Instagram Data Extraction in 2026: What's Possible After API Restrictions

Instagram (Meta) heavily restricts data access. Here's what still works. Official Instagram API (2026) Meta's Graph API is the only legal way: Instagram Basic Display API — deprecated 2024 Instagram Graph API — requires Business/Creator account Content Publishing API — for posting, not scraping What You CAN Access via Graph API With a Facebook Developer account (free): Your own posts, stories, insights Business discovery (public business profiles) Hashtag search (limited) Mentioned media What You CAN'T Access Other users' followers/following lists Private profiles DMs Bulk data extraction Alternative: Profile Metadata Public Instagram profiles have metadata in the page source: // This approach may break — use with caution async function getProfileMeta ( username ) { const url = `https://www.instagram.com/ ${ username } /?__a=1&__d=dis` ; const res = await fetch ( url , { headers : { ' User-Agent ' : ' Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 17_0) ' , ' X-IG-App-ID ' : ' 936619743392459 ' }