Everything on the grid
Images, videos, reels, and full carousel albums. Each asset lands as its own file with a stable key so re-runs never re-download.
imago get instagram.com/<user>/
imago archive Instagram profiles completely
Drop a profile URL. Walk away. Every photo, video, and carousel slide lands on disk. Watch the profiles you care about and backfill weekly without duplicates. Built for humans and coding agents.
- One-command login — reads your session from the browser
- Photos, videos/reels, every carousel slide
- Watchlist + weekly sync skips what you already have
- Agent-native: --json, guide, file logs, exit codes
install + first archive
paru -S imago # Arch (AUR) · or a binary from Releases
cargo install --git https://github.com/guitaripod/imago
imago auth login # reads your logged-in browser session
imago get https://www.instagram.com/natgeo/
imago watch add natgeo
# cron weekly:
imago watch sync --jsonWhy imago
Walk away
Auto-resumes interrupted jobs, resumes truncated videos, and waits out soft rate limits. A checkpoint or dead session stops with a clear re-auth message instead of spinning — and the final report tells you exactly how many posts it got.
Watchlist
imago watch add <user> then imago watch sync on a cron. Incremental early-stop when a page is already known; --full when you want a re-scan.
Built for agents
imago guide is the playbook. --json on every command. Logs under $XDG_DATA_HOME/imago/logs. Stable exit codes for scripts and coding agents.
Your session, your disk
imago auth login reads the session straight from your logged-in browser (Chrome, Chromium, Brave, Vivaldi, Edge, Opera) — no devtools copy-paste, no shared cloud, no Meta app review. Media stays in ./downloads/<user>/ on your machine.
Honest CLI
No fake flags. No half-wired config. What the guide says is what the binary does.
Agent contract
Exit codes: 0 ok · 1 usage · 2 auth dead · 3 partial · 10 unexpected
JSON: --json on every
command · playbook: imago guide
Logs: $XDG_DATA_HOME/imago/logs/imago.log
FAQ
Is this legal / allowed by Instagram?
imago is a personal archival tool that uses your own logged-in session, the same way a browser does. You are responsible for complying with Instagram’s terms and local law. Don’t run it as a bulk commercial scraper.
How does login work?
Log into Instagram in your browser, then run imago auth login — it reads and decrypts the session cookies from your browser profile automatically (Chrome, Chromium, Brave, Vivaldi, Edge, Opera). No manual copy-paste. On a headless box you can still pass --session-id / --csrf-token by hand.
Why do I need to log in at all?
Anonymous requests only return a profile’s first 12 posts — Instagram gates deeper pagination behind a logged-in session. imago reuses your own session, exactly like your browser does; it never sees your password.
Does it download stories?
Not in v1. Profile grid media only (including reels that appear on the grid). Stories and highlights are a different surface.
What about duplicates?
Disk is truth. Existing shortcode / shortcode_NN files are skipped. Watch sync early-stops when an entire page is already known.