insta-post-link-extractor

Extract links from an Instagram post.

Why? Because Instagram doesn't allow you to add clickable links in the caption of a post. From a few researches, the original idea was to avoid spam, as well as let users stay within the Instagram app. However, this is a limitation for content creators who want to share CTA links in their posts.

Instagram Marketers all over the world have been trying to find ways to bypass this limitation.

One of the most common ways is to add a link in the bio, and then add a caption like "Link in bio". However, this is not ideal as it requires the user to click on the profile, and then click on the link in the bio. Users could have been enjoying other contents in the feed, but now they are distracted by the "Link in bio" caption as they are forced to click on the profile to find the link. Also, this must be done by the content creator.

Another way, which I would not recommend - is to memorize the link, then type it manually in the browser. You have to go back to the Instagram App a few times if you are not confident with your short term memory.

For most of the users, you may need to step by step:

1. Copy the post link.
2. Paste the link in a browser.
3. Drag and highlight the link (with very much effort so that you didn't miss any character).
4. Copy the link.
5. Paste the link in the browser (finally!)

Another way if you are using iOS 15 or later, is to take a screenshot of the current screen in Instagram App and use the "Live Text" feature to copy the link from the image. However, this is not reliable due to these two reasons:

With this repo, I present a workaround with iOS Shortcuts and a lightweight AWS Serverless Application backend to extract links from an Instagram post - much faster and much more handy.

Comparsion of three different methods:

Method	Step by step	Live Text	This Shortcut
Speed	20s	10s	5s
Reliability	High	Low	High
Description	Distracting user from the original content, requires the content creator to maintain the link list.	Very distracting. Requires user to copy post link, re-open in a browser, then manual drag and highlight the link.	Not reliable
Sample		"

Deployment

Open Cloudshell: https://us-east-1.console.aws.amazon.com/cloudshell/home?region=us-east-1, or in an AWS Region of your choice.

git clone https://github.com/gabrielkoo/insta-post-link-extractor.git
cd insta-post-link-extractor
# Avoid `PythonPipBuilder:Validation` error as Python3.12 is not available in Cloudshell yet
sam build -x InstaPostLinkExtractorFunction
sam deploy \
    --stack-name InstaPostLinkExtractor \
    --guided
# Follow the prompts

Now, copy the values of InstaPostLinkExtractorApi and InstaPostLinkExtractorApiUrl from the output of the deployment:

CloudFormation outputs from deployed stack
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Outputs
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Key                 InstaPostLinkExtractorApiApiKeyConsoleUrl
Description         API Gateway API Key Console URL for InstaPostLinkExtractorApi
Value               https://us-east-1.console.aws.amazon.com/apigateway/main/api-keys/[API_KEY_ID_HERE]?region=us-east-1

Key                 InstaPostLinkExtractorApi
Description         API Gateway endpoint URL for Prod stage for InstaPostLinkExtractorApi
Value               https://[APIGW_ID_HERE].execute-api.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/prod/insta-post-link-extractor/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Successfully created/updated stack - insta-post-link-extractor in us-east-1

export ENDPOINT_URL='Paste the value of InstaPostLinkExtractorApi here'
export API_KEY='Paste the value of InstaPostLinkExtractorApiUrl here'

# Try once first!
curl $ENDPOINT_URL \
    -X POST \
    -H "x-api-key: $API_KEY" \
    -H "Accept: application/json" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d '{"url": "https://www.instagram.com/p/DB5QbNzTQxY/"}' | jq

# {
#   "links": [
#     "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
#     "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsCIeklgp1M"
#   ]
# }

Now, install the shortcut (it was signed by Apple) https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gabrielkoo/insta-post-link-extractor/refs/heads/main/Extract+IG+Post+Links.shortcut.

Fill in the values of the API endpoint and the API key from the results above.

Now start saving 10 seconds of your life every time you want to extract links from an Instagram post!