instaclient

instaclient is a Python library for accessing Instagram's features. With this library you can create Instagram Bots with ease and simplicity. The InstaClient takes advantage of the selenium library to excecute tasks which are not allowed in the Instagram Graph API (such as sending DMs).

The only thing you need to worry about is to spread your requests throughout the day to avoid reaching Instagram spam limits.

Disclaimer: Please note that this is a research project. I am by no means responsible for any usage of this tool. Use it on your behalf. I'm also not responsible if your accounts get banned or restricted due to the extensive use of this tool.

Table of Contents

1. Features
2. Installation
3. Usage
4. Contributing
5. Changelog
6. Help - Community
7. Credits
8. License

---

Features

• Scraping
  • Scrape a user's followers (Via scrolling or with GraphQL)
  • Scrape a user's following (Via scrolling or with GraphQL)
  • Scrape a Hashtag
  • Scrape a Location
  • Scrape a Profile
  • Scrape a user's posts
  • Scrape a hashtag's posts
  • Scrape a location's posts
  • Scrape a post's info via its shortcode
• Interacting
  • Follow a user
  • Unfollow a user
  • Like a post
  • Unlike a post
  • Add a comment on a post
  • Send DMs to users (both Private & Public)
  • Check Incoming Notifications

TO DO:

• Define Classes:
  • Comment
  • Post
  • Location
• Scrape User Posts's shorturl
• Scrape Post by shorturl
• Add comment to post by shorturl
• Like post by shorturl
• Unlike post by shorturl
• Scrape Location
• Save cookies
• Share/Forward a post
• Scrape explore page
• Upload posts
• Scrape feed
• Interact with posts on feed
• View feed stories
• View user stories
• Save/Unsave posts

Installation

Use the package manager pip to install instaclient.

pip install instaclient

To update the package:

pip install -U instaclient

Usage

INSTALL A DRIVER (LocalHost)

If you are running your code on a localhost, then you'll need to install a chromedriver from here. Install and extract the chromedriver.exe file and save it in your project folder. Make sure to install the version that matches your Chrome version. To check your chrome version, type chrome://version/ in the chrome address bar.

SET ENVIROMENT VARIABLES (Web Server)

If you are running your code on a web server (Like Heroku), you should set the following enviroment variable:

• CHROMEDRIVER_PATH = /app/.chromedriver/bin/chromedriver
• GOOGLE_CHROME_BIN = /app/.apt/usr/bin/google-chrome

CREATE THE CLIENT

from instaclient import InstaClient
from instaclient.errors import *

# Create a instaclient object. Place as driver_path argument the path that leads to where you saved the chromedriver.exe file
client = InstaClient(driver_path='<projectfolder>/chromedriver.exe')

LOGIN INTO INSTAGRAM

from instaclient.errors import *

try:
    client.login(username=username, password=password) # Go through Login Procedure
except VerificationCodeNecessary:
    # This error is raised if the user has 2FA turned on.
    code = input('Enter the 2FA security code generated by your Authenticator App or sent to you by SMS')
    client.input_verification_code(code)
except SuspisciousLoginAttemptError as error:
    # This error is reaised by Instagram
    if error.mode == SuspisciousLoginAttemptError.EMAIL:
        code = input('Enter the security code that was sent to you via email: ')
    else:
        code = input('Enter the security code that was sent to you via SMS: ')
    client.input_security_code(code)

INSTAGRAM OBJECTS

Many client methods return objects defined in the instagram package of this library. Such objects are reppresentations of the data returned by instagram, but they are not continuesly synced with Instagram, hence the data may not always be updated. To sync the local object to instagram, most objects have .refresh() method, as seen in the example below:

profile = client.get_profile('<username>')
# Other code here
profile.refresh() # syncing with instagram

SEND A DIRECT MESSAGE

result = client.send_dm('<username>', '<Message to send>') # send a DM to a user

Make sure to distrubute your client.send_dm() requests over a period of time to avoid reaching Instagram's spam limits.

GET A USER'S FOLLOWERS

followers = client.get_followers(user='<username>') # replace with the target username

The client.scrape_followers() method can take a lot of time depending on the amount of followers you want to scrape.

This method might be updated in the near future to cache scraped data in a SQLite database or to scrape the followers in a separate thread with a queue.

SCRAPE NOTIFICATIONS

notifications = client.get_notifications(count=10)

This returns a Notification object, which contains information about the type of notification and the user who caused it.

SCRAPE A PROFILE

profile = client.get_profile('<username>')

This returns a Profile object, from which you can get posts and all sorts of information.

SCRAPE A PROFILE's POSTS

posts = client.get_user_posts('<username>', count=10)
# or:
profile = client.get_profile('<username>')
posts = profile.get_posts(30)

This returns a list of Post objects.

SCRAPE A HASHTAG

hashtag = client.get_hashtag(tag='<tag>')
# This returns a Hashtag object, from which you can get the posts data. 
posts = hashtag.get_posts(count=25)

SCRAPE A LOCATION

BY ID & SLUG

Every Instagram Location is defined by a slug and an ID. You can find these two pieces of information in the URL of the location page on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/270531492/italy/ from this example, the ID would be 270531492 and the slug would be italy

location = client.get_location(id='270531492', slug='italy')
posts = location.get_posts(count=25)

BY SEARCH RESULT

If you don't have access to either the ID or the slug of a location, you can still scrape such location by finding it on the search page.

result = client.get_search_result('italy')
location = result.get('locations')[0]

ADD A COMMENT

client.comment_post('<post_shortcode>', text='Nice post!')
# or:
post = client.get_user_posts('<username>', count=1)[0]
post.add_comment('Nice post!')

LIKE A POST

client.like_post('<post_shortcode>')
# or:
post = client.get_user_posts('<username>', count=1)[0]
post.like()

FOLLOW A USER

client.follow_user('<username>')
# or:
profile = client.get_profile('<username>')
profile.follow()

UNFOLLOW A USER

client.unfollow_user('<username>')
# or:
profile = client.get_profile('<username>')
profile.unfollow()

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change. Please make sure to update tests as appropriate.

The format is based on Keep a Changelog and this project adheres to Semantic Versioning. Hence, when pushing commits, it is encouraged to use the described formatting and use the following keywords:

• Added for new features.
• Changed for changes in existing functionality.
• Deprecated for soon-to-be removed features.
• Removed for now removed features.
• Fixed for any bug fixes.
• Security in case of vulnerabilities.

Changelog

You can find this repository's changelog here: CHANGELOG

Help Community

You can join this Telegram Group to ask questions about the instabot's functionalities or to contribute to the package!

Credits

AUTHORS

License

MIT