awake nerd

Introduction

Open-source intelligence gathering on Instagram is beneficial for various actors, including influencers, journalists, law enforcement agents, and cybersecurity specialists. This tutorial guides you through the process of installing Instaloader on Windows 10.

What is Instaloader

Instaloader is an open-source tool written in Python that can be used to gather intelligence on Instagram. Rich in features and options, you can use Instaloader to download Instagram media directly from the command-line.

You can use Instaloader to download:

• Photos and videos
• Profile pictures
• Stories
• Reels
• Comments, captions, hashtags, and geotags
• Profiles of followers and followees

Efficient organization of the downloaded data, incremental updates, and its ability to be used in custom Python scripts make Instaloader a key tool in OSINT.

What is Instaloader used for

There are many reasons and various motivations why one may use Instaloader. The most common reasons for using Instaloader are:

Profilization

Advanced computer users, cyber specialists, and white hat hackers can leverage Instaloader’s utilities to gather information on someone with the main purpose of performing profile analysis. By retrieving and archiving Instagram content, they can conduct temporal analysis to discover posting patterns and content evolution over time.

Social media growth

Instaloader’s ability to scrape posts based on an Instagram hashtag and the valuable metadata it retrieves for each post helps content creators monitor and follow the latest trends on Instagram. Influencers find Instaloader’s insights very useful in creating highly engaging content.

Instagram content archiving

Backing up your whole photos and videos with Instaloader is a matter of one command. In case you want to download stories, highlights, saved posts, and even your follow list, Instaloader provides the command-line options. Due to its flexibility, Instaloader can also be utilized in a cron job to schedule automatic backups of your Instagram account.

Investigations

Geotags may reveal locations of the crime scene that can serve as digital footprints for further investigation by law enforcement agents or other specialists. Law enforcement and private investigators can rely on Instaloader’s features and functionalities to gather evidence and track potential suspects.

Journalism

Journalists can explore the public data on Instagram through Instaloader to support their reporting activity or investigative work. With the help of hashtags, they can scrape posts and search for trends or sentiments. They can also use Instaloader to track popular figures or influencers.

How to install Instaloader on Windows 10

There are three main ways to install Instaloader on Windows 10. This tutorial teaches you how to install Instaloader on Windows 10 using pip and via the standalone executable. If you are interested in compiling Instaloader from source, refer to this guide.

How to install Instaloader on Windows 10 using pip

To install Instaloader on Windows 10 using pip, you need to make sure Python is installed and configured on your system. We will use a virtual environment to install Instaloader on Windows 10. Such an approach makes sure there are no conflicts with system-wide installed Python packages.

Open a command prompt on Windows 10. To create a virtual environment for Instaloader type:

python -m venv instaloader

To activate the virtual environment, type:

instaloader/Scripts/activate.bat

To install Instaloader on Windows 10 using pip, type:

pip install instaloader

To run Instaloader on Windows 10 from the command prompt type:

instaloader

How to update Instaloader on Windows 10 using pip

To upgrade Instaloader to its current version, type:

pip install --upgrade instaloader

How to install Instaloader on Windows 10 via the executable

Instaloader offers a standalone executable for Windows 10. Go to the release page and download the Instaloader executable as below.

The Instaloader standalone executable is zipped. Extract the archive and copy the full path of the executable. To install Instaloader on Windows 10 via the standalone executable, you have to add it to the PATH environment variable.

To run Instaloader, open a command prompt and type:

instaloader --version

Final thoughts

Through this tutorial, you learned how to install Instaloader on Windows 10 through pip and via the standalone executable. Learn how to download Instagram photos with Instaloader.