Guide to Instagram comments data

You can fetch comments on an Instagram post or replies to a specific Instagram comment by leveraging ID-based retrieval, using the get() method with the <MCL_ID>/comments path. This document describes the parameters and shows you how to perform basic queries by using this method.

All of the examples in this document assume you have created a Python or R Jupyter notebook and a client object. See Getting started to learn more.

All of the examples in this document are taken from a Researcher Platform use case and assume you have already created a Python or R Jupyter notebook and have created a client object. See Getting started to learn more.

See the Data dictionary for detailed information about the fields that are available on an Instagram comment node.

Parameters

Sample queries

Fetch comments on an Instagram post

Fetching comments from specific Instagram posts requires that you first obtain the post ID by using the get() method, with the appropriate “path” and “params.” The search results will include the ID field by default (you don't have to specify it in your query). See the Guide to Instagram posts data to learn about this method.

The results will include top-level comments on a specific post but not the nested comments. To get the nested comments on a specific post, refer to fetch comments of an Instagram comment, or use the fetch_all parameter.

Meta Content Library IDs can be used in comment queries and displayed in the search results. Meta Content Library IDs are unique IDs linked to an entity in MCL. These IDs cannot be used to search on Meta’s technologies.

To fetch top-level replies on a specific Instagram post, generate a post ID using the get(path=’search/instagram_posts’, ...) method. Then, query get(path=’<post_id>/comments’) method to fetch top-level replies on this post.

The following example would return 10 results per page. You can use the query_next_page() and has_next() to get the next page of 10 results, until all the query results have been returned. In order to fetch all top-level replies of a post with a single call, you can follow the instructions on asynchronous fetching.

library(reticulate)
client <- import("metacontentlibraryapi")$MetaContentLibraryAPIClient

client$set_default_version(client$LATEST_VERSION)

# Fetch first 10 comments
response <- client$get(path="943578593983539/comments")
jsonlite::fromJSON(response$text, flatten=TRUE)


# Fetch next page
if (client$has_next_page(response)) {
    response <- client$query_next_page(response)
    jsonlite::fromJSON(response$text, flatten=TRUE) # Display second page
}

from metacontentlibraryapi import MetaContentLibraryAPIClient as client

client.set_default_version(client.LATEST_VERSION)

# Fetch first 10 comments
response = client.get(path="943578593983539/comments")

display(response.json()) # Display first page

# Fetch next page
if client.has_next_page(response):
    response = client.query_next_page(response)
    display(response.json()) # Display second page

Fetch replies on an Instagram comment

To fetch top-level replies on specific Instagram comments, take a comment ID that you obtained from a previous comment fetch call and pass it as a path param, with a /comment suffix.

This example returns 10 results per page. You can use the query_next_page() and has_next_page() to get the next page of 10 results.To fetch all the top-level replies on a comment with a single call, follow the instructions on asynchronous fetching.

library(reticulate)
client <- import("metacontentlibraryapi")$MetaContentLibraryAPIClient


client$set_default_version(client$LATEST_VERSION)

# Fetch first 10 subcomments
response <- client$get(path="995467055185836/comments")

jsonlite::fromJSON(response$text, flatten=TRUE) # Display first page

from metacontentlibraryapi import MetaContentLibraryAPIClient as client

client.set_default_version(client.LATEST_VERSION)

# Fetch first 10 subcomments
response = client.get(path="995467055185836/comments")

display(response.json()) # Display first page

Request specific fields

To have the API return specific fields from the Instagram comments, create a comment fetch call, passing the fields parameter as a comma-separated list of fields you want included. If omitted, default fields will be returned.

library (reticulate)
client <- import("metacontentlibraryapi")$MetaContentLibraryAPIClient

client$set_default_version(client$LATEST_VERSION)

# Fetch first 10 comments with specific fields
response <- client$get(
          path="943578593983539/comments",
          params=list("fields"="text,creation_time")
)

jsonlite::fromJSON(response$text, flatten=TRUE)

from metacontentlibraryapi import MetaContentLibraryAPIClient as client

client.set_default_version(client.LATEST_VERSION)

# Fetch first 10 comments with specific fields
response = client.get(
                path="943578593983539/comments", 
                params={'fields': 'text,creation_time'}
)

display(response.json())

Request comments with “since” and/or “until” filters

To have the API return comments within a specific time and date range, create a comment fetch call and pass the since and until parameters you want included.

library(reticulate)
client <- import("metacontentlibraryapi")$MetaContentLibraryAPIClient

client$set_default_version(client$LATEST_VERSION)

# Will fetch comments that were created after 2023-12-10
# but before 1702771200 (epoch timestamp of "2023-12-17 12:00:00 AM)
# Both formats (date and UNIX timestamp) are allowed
response <- client$get(
          path="278197145061596/comments",
          params=list("since"="2023-12-10", "until"="1702771200")
)


jsonlite::fromJSON(response$text, flatten=TRUE)

from metacontentlibraryapi import MetaContentLibraryAPIClient as client

client.set_default_version(client.LATEST_VERSION)

# Will fetch comments that were created after 2023-12-10
# but before 1702771200 (epoch timestamp of "2023-12-17 12:00:00 AM)
# Both formats (date and UNIX timestamp) are allowed
response = client.get(
        path="278197145061596/comments", 
        params={'since': '2023-12-10', 'until': '1702771200'}
)

display(response.json())

Request comments with a “fetch_all” filter

To have the API return all comments, not just the top-level replies, you can use the fetch_all boolean param, by setting it to true. Since the data are returned flattened, no sorting is applied.

library(reticulate)
client <- import("metacontentlibraryapi")$MetaContentLibraryAPIClient

client$set_default_version(client$LATEST_VERSION)

# Fetch ALL comments (paginated)
response <- client$get(
          path="995467055185836/comments", params=list("fetch_all"=TRUE)
)

jsonlite::fromJSON(response$text, flatten=TRUE)

from metacontentlibraryapi import MetaContentLibraryAPIClient as client

client.set_default_version(client.LATEST_VERSION)

# Fetch ALL comments (paginated)
response = client.get(
path="995467055185836/comments", params={'fetch_all': 1}
)

display(response.json())

Request comments with a “sort” filter

To have the API return comments in a specific order, you can use the sort param.

library(reticulate)
client <- import("metacontentlibraryapi")$MetaContentLibraryAPIClient

client$set_default_version(client$LATEST_VERSION)

# Fetch first 10 comments, from oldest to newest (chronological order)
response <- client$get(
     path="943578593983539/comments", params=list("sort"="oldest_to_newest")
)

jsonlite::fromJSON(response$text, flatten=TRUE)

from metacontentlibraryapi import MetaContentLibraryAPIClient as client

client.set_default_version(client.LATEST_VERSION)

# Fetch first 10 comments, from oldest to newest (chronological order)
response = client.get(
path="943578593983539/comments", params={'sort': 'oldest_to_newest'}
)

display(response.json())

Learn more

• Getting started
• Data dictionary
• Guide to Instagram posts data
• Guide to ID-based retrieval
• Rate limiting for comments fetching