In favstats/instaloadeR: Wraps the instaloader python module

knitr::opts_chunk$set(
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instaloadeR

The goal of instaloadeR is to provide a scraper for the image-sharing social networking service Instagram. Mostly inspired by this Scraping Tool: digitalmethodsinitiative/4cat. Wraps this Python module instaloader. You will need Python 3.6 or higher to use instaloader.

Installation

You can install the development version from GitHub with:

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("favstats/instaloadeR")

Load library

library(instaloadeR)

Make sure to use your preferred Python installation

library(reticulate)

use_python(py_config()$python)

Install necessary Python libraries

install_instaloadeR()

Example

This is a basic example which shows you how to solve a common problem:

Initialize instaloadeR

init_instaloadeR()

Get Posts with Hashtag

Return a tibble with 10 Instagram posts that use #coronavirus.

corona <- insta_posts(query = "coronavirus", 
                         scope = "hashtag",
                         max_posts = 10, 
                         scrape_comments = F)


corona

Also return comments and replies to comments for the 10 last #coronavirus posts.

corona_comments <- insta_posts(query = "coronavirus", 
                         scope = "hashtag",
                         max_posts = 10, 
                         scrape_comments = T)

corona_comments

Get Posts from a Specific User

Return a tibble with the 10 Instagram posts by francediplo.

francediplo <- insta_posts(query = "francediplo", 
                         scope = "username",
                         max_posts = 10, 
                         scrape_comments = F)


francediplo

Retrieve comments as well:

francediplo_comments <- insta_posts(query = "francediplo", 
                         scope = "username",
                         max_posts = 10, 
                         scrape_comments = T)


francediplo_comments

Save output to csv

As function scrapes, the data is saved and continously appended to a .csv file (for when you have long scraping tasks). Just specify a path for the save_path argument.

francediplo_comments <- insta_posts(query = "francediplo", 
                         scope = "username",
                         max_posts = 10, 
                         scrape_comments = T, 
                         save_path = "francediplo.csv")


readr::read_csv("francediplo.csv")

Get User or Hashtag posts in specific timerange

Just specify both an argument for since (latest date) and until (earliest date) and get Instagram posts in specific timerange.

covidgoodnews <- insta_posts(query = "covidgoodnews",
                         scope = "username",
                         max_posts = 10,
                         scrape_comments = F,
                         since = "2020-06-01",
                         until = "2020-01-01")



covidgoodnews

Login with your Instagram account

Some functionalities (like scraping followers from an account) are only available if you login with your Instagram account. For this purpose, instaloadeR functions will read from your environment variables.

In order to add the info to your environment file, you can use the function edit_r_environ() from the usethis package.

usethis::edit_r_environ()

This will open your .Renviron file in your text editor. Now, you can add the following line(s) to it:

INSTAGRAM_LOGIN=YOUR_USERNAME
INSTAGRAM_PW=YOUR_PW

Save the file and restart R for the changes to take effect.

The password line is optional and can also be provided via a prompt which will appear if you run insta_login without specifying the passwd argument (if you are icky about typing out your password which you should always be).

Now you can use insta_login in the following way:

insta_login(save = T)

save = T will save your credentials, so next time you can just do load = T and you don't need to specify your password again:

insta_login(load = T)

Get followers of an account

You can all followers of an Instagram account with get_followers but only if you are logged in as an Instagram user. The function get_followers retrieves a character vector with all usernames that follow the specified account.

insta_login(load = T)


get_followers("willsmith_fan_")

Get similar or suggested accounts

insta_login(load = T)


similar_accounts <- get_similar_accounts("willsmith_fan_")

similar_accounts

TODO

• Geotags
• Download Images/videos
• ...

favstats/instaloadeR documentation built on Jan. 1, 2021, 1:17 a.m.