment, different flavor.

Most of them break too often, return half-broken data, or charge you a fortune the moment you scale past 100 profiles.

Aww... nothing worked for you, huh? Alright. Let me show you how it's actually done.

This guide walks you through scraping thousands of Instagram posts (yes, Reels included... they're technically posts) from any public profile. No login. No proxies. No code. No nerd tax.

But is it even legal?

Is it legal to scrape Instagram posts?

Short answer... yes, as long as the data is public and you don't misuse it. Let me break it down.

Does Instagram allow it?

Short answer... No. They don't allow any form of automated collection.

So does that make scraping public Instagram posts illegal?

Is scraping public Instagram posts legal?

Yes, it's fully legal.

The data is already public. Anyone can view these posts on a public profile... no login required.

Activity on content and public Instagram profiles falls under public content.

The Privacy Policy also says public content can be seen, accessed, reshared, or downloaded through third-party services.

Even without that, the law backs it up.

Full legal breakdown (including Meta's lawsuits) here:

But remember... collecting public data is legal. Misusing it isn't.

1. Respect rate limits
2. Comply with GDPR and similar laws
3. Don't republish as your own
4. Don't use it to impersonate creators or harass anyone
5. Don't correlate public data with private information
6. Respect takedown requests

Now... how do I actually scrape Instagram posts at scale?

2 ways to scrape Instagram posts

You've got two options:

1. Build your own scraper
2. Use a ready-made no-code scraper

Build your own scraper

This one's a headache. You need to be a nerd, and a pretty good one, to figure out how to pull post data from Instagram reliably.

If you think you can just parse HTML, you'll hit a login redirect after a few requests.

Plus Instagram loads half the content dynamically anyway, so good luck extracting captions, carousels, or engagement metrics at scale.

Next up, headless browser with Selenium or Playwright. Still breaks on login redirects.

If you do sign in, Instagram can suspend your account the moment it sees automated activity at scale.

Add rotating proxies and your cost goes through the roof. And your script still breaks the moment Instagram ships a tiny front-end change.

P.S. Vibe coding won't save you. No AI is going to build a stable scraper for something Instagram actively fights.

Or you can use a third-party scraping API. Fixes proxy/rate-limit pain but you still need to write an app around it. APIs are for nerds. This article isn't.

Which brings us to the only real option: a no-code scraper.

There are dozens of them. Most suck. I'll do a full comparison soon.

For now, let's skip straight to the best one... lobstr.io.

Best No-Code Instagram Post Scraper: lobstr.io

Unlike the Reels Scraper (which only pulls Reels), the Post Scraper collects every post type a profile has shared... photos, carousels, videos, AND Reels. Reels are technically posts, so they're included.

Features

1. Scrape all posts from any Instagram profile, or scrape a single post URL
2. Scrape Reels too... no need to run a separate scraper
3. 60+ data points per post, including carousel children and top 15 comments
4. No Instagram login required
5. Cloud-based, zero setup, nothing installed on your machine
6. Upload up to 10,000 URLs per run
7. Schedule repeated collection for post monitoring (daily, weekly, monthly)
8. Export to CSV, JSON, Google Sheets, Amazon S3, SFTP, email
9. Developer-friendly API + Python SDK + CLI + MCP for vibe coding
10. 3000+ integrations via Make.com

Data

Here's what you get per post, grouped into buckets:

## 📝 Post Metadata
| id | native_id | post_id | shortcode |
| url | reel_url | timestamp | timestamp_datetime |
| scraping_time | squid | run |

## 👤 Creator Info
| owner_id | owner_username | owner_full_name |

## ✏️ Caption & Content
| caption | alt | hashtags | coauthors |
| media_type | product_type | is_video | is_pinned |
| is_paid_partnership |

## 🖼️ Media & Carousel
| dimensions | display_url | video_url |
| image_1 | image_2 | image_3 | image_4 | image_5 |
| carousel_media_count |
| child_post_1..10.id | child_post_1..10.alt | child_post_1..10.width |
| child_post_1..10.height | child_post_1..10.timestamp |
| child_post_1..10.video_url | child_post_1..10.media_type |
| child_post_1..10.display_url |

## 📊 Engagement
| likes_count | comments_count |

## 🎵 Music Info
| music.audio_id | music.song_name | music.artist_name |
| music.explicit | music.trending | music.uses_original_audio |

## 🏷️ Tagged Users
| user_tags[].id | user_tags[].username | user_tags[].full_name |
| user_tags[].is_verified | user_tags[].profile_pic_url |

## 💬 Top 15 Comments
| comment_1..15.text | comment_1..15.user.user_id |
| comment_1..15.user.username | comment_1..15.user.is_verified |
| comment_1..15.user.profile_pic_url | comment_1..15.replies_count |
| comment_1..15.likes |
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Pricing

Simple monthly pricing, everything included. No proxy add-ons, no hidden charges.

1. 100 Instagram posts per month free
2. Starts at $2 per 1,000 posts
3. Drops to $0.5 per 1,000 posts at scale

Now let's get to the fun part... actually scraping Instagram posts.

How to scrape Instagram posts using lobstr.io [Step by Step Guide]

Scraping Instagram posts with lobstr.io takes less than 2 minutes. Here's the process:

1. Create a Squid
2. Add tasks
3. Adjust behavior
4. Launch
5. Enjoy

To make this useful for you, I'm going to scrape all posts from MrBeast's Instagram profile... same creator I used for the Reels tutorial, so you can compare the outputs side by side.

Let's get into it.

1. Create a Squid

First thing first, we need to create a Squid for the Instagram Post Scraper. A Squid is just a scraper instance.

That's it. Your Squid is ready.

2. Add tasks

A task is just input. For this scraper, it's either:

1. An Instagram post URL (scrape that single post), or
2. An Instagram profile URL (scrape all posts from that profile)

How many tasks can I add?

There's no hard cap on profiles or posts. You can upload up to 10,000 URLs per run. If you've got more, split across multiple runs.

How to add tasks?

Got hundreds or thousands of URLs? Just upload a CSV or TXT file... way faster than adding them one by one.

3. Adjust behavior (Settings)

I'm not gonna bore you explaining every option, including the unnecessary ones. Let me cover the ones you'll actually use.

Basic settings

1. Newer than... only collect posts published after this point. Pick a specific date (e.g. March 20, 2026) or a relative duration (24 hours, 7 days, 2 weeks). Perfect for monitoring.
2. Skip pinned post... ignores the pinned post on a profile. Useful if you're tracking fresh content.
3. When to end run... two options:
   1. End run once no credit left... run stops immediately when credits run out. Restarting starts from the beginning.
   2. End run once all tasks consumed... run pauses instead of ending. Add credits (or reset your billing cycle) to resume where it stopped. Better for big runs.

Advanced settings

1. Max Unique Results... total unique posts across the entire run. If you want only 1000 posts in total, set it to 1000. Leave empty for unlimited.
2. Max Results Per Task... posts per profile. If you've got 100 profiles and want only the latest 30 posts from each, set this to 30. Saves you from pulling 5 years of old content.
3. Slots... number of bots running simultaneously on your Squid. More slots = more speed (up to 45x faster).

Notifications

1. On success... email when a run ends cleanly.
2. On error... email when a run breaks.

Next up... launch.

4. Launch

Two launch options:

1. Manually
2. Repeatedly

Repeatedly means scheduling. Set the frequency and the scraper runs on autopilot... perfect for post monitoring.

My go-to monitoring workflow.

You can schedule every few minutes, hourly, daily, weekly, on weekdays/weekends, or monthly. Each completed run sends you an email (if you enabled notifications).

Save the schedule. Done.

5. Enjoy

Once the run completes, download your data as a CSV, and open it in Excel or push it to Google Sheets:

But downloading files manually every time? I don't like doing it.

What can you do with scraped Instagram post data?

Once you've got clean post data in Google Sheets or your CRM, the fun starts.

1. Content analysis... which captions, hashtags, and post types drive the most likes/comments for a creator? Rank them and replicate.
2. Competitor tracking... monitor your top 20 competitors weekly, get alerts on posts that outperform their baseline.
3. Influencer vetting... cross-check engagement metrics, sponsored partnerships (is_paid_partnership), and tagged-brand patterns before paying anyone.
4. Trend detection... aggregate hashtags and music IDs across hundreds of creators to spot what's heating up.
5. AI content workflows... I mostly use Make.com + lobstr.io to feed post data (captions, top comments, hashtags, carousel media) into an AI agent that drafts content for me based on what's working for top creators.

Speaking of pipelines, lobstr.io has dedicated scrapers for every piece of the Instagram puzzle:

1. 👉 Instagram Profile Scraper — bio, followers, contact info, latest 12 posts per profile
2. 👉 Instagram Reels Scraper — Reels only (skips regular posts)
3. 👉 Instagram Post Comments Scraper — all comments from any post URL

Chain them together and you've got the full picture.

FAQs

Does this scrape Reels too?

Can I scrape posts from private Instagram profiles?

No. The scraper works on public profiles and posts only. Private accounts can't be accessed without login, and this scraper explicitly doesn't require (or use) your Instagram credentials.

Will using lobstr.io ban my Instagram account?

No. You never log in. The scraping runs on lobstr.io's infrastructure, not from your account or your IP. You're not touching Instagram directly at all.

How many posts can I scrape in one run?

Up to 10,000 URLs per run. Need more? Split across multiple runs or multiple Squids. There's no hard cap on total posts over time.

Does this scraper collect comments too?

How do I get a list of profile URLs to scrape?

How do I scrape Instagram posts using Python?

This article is the no-code path. If you want the Python version, I've got a full tutorial covering the lobstr.io Python SDK on the profile scraper... same workflow applies to posts.

Can I automate post monitoring?

Conclusion

That's a wrap on how to scrape Instagram posts without coding in 2026. No login, no proxies, no nerd pain... just a Squid, a URL, and a few clicks.

If you want me to build AI workflows on top of this scraper, cover a follow-up topic, or chain profiles → posts → comments into one automated pipeline... you know it... JUST DM ME ON LINKEDIN!!!!!!!!!