Instagram API - How can I retrieve the list of people a user is following on Instagram

Question

I would like to know how I can retrieve the list of people a user is following on Instagram  This is given that this particular user is someone that I follow  So I have access to his her photos and his followers on the Instagram app   How can I use the Instagram API to do this  Is this legal to do

User · Answer

Shiva s answer doesn t apply anymore  The API call   users  user-id  follows  is not supported by Instagram for some time  it was disabled in 2016    For a while you were able to get only your own followers followings with   users self follows  endpoint  but Instagram disabled that feature in April 2018  with the Cambridge Analytica issue   You can read about it here   As far as I know  at this moment  there isn t a service available  official or unofficial  where you can get the followers followings of a user  even your own

User · Answer

I ve been working on some Instagram extension for chrome last few days and I got this to workout   First  you need to know that this can work if the user profile is public or you are logged in and you are following that user   I am not sure why does it work like this  but probably some cookies are set when you log in that are checked on the backend while fetching private profiles   Now I will share with you an ajax example but you can find other ones that suit you better if you are not using jquery   Also  you can notice that we have two query hash values for followers and followings and for other queries different ones   let config       followers        hash   c76146de99bb02f6415203be841dd25a       path   edge followed by         followings        hash   d04b0a864b4b54837c0d870b0e77e076       path   edge follow           The user ID you can get from https   www instagram com user name    a 1 as response graphql user id  After is just response from first part of users that u are getting since the limit is 50 users per request    let after   response data user list  page info end cursor  let data    followers      followings        function getFollows  user  list    followers   after   null        get  https   www instagram com graphql query  query hash   config list  hash  amp variables   encodeURIComponent JSON stringify        id   user id       include reel   true       fetch mutual   true       first   50       after   after          function  response        data list  push    response data user config list  path  edges       if  response data user config list  path  page info has next page          setTimeout function              getFollows user  list  response data user config list  path  page info end cursor            1000         else if  list      followers           getFollows user   followings          else         alert  DONE           console log followers         console log followings                   You could probably use this off instagram website but I did not try  you would probably need some headers to match those from instagram page   And if you need for those headers some additional data you could maybe find that within window  sharedData JSON that comes from backend with csrf token etc   You can catch this by using   let  script   JSON parse document body innerHTML match   lt script type  text  javascript  gt window   sharedData        lt   script gt    1  slice 0  -1      Thats all from me   Hope it helps you out

User · Answer

You can use the following Instagram API Endpoint to get a list of people a user is following   https   api instagram com v1 users  user-id  follows access token ACCESS-TOKEN  Here s the complete documentation for that endpoint  GET  users user-id follows  And here s a sample response from executing that endpoint    Since this endpoint required a user-id  and not user-name   depending on how you ve written your API client  you might have to make a call to the  users search endpoint with a username  and then get the user-id from the response and pass it on to the above  users user-id follows endpoint to get the list of followers   IANAL  but considering it s documented in their API  and looking at the terms of use  I don t see how this wouldn t be legal to do

User · Answer

I made my own way based on Caitlin Morris s answer for fetching all folowers and followings on Instagram  Just copy this code  paste in browser console and wait for a few seconds  You need to use browser console from instagram com tab to make it works  let username    USERNAME  let followers       followings      try     let res   await fetch  https   www instagram com   username     a 1      res   await res json     let userId   res graphql user id    let after   null  has next   true   while  has next        await fetch  https   www instagram com graphql query  query hash c76146de99bb02f6415203be841dd25a amp variables     encodeURIComponent JSON stringify         id  userId        include reel  true        fetch mutual  true        first  50        after  after          then res   gt  res json    then res   gt          has next   res data user edge followed by page info has next page       after   res data user edge followed by page info end cursor       followers   followers concat res data user edge followed by edges map   node     gt            return             username  node username            full name  node full name                                  console log  Followers   followers     has next   true   after   null   while  has next        await fetch  https   www instagram com graphql query  query hash d04b0a864b4b54837c0d870b0e77e076 amp variables     encodeURIComponent JSON stringify         id  userId        include reel  true        fetch mutual  true        first  50        after  after          then res   gt  res json    then res   gt          has next   res data user edge follow page info has next page       after   res data user edge follow page info end cursor       followings   followings concat res data user edge follow edges map   node     gt            return             username  node username            full name  node full name                                  console log  Followings   followings    catch  err      console log  Invalid username

User · Answer

The REST API of Instagram has been discontinued  But you can use GraphQL to get the desired data  Here you can find an overview  https   developers facebook com docs instagram-api

User · Answer

Here s a way to get the list of people a user is following with just a browser and some copy-paste  A pure javascript solution based on Deep Seeker s answer    Get the user s id   In a browser  navigate to https   www instagram com user name    a 1 and look for response - gt  graphql - gt  user - gt  id  from Deep Seeker s answer    Open another browser window  Open the browser console and paste this in it  x000D   x000D  options         userId  your user id      list  1   1 for following  2 for followers   x000D   x000D   x000D    change to your user id and hit enter  paste this in the console and hit enter  x000D   x000D   https   www instagram com graphql query  query hash c76146de99bb02f6415203be841dd25a amp variables     encodeURIComponent JSON stringify            id   options userId           include reel   true           fetch mutual   true           first   50         x000D   x000D   x000D    Navigate to the outputted link    This sets up the headers for the http request  If you try to run the script on a page where this isn t open  it won t work    In the console for the page you just opened  paste this and hit enter  x000D   x000D  let config       followers        hash   c76146de99bb02f6415203be841dd25a       path   edge followed by         following        hash   d04b0a864b4b54837c0d870b0e77e076       path   edge follow          var allUsers        function getUsernames data        var userBatch   data map element   gt  element node username       allUsers push    userBatch      async function makeNextRequest nextCurser  listConfig        var params              id   options userId           include reel   true           fetch mutual   true           first   50            if  nextCurser            params after   nextCurser            var requestUrl    https   www instagram com graphql query  query hash     listConfig hash     amp variables     encodeURIComponent JSON stringify params         var xhr   new XMLHttpRequest        xhr onload   function e            var res   JSON parse xhr response            var userData   res data user listConfig path  edges          getUsernames userData            var curser               try               curser   res data user listConfig path  page info end cursor            catch                      var users               if  curser                makeNextRequest curser  listConfig             else               var printString                 allUsers forEach item   gt  printString   printString   item     n                console log printString                        xhr open  GET   requestUrl       xhr send       if  options list     1         console log  following        makeNextRequest     config following     else if  options list     2         console log  followers        makeNextRequest     config followers     x000D   x000D   x000D    After a few seconds it should output the list of users your user is following

User · Answer

You can use Phantombuster  Instagram has set some rate limit  so you will have to use either multiple accounts or wait for 15 minutes for the next run

[instagram] Instagram API - How can I retrieve the list of people a user is following on Instagram

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