How to Scrape Instagram's Explore Page in 2025

Instagram's Explore page helps discover trending content, personalized recommendations, and viral posts tailored to user interests. It is a personalized, dynamically-loaded feed — scraping it well means choosing the right approach (hashtag/search vs. true personalized Explore), using robust automation for dynamic content, and protecting your pipeline with reliable proxies and good operational hygiene.

In this comprehensive guide, we'll introduce three methods for scraping the Instagram Explore page safely and effectively, including troubleshooting, data model tips, and legal/ethical guardrails so you can implement a working pipeline.

Why Scrape Instagram's Explore Page

Here's what drives most queries:

Trend Discovery: Spot emerging topics, memes, or viral challenges before they go mainstream. For instance, brands use this to align content with what's hot.

Audience Insights: Analyze what content resonates with similar users—e.g., engagement on posts related to fitness or fashion.

Competitive Research: See what competitors or influencers are promoting and how they're performing.

Hashtag and Market Analysis: Track popular hashtags, locations, or niches for SEO or ad targeting.

Engagement Tracking: Monitor likes, comments, and shares on Explore-curated posts to gauge sentiment.

Why Scraping The Explore Page Is Different 

The Explore page is Instagram’s discovery engine. It’s personalized for accounts based on past likes, follows, location, behavior, and loads dynamically via infinite scrolling. That means:

• You can’t get a single canonical Explore feed for a keyword — it depends on the account.
• You can get useful signals: trending content, post links for a topic, hashtag results, and localized discovery.

Before you build, ask: Do you need personalized Explore (account-level recommendations) or topic-based discovery (hashtags/search results)? The answer determines the technical approach, complexity, and risk.

Legal and Ethical Considerations Before You Start

Only collect public content. Don’t attempt to access private accounts, DMs, or any content behind authentication you don’t own.

Terms of Service: Instagram’s ToS generally forbids automated access; expect risk of account suspension. Use public data and consult legal counsel for commercial projects.

Privacy laws: If you process personal data (EU residents, etc.), ensure GDPR/CCPA compliance. Minimize stored PII and document lawful basis.

Rate restraint: Start gentle. ≤200 requests/hour per IP for safety. Monitor and reduce if blocks increase.

Transparency & ethics: Use scraped data for analysis and product improvements, not spam or harassment.

If this is for commercial use, pause here and confirm compliance policies internally or with counsel.

Quick Method Decision

Answer 3 quick questions:

1. Do you need account-specific personalization (a feed a real user would see)? → Yes → Method 3.

2. Are you a non-dev or want a quick proof-of-concept? → Yes → Method 1.

3. Otherwise (you want topic-based results and some code control) → Method 2.

What You’ll Need

Skills: Basic scripting (Python or Node.js) for Methods 2–3. No-code familiarity for Method 1.

Automation: Playwright (recommended) or Selenium for browser automation.

Proxy: OkeyProxy rotating residential proxies (session affinity + rotation).

Storage: CSV/JSON for POC; S3 + Parquet + data warehouse for scale.

Orchestration & monitoring: Job queue (Redis/RabbitMQ), worker autoscaling, and monitoring (Grafana/Prometheus).

Optional: Anti-detect browser product (enterprise), but use responsibly and legally.

Three Methods Comparison

Method	Overview	When to use	Pros	Cons
No-code / Low-code	Use visual automation to extract Explore search post links into Sheets — ideal for non-dev proofs.	Marketing teams, quick POCs, ad-hoc research.	Fast, low technical overhead.	Not personalized; limited parsing control.
Hashtag / Search Scraping	Render pages, extract post anchors and JSON payloads, paginate via cursors for scalable topic data.	Topic discovery, trend monitoring, scalable extraction.	Lower risk; easier to scale.	Not account-personalized.
Personalized Explore	Warm accounts, simulate human behavior with Playwright, intercept XHR, use OkeyProxy session affinity.	You must see Explore results tailored to a user persona (location, follows, engagement).	Best fidelity.	Complex, expensive, higher risk.

Method 1. No / Low-code (Fastest for non-dev teams)

Steps

1. Prepare search keywords in Google Sheets (or CSV).

2. Use a no-code bot template to navigate:

https://www.instagram.com/explore/search/keyword/?q={query}

3. Extract anchors: selector main a[role="link"], filter to /p/{shortcode}/.

4. Save to Sheets, dedupe on shortcode, schedule incremental runs.

OkeyProxy tips

Route the automation runner through OkeyProxy residential IPs; schedule small batches and use session affinity for scheduled runs.

Method 2. Search/Hashtag Scraping (Beginners)

Steps

1. Target URLs

Hashtag: https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/{tag}/

Search: https://www.instagram.com/explore/search/keyword/?q={query}

2. Fetch the page

If HTML includes needed data, a simple HTTP client (requests/httpx) can work.

If content loads dynamically, use Playwright to render.

3. Extract post links

Use selector: main a[role="link"]

Filter anchors linking to /p/{shortcode}/

4. Follow post pages

For each post URL, parse embedded JSON or DOM to get structured fields (see Data model below).

5. Pagination

Hashtag pages expose GraphQL cursors in embedded JSON. Use those cursors to fetch subsequent pages or scroll with Playwright.

6. Save & dedupe

Persist entries keyed by shortcode or post_id.

Practical defaults

Workers: 1–3 headless browsers.

Per-worker rate: 0.2–1 req/sec (~50–360 req/hr).

Rotate IP after 50–200 requests.

IP pool sizing: POC 20–50, medium 200–500.

OkeyProxy tips

Use rotating residential IPs; enable session affinity only for logged-in tasks.

Method 3. Advanced: Simulating a personalized Explore (Higher difficulty, risk & fidelity)

Note! Higher detection and account risk. Use only for legitimate, ethical analysis and maintain legal oversight.

Steps

1. Account creation & warming

Create multiple test accounts.

Warm them over days: follow 50–200 relevant accounts, like a few posts, save a few posts. This shapes Explore recommendations.

2. Browser automation

Use Playwright and create a persistent browser context (save cookies/localStorage to disk).

Log in once and reuse cookies for later runs.

3. Human-like interactions

Random scroll distances, randomized pause durations (2–7s), occasional mouse move and click.

Interact sparingly (likes) to keep accounts healthy.

4. Network interception

Intercept network XHR/GraphQL responses to capture JSON payloads that contain feed items — this is generally more stable than scraping DOM.

5. Session & fingerprint controls

Keep UA, viewport, timezone consistent per account.

Use OkeyProxy session affinity for stable IP per session.

6. Data capture

Save feed ordering, shortcode, timestamp, and any recommendation metadata.

OkeyProxy tips

IP type: Residential for best fidelity.

Session TTL: Match to browser session, e.g., 10–30 minutes.

IP pool sizing:200–500 medium; 1,000+ heavy.

Concurrency: 1 session per account start point.

Data Model & Storage Example

Minimum fields

post_id, shortcode, url, author_username, caption, hashtags, media_urls, timestamp, source, collected_at.

Example record

json

 

{

  "post_id":"CLx12345",

  "shortcode":"CLx12345",

  "url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CLx12345",

  "author_username":"example_user",

  "caption":"Recipe for the best pancakes #breakfast",

  "hashtags":["breakfast","pancakes"],

  "media_urls":["https://.../image1.jpg"],

  "timestamp":"2025-08-01T12:34:56Z",

  "source":"hashtag",

  "collected_at":"2025-08-11T08:30:12Z"

}

Storage

Newline JSON for POC; S3 + Parquet + warehouse for production. Use shortcode as primary key; dedupe by post_id or caption+media hash.

OkeyProxy Starter Configuration Templates

Below are safe, practical configs you can adapt. These are recommended starting points not rigid rules.

Small POC (YAML)

yaml

 

okeyproxy:

  ip_type: residential

  pool_size: 30

  rotation_policy: rotate_after_requests

  rotate_after_requests: 100

  session_affinity: false

  session_ttl_seconds: 600

  concurrency_per_ip: 3

Medium continuous scraping

yaml

 

okeyproxy:

  ip_type: residential

  pool_size: 300

  rotation_policy: hybrid

  rotate_after_requests: 150

  session_affinity: true

  session_ttl_seconds: 900

  concurrency_per_ip: 2

  keep_alive_rotate_window_minutes: 60

Advanced personalized explore

yaml

 

okeyproxy:

  ip_type: residential_mobile

  pool_size: 1000

  rotation_policy: session_affinity_preferred

  rotate_after_requests: 200

  session_affinity: true

  session_ttl_seconds: 1800

  concurrency_per_ip: 1

  notes: "Use stable IP per account login; rotate IP on login failures or after compromised sessions."

Monitoring & Operational

Track: RPM, success rate (parsed/total), block rate (403/429/CAPTCHA), CAPTCHA incidence, sessions per IP.

Alert thresholds:

• Block rate > 3% → auto-throttle and notify.
• CAPTCHA > 1 per 1,000 requests → reduce concurrency and warm accounts/IPs.

Log request headers, OkeyProxy IP used, account id (if any), response snippet, and timestamp. Redact PII.

Troubleshooting Checklist

1. Confirm headers & cookies are set.

2. Render full page (Playwright) and capture XHR JSON.

3. Lower concurrency; add randomized delays.

4. Rotate to a fresh residential IP.

5. Pause and warm accounts longer for personalized flows.

FAQs

Q: Can I get a universal Explore for a keyword?

A: No — Explore is personalized. Use hashtags/search for topic signals.

Q: Is scraping Explore legal?

A: Public data collection is often allowed, but automated access can violate ToS and risk bans; check local laws.

Q: How many IPs do I need?

A: Start 20–50 for POC, 200–500 for medium, 1,000+ for heavy personalization; tune by monitoring block rates.

Conclusion

For most needs, start with Method 2 (Hashtag/Search). Use Method 1 for quick checks. Reserve Method 3 for cases where business value justifies added complexity and risk. Protect your pipeline with conservative concurrency, cookie persistence, session affinity for logged-in runs, and OkeyProxy residential IPs. Sign up today and get a free trial!