| Guide | GDE-059 |
| Topic | Osintgram |
| Domain | Instagram account analysis |
| Last updated | September 2026 |
Short answer: Run Osintgram from a dedicated, non-primary Instagram account to pull followers, following lists, captions, hashtags and photo metadata from a public account, and treat the ban and data-protection risks as real from the first query.
What is Osintgram?
Osintgram is the practice of using the open-source Osintgram tool to run an interactive command-line analysis of a public Instagram account, extracting followers, following, captions, hashtags and photo metadata through Instagram's own API using an investigator's logged-in session.
Osintgram is a free, open-source Python tool, actively maintained on GitHub with more than 13,000 stars, that offers an interactive shell for pulling structured data from a target Instagram account by username. It authenticates using the investigator's own Instagram credentials and works through Instagram's API rather than scraping rendered pages, returning followers, following lists, captions, hashtags, photo descriptions and, where available, addresses tied to geotagged photos.
Because it logs in as a real Instagram account to make these requests, the tool's own documentation warns against using a primary personal account, since automated querying at volume risks a temporary or permanent ban.
| • | Extracting a public account's follower and following lists in structured form for network analysis |
| • | Pulling captions, hashtags and photo metadata across a target's post history in bulk |
| • | Building an account overview as a starting point before manual review of individual posts |
| • | Cross-referencing an Instagram handle against findings from other platforms in a wider identity investigation |
How do you run an Osintgram analysis?
Six steps from setting up a dedicated account through to extracting and reviewing the data responsibly.
The following tools are used across the steps below.
Osintgram: Free, open-source (GPLv3 licence). The command-line tool itself, authenticating through Instagram's API.