How to get Instagram video transcripts with an API

A real use case

A social listening tool indexes Reels that mention a brand. Each new Reel URL is sent to the API and the transcript is stored for search.

Step by step

1. Get an Apify token.
2. POST Reel URLs (or a profile) to the endpoint.
3. Parse the JSON response.

Input (paste into the JSON tab)

{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dd-VQPnRz0t/"
  ],
  "includeSegments": true
}

Call it from code

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/scrape-lads~instagram-transcript-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"urls": ["https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dd-VQPnRz0t/"]}'

What you get back

{
  "status": "ok",
  "platform": "instagram",
  "transcript": "Here is how I plan a week of posts...",
  "segments": [
    {
      "start": 0.0,
      "end": 3.1,
      "text": "Here is how I plan"
    }
  ],
  "durationSec": 38
}

Trimmed example. Names and numbers are illustrative; your run returns real data with more fields.

Tips

• Use profiles with postedWithinDays to fetch only new Reels from an account.
• Add outputFormats: ["srt"] for subtitle files.

What it costs

$1.50 per 1,000 transcripts.

Plus a small per-run start fee. Apify's free plan includes monthly credit, enough to test. Check the listing for current pricing.

FAQ

Related

• Instagram Transcript Scraper Reels and video posts turned into text with timestamps. $1.50 / 1,000 transcripts.
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