Python Instagramy Module

Instagram is the most popular social media platform in today’s time, with billions of users, are present there. In the current time, Instagram is not only the place where one can share their pictures with others but can utilize this platform for their own advantage. One can use Instagram as a platform for connecting with others, creating reach for business, promoting brands through Instagram profiles (pages), getting an audience for start-ups, and for many other functions. All this become possible because of the increasing popularity and multiple new features of Instagram. With time, Instagram has introduced many new features for their users, such as the Direct Message option, Business page option (which comes with a lot of features), Reels option (Where one can promote their page or product short videos), etc. Now, this is about Instagram, but if we talk from a developer’s perspective, we would love to know that is there anything we as a developer can do on Instagram by writing programs. The answer is Yes! We can do many interesting things on Instagram and fetch information from Instagram by writing the programs. Many programming languages offer us packages and using functions of these packages in the program; we can do many interesting tasks on Instagram.

If we talk specifically about Python, it offers us many packages that we can import into a program to do many interesting and cool stuff on Instagram, such as knowing followers & following of a user, reading user’s Instagram bio, scrapping like and comment information, etc. One of such Python packages is ‘Instagramy’, which provides us the functions to perform many of such basic operations on Instagram that we have listed above. Therefore, we are going to learn about this instagramy module of Python in this tutorial and learn how we can use this module to scrap information from Instagram.

Introduction to Instagramy Module of Python

Instagramy is a Python module that we can use to scrap multiple information from any user’s Instagram account. This module provides us with multiple functions that we can use in the Python programs to curate basic information about the account of Instagram’s users. The information which we will try to fetch through Instagram will be printed in the output once the program is successfully executed. Instagramy module becomes very important when one wants to know basic details of many Instagram accounts but doesn’t have access to the Instagram application or website or doesn’t want to visit Instagram.

Look at the following example so that we understand the benefits of the instagramy module:

Suppose we are working for a company and we have to hire clients who can promote products of our company through their Instagram account. Since we have to look for the interns who will promote the product through their Instagram account, we will have to look at their Instagram account and check that account if it is strong enough to promote our product to a certain number of people. Otherwise, there will be no benefit for those interns who don’t have many followers or following. Now, suppose we have to select 10 final interns from the 1000 applications we have received. In that case, it will become very difficult and time-consuming to go through each applicant’s profile to finalize them for selection. In such cases, Python instagramy module becomes very important from where we can directly curate information of as many Instagram users as we want at once. This will not only save lots of effort and time of our but will increase the productivity of the organization also.

From this example case study, we can understand how important the instagramy module is and its benefits. Instagramy module provides us flexibility, saves our efforts & time, and increases our productivity. All these are the most common benefits of using the instagramy module of Python.

Application of Instagramy Module:

We can use the instagramy module of Python to perform various tasks by using the functions of this module inside a Python program. The result of the tasks will be displayed in the output after fetching the information from the Instagram server. Following are some of the applications which we can perform using the functions of the instagramy module inside a Python program:

• Getting numbers of followers of an Instagram account
• Getting Bio details of an Instagram account
• Getting the number of Total posts made by an account
• Getting numbers of followings of an Instagram account, etc.

Instagramy Module of Python: Installation

We have understood the benefits of using the instagramy module of Python, but if really, we want to use this module, we have first to install this module in our system. This is because instagramy is not an in-built module of Python, and that’s why to use functions of this module, we have first to perform its installation. Installing and using the instagramy module is very simple, and we can install this module through various methods. But we will install this module through the pip installer in this tutorial because it is the simplest and easiest way of installing this module.

We have to write the pip command given below in the command prompt shell of our system in order to install the instagramy module through the pip installer:

Once we have written the command given above in the terminal shell, we just have to press the ‘enter’ key, and the installation process for the instagramy module will start. As we will see, the installation process started; we have to wait for a while till all the dependencies are installed successfully.

As we can see, the instagramy module is now successfully installed in our system, and now we can start working with this module and its functions by importing it into the Python programs. Now, we can work with this module and understand its implementation by using its functions in the example program which we have used in this tutorial.

Implementation of Python Instagramy Module

As we have successfully installed the instagramy module in our device, it’s time to start working with this module so that we can understand its implementation and functioning in Python programs. We will use some of its functions in example programs of this part to curate some basic information from the given Instagram account and print it in the output. That’s how we will understand the implementation and working of the Python Instagramy module.

Look at the following implementation programs to understand the implementation and working of the instagramy module:

Implementation 1: Getting the following number from an Instagram account:

Here, we will get the following number (total number of Instagram accounts followed by a given Instagram account) of an Instagram account and print that number in the output as a result. We will use the function of the instagramy module in the example program to perform this task. Look at the following example program to understand this implementation of the instagramy module:

Example 1: Look at the following Python program where we have printed the number of followings by given Instagram account:

Output:

Enter a valid and existing Instagram's user name: ayushmannk
The total number of followings from the given user name by you is: 866

As we can see, a total number of followings by the given Instagram account is printed in the output, and that’s how we can get the total followings of any Instagram account.

Explanation: First, we have imported the InstagramUser library as IU from the instagramy module in the program to use its function to print the total number of followings. After that, we have taken an Instagram user name (which is valid) as an input from the user, which will be the given Instagram account for the program. Then, we parsed the user name’s input value using the InstagramUser function we imported. We did this to create an instance for the given Instagram account in the program. After that, we used the ‘number_of_followings’ method on the instance we created to get the total number of followings from the account in the initialized variable. Lastly, we used the initialized variable inside the print statement to print the number of followings of the given Instagram account by the user in the output.

Implementation 2: Getting the number of total followers of an Instagram account:

Here, we will get the followers number (total number of Instagram accounts that follow the given Instagram account) of an Instagram account and print that number in the output as a result. Look at the following example program to understand this implementation of the instagramy module:

Example 2: Look at the following Python program where we have printed the total number of followers of a given Instagram account:

Output:

Enter a valid and existing Instagram's user name: virat.kohli
The total number of followers of the given Instagram user name by you is: 174673618

As we can see, the total number of followers of the given Instagram account is printed in the output, and that’s how we can get total followers of any Instagram account and save it for future references.

Explanation: We have used the same process in this example program as in the first example program, but instead of using ‘number_of_followings’, we have used the ‘number_of_followers’ method in this example program.

Implementation 3: Getting the total number of posts made by an Instagram account:

Here, we will get the total number of posts (which will include short videos, long videos, and pictures posted by the account) of an Instagram account and print that number in the output. We should note that only the total number of those posts which are currently present in the account will be printed in the output. Look at the following example program to understand this implementation of the instagramy module:

Example 3: Look at the following Python program where we have printed the total number of posts made by the given Instagram account:

Output:

Enter a valid and existing Instagram's user name: adityaroykapur
The total number of posts made by the given Instagram user name by you is: 85

As we can see, a total number of posts made by the given Instagram account is printed in the output, and that’s how we can get total posts (which are currently available in the account) made by any Instagram account.

Implementation 4: Printing Bio of an Instagram account:

We can use the functions of the instagramy module to print the bio description and links (if any) given in bio in the output. We will print this information by providing a username as input, and after that, the program will print the information in output after fetching it from the Instagram server. We can look at the following example program to understand bio printing implementation of the instagramy module:

Example 4: Look at the following Python program where we printed bio description and links given from the input Instagram user name:

Output:

Enter a valid and existing Instagram's user name: jaiswalsonoo
Description of the bio of the Instagram account that you have provided in the input: 
Founder and CEO of Javatpoint
Following links are present in the bio of Instagram account which you have provided: 
http://www.javatpoint.com/

As we can see, the description of bio and links present in the bio of the input Instagram account is printed in the output. That’s how we can print description and links from the bio of any Instagram user.

Explanation: In the example program given above, we have used the ‘biography’ method to print the bio description and the ‘website’ method to print links present in the bio of the Instagram account. This information will be printed in the output once the program is executed successfully and data is fetched from the Instagram server.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have learned about the Instagramy module of Python and how we can use this module inside a Python program. We have learned how we can install this module in our system and how we can use the functions of this module to print some basic information from a given Instagram user name. We have used the instagramy module to work with its functions in the example programs to understand the working and implementation of this module.