InstaPy

Automation Script for “farming” Likes, Comments and Followers on Instagram

Implemented in Python using the Selenium module.

Think this tool is worth supporting? Head over to https://github.com/timgrossmann/InstaPy/wiki/How-to-Contribute to find out how you can help. Become a part of InstaPy!

Have an issue? Head over to https://github.com/timgrossmann/InstaPy/wiki/Reporting-An-Issue to find out how to report this to us and get help.

Disclaimer: Please Note that this is a research project. I am by no means responsible for any usage of this tool. Use on your own behalf. I’m also not responsible if your accounts get banned due to extensive use of this tool.

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Getting Started
- Basic Installation
- Basic Setup
InstaPy Available Features
Third Party InstaPy GUI for Windows
Use a proxy
Switching to Firefox
Emoji Support
Clarifai ImageAPI
Running on a Server
Running on a Headless Browser
Running Multiple Accounts
Running with Docker microservices manual
Running all-in-one with Docker (obsolete)
Automate InstaPy
Extra Informations

Getting started

Video tutorials:

Setting up InstaPy for OSX

Setting up InstaPy at Digital Ocean (for Debian)

Guides:

How to Ubuntu (64-Bit)

How to RaspberryPi

How to Windows

Basic Installation:

1. git clone https://github.com/timgrossmann/InstaPy.git
2. cd InstaPy
3. pip install .
or
3. python setup.py install

Download chromedriver for your system from here. Extract the .zip file and put it in /assets folder.

Preferred Installation:

The best way to install InstaPy is to create a virtualenv, install InstaPy there and run it from a separate file:

1. virtualenv venv
2. source venv/bin/activate
3. pip install git+https://github.com/timgrossmann/InstaPy.git

If you're not familiar with virtualenv, please read about it here and use it to your advantage. In essence, this is be the only Python library you should install as root (e.g., with sudo). All other Python libraries should be inside a virtualenv. Now copy/paste the quickstart.py Python code below and run your first InstaPy script. Remember to run it with Python from the virtualenv, so from venv/bin/python. To make sure which Python is used, run which python, it will tell you which Python is 'active'. Running source venv/bin/activate will activate the correct Python to run InstaPy. To exit an activated virtualenv run `deactivate'.

Set it up yourself with this Basic Setup

Basic setup is a good way to test the tool. At project root folder open quickstart.py and update with your username and password.

from instapy import InstaPy

insta_username = ''
insta_password = ''

# if you want to run this script on a server,
# simply add nogui=True to the InstaPy() constructor
session = InstaPy(username=insta_username, password=insta_password)
session.login()

# set up all the settings
session.set_upper_follower_count(limit=2500)
session.set_do_comment(True, percentage=10)
session.set_comments(['aMEIzing!', 'So much fun!!', 'Nicey!'])
session.set_dont_include(['friend1', 'friend2', 'friend3'])
session.set_dont_like(['pizza', 'girl'])

# do the actual liking
session.like_by_tags(['natgeo', 'world'], amount=100)

# end the bot session
session.end()

Execute it:

$ python quickstart.py

Or use one of our GUIs

1. Official Cross Platform GUI

2. Third Party InstaPy GUI for Windows

3. Session scheduling with Telegram

InstaPy Available Features

Commenting

# default enabled=False, ~ every 4th image will be commented on

session.set_do_comment(enabled=True, percentage=25)
session.set_comments(['Awesome', 'Really Cool', 'I like your stuff'])

# you can also set comments for specific media types (Photo / Video)

session.set_comments(['Nice shot!'], media='Photo')
session.set_comments(['Great Video!'], media='Video')

# and you can add the username of the poster to the comment by using

session.set_comments(['Nice shot! @{}'], media='Photo')

Following

# default enabled=False, follows ~ 10% of the users from the images, times=1
# (only follows a user once (if unfollowed again))

session.set_do_follow(enabled=True, percentage=10, times=2)

Following by a list

# follows each account from a list of instagram nicknames (only follows a user
# once (if unfollowed again)) would be useful for the precise targeting.
# For example, if one needs to get followbacks from followers of a chosen
# account/group of accounts.

accs = ['therock','natgeo']
session.follow_by_list(accs, times=1)

Follow someone else's followers

# Follows the followers of each given user
# The usernames can be either a list or a string
# The amount is for each account, in this case 30 users will be followed
# If randomize is false it will pick in a top-down fashion

session.follow_user_followers(['friend1', 'friend2', 'friend3'], amount=10, randomize=False)

# default sleep_delay=600 (10min) for every 10 user following, in this case
# sleep for 60 seconds

session.follow_user_followers(['friend1', 'friend2', 'friend3'], amount=10, randomize=False, sleep_delay=60)

Follow users that someone else is following

# Follows the people that a given users are following
# The usernames can be either a list or a string
# The amount is for each account, in this case 30 users will be followed
# If randomize is false it will pick in a top-down fashion

session.follow_user_following(['friend1', 'friend2', 'friend3'], amount=10, randomize=False)

# default sleep_delay=600 (10min) for every 10 user following, in this case
# sleep for 60 seconds

session.follow_user_following(['friend1', 'friend2', 'friend3'], amount=10, randomize=False, sleep_delay=60)

Follow someone else's followers/following

# For 50% of the 30 newly followed, move to their profile
# and randomly choose 5 pictures to be liked.
# Take into account the other set options like the comment rate
# and the filtering for inappropriate words or users

session.set_user_interact(amount=5, randomize=True, percentage=50, media='Photo')
session.follow_user_followers(['friend1', 'friend2', 'friend3'], amount=10, randomize=False, interact=True)

Follow by Tags

# Follow user based on hashtags (without liking the image)

session.follow_by_tags(['tag1', 'tag2'], amount=10)

Interact with specific users

# Interact with specific users
# set_do_like, set_do_comment, set_do_follow are applicable

session.set_do_follow(enabled=False, percentage=50)
session.set_comments(["Cool", "Super!"])
session.set_do_comment(enabled=True, percentage=80)
session.set_do_like(True, percentage=70)
session.interact_by_users(['user1', 'user2', 'user3'], amount=5, randomize=True, media='Photo')

Interact with users that someone else is following

# Interact with the people that a given user is following
# set_do_comment, set_do_follow and set_do_like are applicable

session.set_user_interact(amount=5, randomize=True, percentage=50, media='Photo')
session.set_do_follow(enabled=False, percentage=70)
session.set_do_like(enabled=False, percentage=70)
session.set_comments(["Cool", "Super!"])
session.set_do_comment(enabled=True, percentage=80)
session.interact_user_following(['natgeo'], amount=10, randomize=True)

Interact with someone else's followers

# Interact with the people that a given user is following
# set_do_comment, set_do_follow and set_do_like are applicable

session.set_user_interact(amount=5, randomize=True, percentage=50, media='Photo')
session.set_do_follow(enabled=False, percentage=70)
session.set_do_like(enabled=False, percentage=70)
session.set_comments(["Cool", "Super!"])
session.set_do_comment(enabled=True, percentage=80)
session.interact_user_followers(['natgeo'], amount=10, randomize=True)

Unfollowing

# unfollows 10 of the accounts you're following -> instagram will only
# unfollow 10 before you'll be 'blocked for 10 minutes' (if you enter a
# higher number than 10 it will unfollow 10, then wait 10 minutes and will
# continue then).
# You can choose to only unfollow the user that Insta has followed by adding
# onlyInstapyFollowed = True otherwise it will unfollow all users
# You can choose unfollow method as FIFO (First-Input-First-Output) or
# LIFO (Last-Input-First-Output). The default is FIFO method.
# onlyInstapyMethod is using only when onlyInstapyFollowed = True
# sleep_delay sets the time it will sleep every 10 profile unfollow, default
# is 10min
session.unfollow_users(amount=10, onlyInstapyFollowed = True, onlyInstapyMethod = 'FIFO', sleep_delay=60 )

# You can only unfollow user that won't follow you back by adding
# onlyNotFollowMe = True it still only support on profile following
# you should disable onlyInstapyFollowed when use this
session.unfollow_users(amount=10, onlyNotFollowMe=True, sleep_delay=60)

# You can also unfollow users only after following them certain amount of time,
# this will provide seamless unfollow activity without the notice of the targeted user
# To use, just add `unfollow_after` argument with the desired time, e.g.
session.unfollow_users(amount=10, onlyInstapyFollowed = True, onlyInstapyMethod = 'FIFO', sleep_delay=600, unfollow_after=48*60*60)
# will unfollow users only after following them 48 hours (2 days), since `unfollow_after`s value
# is seconds, you can simply give it `unfollow_after=100` to unfollow after 100 seconds,
# but `1*60*60` (which is equal to 1 hour or 3600 seconds) style is a lot simpler to use 👍

Don't unfollow active users

# Prevents unfollow followers who have liked one of your latest 5 posts

session.set_dont_unfollow_active_users(enabled=True, posts=5)

Interactions based on the number of followers a user has

# This is used to check the number of followers a user has and if this number
# exceeds the number set then no further interaction happens

session.set_upper_follower_count(limit = 250)

# This is used to check the number of followers a user has and if this number
# does not pass the number set then no further interaction happens

session.set_lower_follower_count(limit = 1)

Comment by Locations

session.comment_by_locations(['224442573/salton-sea/'], amount=100)
# or
session.comment_by_locations(['224442573'], amount=100)
# or include media entities from top posts section

session.comment_by_locations(['224442573'], amount=5, skip_top_posts=False)

This method allows commenting by locations, without liking posts. To get locations follow instructions in 'Like by Locations'

Like by Locations

session.like_by_locations(['224442573/salton-sea/'], amount=100)
# or
session.like_by_locations(['224442573'], amount=100)
# or include media entities from top posts section

session.like_by_locations(['224442573'], amount=5, skip_top_posts=False)

You can find locations for the like_by_locations function by:

Browsing https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/
Regular instagram search.

Example:

Search 'Salton Sea' and select the result with a location icon
The url is: https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/224442573/salton-sea/
Use everything after 'locations/' or just the number

Like by Tags

# Like posts based on hashtags
session.like_by_tags(['natgeo', 'world'], amount=10)

Like by Tags and interact with user

# Like posts based on hashtags and like 3 posts of its poster
session.set_user_interact(amount=3, randomize=True, percentage=100, media='Photo')
session.like_by_tags(['natgeo', 'world'], amount=10, interact=True)

Like by Feeds

# This is used to perform likes on your own feeds
# amount=100  specifies how many total likes you want to perform
# randomize=True randomly skips posts to be liked on your feed
# unfollow=True unfollows the author of a post which was considered
# inappropriate interact=True visits the author's profile page of a
# certain post and likes a given number of his pictures, then returns to feed

session.like_by_feed(amount=100, randomize=True, unfollow=True, interact=True)

Blacklist Campaign

# Controls your interactions by campaigns.
# ex. this week InstaPy will like and comment interacting by campaign called
# 'soccer', next time InstaPy runs, it will not interact again with users in
# blacklist
# In general, this means that once we turn off the soccer_campaign again, InstaPy
# will have no track of the people it interacted with about soccer.
# This will help you target people only once but several times for different campaigns

session.set_blacklist(enabled=True, campaign='soccer_campaign')
session.set_do_comment(True, percentage=50)
session.set_comments(['Neymar is better than CR7', 'Soccer is cool'])
session.like_by_tags(['soccer', 'cr7', 'neymar'], amount=100, media='Photo')

Smart Hashtags

# Generate smart hashtags based on https://displaypurposes.com ranking,
# banned and spammy tags are filtered out.
# (limit) defines amount limit of generated hashtags by hashtag
# (sort) sort generated hashtag list 'top' and 'random' are available
# (log_tags) shows generated hashtags before use it
# (use_smart_hashtags) activates like_by_tag to use smart hashtags

session.set_smart_hashtags(['cycling', 'roadbike'], limit=3, sort='top', log_tags=True)
session.like_by_tags(amount=10, use_smart_hashtags=True)

Restricting Likes

session.set_dont_like(['#exactmatch', '[startswith', ']endswith', 'broadmatch'])

.set_dont_like searches the description and owner comments for hashtags and won't like the image if one of those hashtags are in there

You have 4 options to exclude posts from your InstaPy session:

words starting with # will match only exact hashtags (e. g. #cat matches #cat, but not #catpic)
words starting with [ will match all hashtags starting with your word (e. g. [cat matches #catpic, #caturday and so on)
words starting with ] will match all hashtags ending with your word (e. g. ]cat matches #mycat, #instacat and so on)
words without these prefixes will match all hashtags that contain your word regardless if it is placed at the beginning, middle or end of the hashtag (e. g. cat will match #cat, #mycat, #caturday, #rainingcatsanddogs and so on)

Ignoring Users

# completely ignore liking images from certain users

session.set_ignore_users(['random_user', 'another_username'])

Ignoring Restrictions

# will ignore the don't like if the description contains
# one of the given words

session.set_ignore_if_contains(['glutenfree', 'french', 'tasty'])

Excluding friends

# will prevent commenting on and unfollowing your good friends (the images will
# still be liked)

session.set_dont_include(['friend1', 'friend2', 'friend3'])

Follow/Unfollow/exclude not working?

If you notice that one or more of the above functionalities are not working as expected - e.g. you have specified:

session.set_do_follow(enabled=True, percentage=10, times=2)

but none of the profiles are being followed - or any such functionality is misbehaving - then one thing you should check is the position/order of such methods in your script. Essentially, all the set_* methods have to be before like_by_tags or like_by_locations or unfollow. This is also implicit in all the exmples and quickstart.py

Bypass Suspicious Login Attempt

If you're having issues with the "we detected an unusual login attempt" message, you can bypass it setting InstaPy in this way:

session = InstaPy(username=insta_username, password=insta_password, bypass_suspicious_attempt=True)

bypass_suspicious_attempt=True will send the verification code to your email, and you will be prompted to enter the security code sent to your email. It will login to your account, now you can set bypass_suspicious_attempt to False bypass_suspicious_attempt=False and InstaPy will quickly login using cookies.

Use a proxy

You can use InstaPy behind a proxy by specifying server address and port

session = InstaPy(username=insta_username, password=insta_password, proxy_address='8.8.8.8', proxy_port=8080)

To use proxy with authentication you should firstly generate proxy chrome extension (works only with Chrome and headless_browser=False).

from proxy_extension import create_proxy_extension

proxy = 'login:password@ip:port'
proxy_chrome_extension = create_proxy_extension(proxy)

session = InstaPy(username=insta_username, password=insta_password, proxy_chrome_extension=proxy_chrome_extension, nogui=True)

Switching to Firefox

Chrome is the default browser, but InstaPy provides support for Firefox as well.

session = InstaPy(username=insta_username, password=insta_password, use_firefox=True)

Emoji Support

To use an emoji just add an u in front of the opening apostrophe:

session.set_comments([u'This post is 🔥',u'More emojis are always better 💯',u'I love your posts 😍😍😍']);
# or
session.set_comments([u'Emoji text codes are also supported :100: :thumbsup: :thumbs_up: \u2764 💯💯']);

Emoji text codes are implemented using 2 different naming codes. A complete list of emojis codes can be found on the Python Emoji Github, but you can use the alternate shorted naming scheme found for Emoji text codes here. Note: Every Emoji has not been tested. Please report any inconsistencies.

Legacy Emoji Support

You can still use Unicode strings in your comments, but there are some limitations.

You can use only Unicode characters with no more than 4 characters and you have to use the unicode code (e. g. \u1234). You find a list of emoji with unicode codes on Wikipedia, but there is also a list of working emoji in /assets

You have to convert your comment to Unicode. This can safely be done by adding an u in front of the opening apostrophe: u'\u1234 some comment'

Clarifai ImageAPI

Note: Head over to https://developer.clarifai.com/signup/ and create a free account, once you’re logged in go to https://developer.clarifai.com/account/applications/ and create a new application. You can find the client ID and Secret there. You get 5000 API-calls free/month.

If you want the script to get your CLARIFAI_API_KEY for your environment, you can do:

export CLARIFAI_API_KEY="<API KEY>"

Example with Imagecontent handling

session.set_do_comment(True, percentage=10)
session.set_comments(['Cool!', 'Awesome!', 'Nice!'])
session.set_use_clarifai(enabled=True)
session.clarifai_check_img_for(['nsfw'])
session.clarifai_check_img_for(['food', 'lunch', 'dinner'], comment=True, comments=['Tasty!', 'Nice!', 'Yum!'])

session.end()

Enabling Imagechecking

# default enabled=False , enables the checking with the clarifai api (image
# tagging) if secret and proj_id are not set, it will get the environment
# variables 'CLARIFAI_API_KEY'

session.set_use_clarifai(enabled=True, api_key='xxx')

Filtering inappropriate images

# uses the clarifai api to check if the image contains nsfw content
# -> won't comment if image is nsfw

session.clarifai_check_img_for(['nsfw'])

Specialized comments for images with specific content

# checks the image for keywords food and lunch, if both are found,
# comments with the given comments. If full_match is False (default), it only
# requires a single tag to match Clarifai results.

session.clarifai_check_img_for(['food', 'lunch'], comment=True, comments=['Tasty!', 'Yum!'], full_match=True)

Check out https://clarifai.com/demo to see some of the available tags.

Running on a Server

Use the nogui parameter to interact with virtual display

session = InstaPy(username='test', password='test', nogui=True)

Running on a Headless Browser

Note: Chrome only! Must user chromedriver v2.9+

Use headless_browser parameter to run the bot via the CLI. Works great if running the scripts locally, or to deploy on a server. No GUI, less CPU intensive. Example

session = InstaPy(username='test', password='test', headless_browser=True)

Running Multiple Accounts

Use the multi_logs parameter if you are going to use multiple accounts and want the log files stored per account.

session = InstaPy(username='test', password='test', multi_logs=True)

Running with Docker microservices manual

Docker allows very easy and fast run of the instapy bot without any pain and tears.

0. Preparations

Install docker from the official website https://www.docker.com/

Install VNC viewer if you do not have one. For windows, a good program is http://www.tightvnc.com/

1. Set your instagram login and password

Open docker_quickstart.py and fill the quotes after insta_username and insta_password with your credentials.

Don't forget to make other changes for the file as you want to. Read the documentation above for info.

2. Run and build containers with docker-compose

First you need to open your terminal, move to the root folder (usually with the cd command) of instapy project and then type:

docker-compose up -d --build

That's all! At this step, you are already successfully running your personal bot!

3. See what your bot can do right now

Run your VNC viewer, and type address and port localhost:5900. The password is secret.

4. Stop your instapy bot

Use your terminal again, type in the same window:

docker-compose down

Your bot is stopped!

5. Further steps

Those are just basic steps to run instapy bot on your PC with docker. There are other docker-compose settings file in the root of project.

Development environment to run, test and debug by SSH

Use it to help us with development and test instapy! docker-dev.yml file.

docker-compose -f docker-dev.yml up -d

After striking this command, you can access your bot by VNC on the adress localhost:5901, the password is secret.

But there is more! There is a fully accessible bash console with all code mounted at the path /code. When you hack some files they are dynamically updated inside your container.

To access yor container console to run bot type localhost:22 in your favorite ssh client. The User is root and the password is root also.

Run in production without opened VNC port

Suitable to run in a remote server. Attention! You can not view what happened through VNC on this configuration docker-prod.yml file.

docker-compose -f docker-prod.yml up -d

Running all-in-one with Docker (obsolete)

1. Build the Image

First you need to build the image by running this in the Terminal:

docker build -t instapy ./docker_conf/all_in_one

Make sure to use the nogui feature:

# you can use the nogui parameter to use a virtual display

session = InstaPy(username='test', password='test', nogui=True)

2. Run in a Container

After the build succeeds, you can simply run the container with:

docker run --name=instapy -e INSTA_USER=<your-user> -e INSTA_PW=<your-pw> -d --rm instapy

Automate InstaPy

Windows Task Scheduler

You can use Window's built in Task Scheduler to automate InstaPy, using a variety of trigger types: time, login, computer idles, etc. To schedule a simple daily run of an Instapy script follow the below directions

Open Windows Task Scheduler
Select "Create Basic Task"
Fill out "Name" and "Description" as desired, click "Next"
On "Trigger" screen select how frequently to run, click "Next" (Frequency can be modified later)
On "Daily" screen, hit "Next"
"Action Screen" select "Start a program" and then click "Next"
"Program/script" enter the path, or browse to select the path to python. (How to find python path on Windows)
"Add arguments" input the InstaPy script path you wish to run. (Example: C:\Users\USER_NAME\Documents\GitHub\InstaPy\craigquick.py)
"Start in" input Instapy install location (Example: C:\Users\USER_NAME\Documents\GitHub\InstaPy). Click "Next"
To finish the process, hit "Finish"

`cron`

You can add InstaPy to your crontab, so that the script will be executed regularly. This is especially useful for servers, but be sure not to break Instagrams follow and like limits.

# Edit or create a crontab
crontab -e
# Add information to execute your InstaPy regularly.
# With cd you navigate to your InstaPy folder, with the part after &&
# you execute your quickstart.py with python. Make sure that those paths match
# your environment.
45 */4 * * * cd /home/user/InstaPy && /usr/bin/python ./quickstart.py

Schedule

Schedule is an in-process scheduler for periodic jobs that uses the builder pattern for configuration. Schedule lets you run Python functions periodically at pre-determined intervals using a simple, human-friendly syntax.

pip install schedule

from instapy import InstaPy
import schedule
import time

def job():
    try:
        session = InstaPy(selenium_local_session=False) # Assuming running in Compose
        session.set_selenium_remote_session(selenium_url='http://selenium:4444/wd/hub')
        session.login()
        session.set_do_comment(enabled=True, percentage=20)
        session.set_comments(['Well done!'])
        session.set_do_follow(enabled=True, percentage=5, times=2)
        session.like_by_tags(['love'], amount=100, media='Photo')
        session.end()
    except:
        import traceback
        print(traceback.format_exc())

schedule.every().day.at("6:35").do(job)
schedule.every().day.at("16:22").do(job)

while True:
    schedule.run_pending()
    time.sleep(1)

Extra Informations

How not to be banned ?

Built-in delays prevent your account from getting banned. (Just make sure you don't like 1000s of post/day)

Chrome Browser

64-bit system is a requirement for current versions of chrome browser.