Instagram popular topic API

Explore a topic through Instagram's public Popular search: the reels it curates for a keyword, about 50 to 70 over 5 or 6 pages (health and finance term...

GET /v1/instagram/search/popular

Explore a topic through Instagram's public Popular search: the reels it curates for a keyword, about 50 to 70 over 5 or 6 pages (health and finance terms are thin; some single words have none). Rows carry the caption, author, time and duration; Instagram sends no counts here, so every count in stats is null. No parent. Pass the cursor back with the same query.

Cost: 1 credit
Cache: Results are kept up to 30 days; send max_age_days to reuse them for free.
Timeout: A request still running after about 25 seconds answers 202 with a job to poll (Batch and jobs).

Parameters#

Name	Type	Required	Description
`query`	string	yes	The Popular topic to look up. Also accepted as `keyword`, `q`.

Every request also accepts:

cursor: the cursor from the previous page (Pagination).
trim: true for a smaller response without null fields and extra.
raw: true to also get the platform's original object as raw.
max_age_days: accept a cached result up to this many days old, for 0 credits (Caching).

Example request#

Set your key in the environment first (see Authentication).

1curl -G "https://api.socialscrape.dev/v1/instagram/search/popular" \2  -H "x-api-key: $SOCIALSCRAPE_API_KEY" \3  --data-urlencode "query=basketball"

1import os2import requests34params = {5    "query": "basketball",6}7res = requests.get(8    "https://api.socialscrape.dev/v1/instagram/search/popular",9    headers={"x-api-key": os.environ["SOCIALSCRAPE_API_KEY"]},10    params=params,11)12body = res.json()1314if body["ok"]:15    print(body["data"])16else:17    print(body["error"]["code"], body["error"]["message"])

1const url = new URL("https://api.socialscrape.dev/v1/instagram/search/popular");2url.search = new URLSearchParams({3  "query": "basketball"4}).toString();5const res = await fetch(url, {6  headers: { "x-api-key": process.env.SOCIALSCRAPE_API_KEY! },7});8const body = await res.json();910if (body.ok) {11  console.log(body.data);12} else {13  console.error(body.error.code, body.error.message);14}

1{2  "nodes": [3    {4      "name": "SocialScrape Instagram popular topic",5      "type": "n8n-nodes-base.httpRequest",6      "typeVersion": 4.2,7      "position": [8        0,9        010      ],11      "parameters": {12        "method": "GET",13        "url": "https://api.socialscrape.dev/v1/instagram/search/popular",14        "sendQuery": true,15        "queryParameters": {16          "parameters": [17            {18              "name": "query",19              "value": "basketball"20            }21          ]22        },23        "sendHeaders": true,24        "headerParameters": {25          "parameters": [26            {27              "name": "x-api-key",28              "value": "={{ $env.SOCIALSCRAPE_API_KEY }}"29            }30          ]31        }32      }33    }34  ],35  "connections": {}36}

Example response#

This is a sample from a recorded response, lists and long text are shortened. Status 200.

200 OKSample response

1{2  "ok": true,3  "credits_charged": 1,4  "credits_remaining": 4999,5  "cached": false,6  "cached_at": null,7  "request_id": "req_2b0e9f68e817acb97b5f70dd",8  "data": {9    "object": "list",10    "items": [11      {12        "object": "post",13        "platform": "instagram",14        "id": "DPhCDu_jj2l",15        "url": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPhCDu_jj2l/",16        "type": "reel",17        "author": {18          "id": null,19          "handle": "woahhelijah",20          "name": null,21          "url": "https://www.instagram.com/woahhelijah/",22          "avatar_url": null,23          "verified": null24        },25        "title": null,26        "text": "These moves will make you SHIFTY. 🤝🎒 #basketball #sports #athlete #nba #hooper #trending #reels #viral #explore #explorepage",27        "published_at": "2025-10-07T17:18:32Z",28        "duration_seconds": 12.0,29        "language": null,30        "hashtags": [31          "basketball",32          "sports",33          "athlete"34        ],35        "mentions": [],36        "stats": {37          "views": null,38          "likes": null,39          "comments": null,40          "shares": null,41          "saves": null,42          "dislikes": null43        },44        "media": {45          "thumbnail_url": "https://scontent-ord5-2.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.82787-15/561460207_17965312502981287_577210961086174914_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_s640x640_tt6&_nc_cat=107&ccb=7-5&_nc_sid=18de74&efg=eyJlZmdfdGFnIjoiQ0xJUFMuYmVzdF9pbWFnZV91cmxnZW4uQzMifQ%3D%3D&_n...",46          "video_url": null,47          "audio_url": null,48          "image_urls": null,49          "width": null,50          "height": null51        },52        "song": null,53        "location": null,54        "is_pinned": null,55        "is_sponsored": null,56        "extra": null57      },58      {59        "object": "post",60        "platform": "instagram",61        "id": "DEM7G6VIqeO",62        "url": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DEM7G6VIqeO/",63        "type": "reel",64        "author": {65          "id": null,66          "handle": "bbfactory.aep",67          "name": null,68          "url": "https://www.instagram.com/bbfactory.aep/",69          "avatar_url": null,70          "verified": null71        },72        "title": null,73        "text": "Show me Magic doing this\n\n#basketball #nba #stephencuury",74        "published_at": "2024-12-30T12:07:39Z",75        "duration_seconds": 13.0,76        "language": null,77        "hashtags": [78          "basketball",79          "nba",80          "stephencuury"81        ],82        "mentions": [],83        "stats": {84          "views": null,85          "likes": null,86          "comments": null,87          "shares": null,88          "saves": null,89          "dislikes": null90        },91        "media": {92          "thumbnail_url": "https://scontent-ord5-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.75761-15/471785891_17916571812023081_2244094718618870826_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_s640x640_tt6&_nc_cat=106&ccb=7-5&_nc_sid=18de74&efg=eyJlZmdfdGFnIjoiQ0xJUFMuYmVzdF9pbWFnZV91cmxnZW4uQzMifQ%3D%3D&_...",93          "video_url": null,94          "audio_url": null,95          "image_urls": null,96          "width": null,97          "height": null98        },99        "song": null,100        "location": null,101        "is_pinned": null,102        "is_sponsored": null,103        "extra": null104      }105    ],106    "cursor": "cAQHTUjoLu1pmfAm4o6Nckd8yoJk9KOmUL4JdHAAlh_morbFU4OaUwW7B7GJN9vF5fTD9",107    "has_more": true,108    "parent": null109  },110  "cursor": "cAQHTUjoLu1pmfAm4o6Nckd8yoJk9KOmUL4JdHAAlh_morbFU4OaUwW7B7GJN9vF5fTD9",111  "has_more": true112}

Response#

A list of Post objects in data.items, with data.cursor and data.has_more.

See Data models for every field. The envelope around data is described in Responses.

Errors#

Failures are free: credits_charged is 0. Branch on error.code, never on the message.

Code	HTTP	Retry	Meaning
`invalid_params`	400	no	A parameter is missing, unknown or has the wrong type.
`not_found`	404	no	The platform says this profile, post or item does not exist.

Every request can also fail with the account and platform errors listed on the Errors page.

Instagram profile (GET /v1/instagram/profile)
Instagram profile by user id (GET /v1/instagram/basic-profile)
Instagram profile post count (GET /v1/instagram/profile/post-count)
Instagram profile posts (GET /v1/instagram/profile/posts)
Instagram profile reels (GET /v1/instagram/profile/reels)
Instagram post or reel details (GET /v1/instagram/post)
Instagram reel transcript (GET /v1/instagram/post/transcript)
Instagram post comments (GET /v1/instagram/post/comments)

Parameters#

Example request#

Example response#

Response#

Errors#

Related endpoints#