IGFU Scraper

Creator intelligence tool for finding high-performing short-form videos, pulling scripts, and exporting clean research files.

IGFU Scraper helps content creators, social media researchers, agencies, and short-form video strategists analyze Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, TikTok videos, and YouTube Shorts without manually copying captions, view counts, links, and transcripts into spreadsheets.

What It Does

• Analyze an Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or YouTube creator page.
• Filter recent posts by lookback window, such as 30, 60, or 90 days.
• Rank creator reels by views.
• Select the reels worth studying.
• Pull transcripts only for selected reels.
• Optionally include engagement metrics and media links in creator research exports when actors return them.
• Paste individual or bulk reel links for direct transcription.
• Export selected creator results as CSV or Markdown.
• Export transcript batches as CSV or Markdown.
• Keep API keys out of source code by using browser storage or Netlify environment variables.

Supported Platforms

Platform	Creator scan	Link transcription	Captions	Views
Instagram Reels	Yes	Yes	Yes, when returned by actor	Yes
Facebook Reels	Yes	Yes	Yes, when returned by actor	Yes
TikTok videos	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
YouTube Shorts	Yes	Yes	Title/metadata when returned by actor	Yes

Main Workflows

Creator Research

Use this when you want to study a creator and find their strongest recent posts.

1. Paste an Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or YouTube creator URL.
2. Choose how many days to look back.
3. Choose the maximum number of winning reels to show.
4. Scan the creator.
5. Select reels from the ranked table.
6. Transcribe selected reels directly into the same table.
7. Export selected rows as CSV or Markdown.

Advanced actor settings are available inside the creator workflow. When enabled, they override the simple date/results controls and send platform-specific actor fields directly to Apify, such as Instagram resultsLimit, TikTok resultsPerPage, and YouTube Shorts maxResultsShorts.

Facebook creator research currently stays in simple mode because the verified Facebook actor input exposes only startUrls for this workflow. Facebook output can still include views, descriptions, video URLs, thumbnails, and any engagement fields returned by the actor.

Link Transcriber

Use this when you already have saved reel links.

1. Paste Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or YouTube Shorts URLs, one per line.
2. Pull transcripts.
3. Copy individual transcripts.
4. Export the transcript batch as CSV or Markdown.

Tech Stack

• React
• Vite
• Netlify Functions
• Apify API
• Lucide React icons
• Local Node server for Netlify-style function testing

Apify Actors Used

The app uses a Netlify Function as a bridge to Apify actors.

Job	Actor
Instagram creator metadata	apify/instagram-reel-scraper
Instagram transcripts	tictechid/anoxvanzi-transcriber
Facebook creator metadata	unseenuser/fb-reels
Facebook transcripts	unseenuser/fb-transcript
TikTok creator metadata	clockworks/tiktok-scraper
TikTok transcripts	aticode/tiktok-transcript-scraper
YouTube Shorts creator metadata	streamers/youtube-channel-scraper
YouTube Shorts transcripts	junipr/youtube-transcript-extractor

Actor pricing and behavior can change over time. Check Apify before production use.

Local Development

Install dependencies:

npm install

Run the local app with the Netlify Function bridge:

npm run dev

Open:

http://localhost:4173

Build for production:

npm run build

API Key Setup

Users can paste their own Apify API key inside API Settings in the app. The key is saved in that browser's local storage and is sent to the Netlify Function only when running a scrape/transcription request.

For hosted deployments, you can also set a fallback Netlify environment variable:

APIFY_TOKEN=your_apify_token_here

Do not commit API keys into the repository.

Netlify Deployment

This project is Netlify-ready.

• Build command: npm run build
• Publish directory: dist
• Functions directory: netlify/functions

The included netlify.toml handles build and function routing.

Project Structure

src/
  main.jsx          React app logic and workflows
  styles.css        UI styling
netlify/functions/
  apify.js          Apify API bridge
configs/            Sample actor input configs
samples/            Sample URL lists for CLI testing
apify_scraper.py    Optional Python CLI experiments
local-server.mjs    Local server for production build + function route

Optional Python CLI

The web app is the main product, but this repo also includes an experimental Python CLI used while testing actors.

Set your token in the shell:

$env:APIFY_TOKEN="your_apify_token_here"

Example:

python .\apify_scraper.py ig-batch --creator https://www.instagram.com/itsemilyhiggins/reels --limit 30 --days 90 --max-transcripts 10

CLI outputs are written to outputs/, which is ignored by Git.

Security

• API keys are not stored in source code.
• Browser-entered Apify keys stay in local storage and are sent only when a user runs a request.
• Hosted deployments can use APIFY_TOKEN as a server-side environment variable.
• .env, build output, dependencies, generated outputs, and Python cache files are ignored by Git.

License

MIT