Instagram Scraper

Python 3.7 tool to scrape information from Instagram using Selenium.

How to run

A better "How to run" would be written later, but for now, I would just explain how to run some scripts I wrote.

• First, download ChromeDriver.

• Create a config.py file which contains the following informations:

  • path to the ChromeDriver executable in chromedriver_executable_path,

  • username and password to login into Instagram,

  • the username whose information you wish to scrape through in target_username,

  • boolean login_for_datetimes_collection which is True if target_username is a private account, else can be set False (recommended)

  • path to the file where you wish to store the basic information of an account in account_info_file,

  • path to the file where you wish to store the links to the posts in post_links_file, and

  • path to the file where you wish to store information of each post in post_info_file. Information is stored in a CSV format with header "link, datetime_string, likes, views, case"

    # sample-config.py
    
    chromedriver_executable_path = 'path/to/chromedriver.exe'
    
    username = 'instagram-username'
    password = 'instagram-password'
    
    target_username = 'instagram-username-whose-info-you-want-to-scrape'
    login_for_post_info_collection = False   # False if target_username is a public profile, else True
    
    account_info_file = f'./data/{target_username}_account_info.txt'
    post_links_file = f'./data/{target_username}_post_links.txt'
    post_info_file = f'./data/{target_username}_post_info.csv'
    

• Finally,

  pipenv install
  pipenv shell
  python run.py
  python analysis.py [WIP]
  

What does each script do?

• run.py, first, goes through the target_username profile and collects links to each post. Then it goes to each post and collects information - date-time, views, likes, and dumps them into post_info_file
• analysis.py reads post_info_file and plots graphs for analysis. [WIP]