Working with User Profiles

Fetch Instagram user profiles, read bio and follower data, follow or unfollow accounts, and paginate followers and followings using JxInsta’s Profile class.

The Profile class is the main entry point for interacting with any Instagram account. You retrieve a Profile by calling getProfile() on an authenticated JxInsta instance. The returned object exposes profile metadata through ProfileData fields, and lets you take actions such as following, unfollowing, and blocking the account, as well as paginating posts, followers, and followings.

Fetching a profile

1. Create an authenticated client

   Instantiate JxInsta with credentials or an existing session token. The Mobile and Web clients have slightly different constructors.

   Mobile

   // Log in with username and password
   JxInsta insta = new JxInsta("your_username", "your_password");
   
   // Or reuse an existing auth token
   JxInsta insta = JxInsta.getInstance("Bearer IGT:2:...");
   

   Web

   // Log in with username and password
   JxInsta insta = new JxInsta("your_username", "your_password");
   
   // Or reuse an existing session
   JxInsta insta = JxInsta.getInstance("sessionid_value", "csrftoken_value");
   
2. Call getProfile()

   Pass the target account’s username. Both clients expose the same method signature.

   Profile profile = insta.getProfile("natgeo");
   
3. Read ProfileData fields

   Profile extends ProfileData, so all fields are directly accessible on the returned object.

   System.out.println(profile.username);         // "natgeo"
   System.out.println(profile.pk);               // numeric user ID
   System.out.println(profile.name);             // display name
   System.out.println(profile.biography);        // bio text
   System.out.println(profile.profilePicURL);    // HTTPS image URL
   System.out.println(profile.isPrivate);        // true/false
   System.out.println(profile.isVerified);       // true/false
   System.out.println(profile.isBusinessAccount);// true/false
   System.out.println(profile.posts);            // total post count
   System.out.println(profile.followers);        // follower count
   System.out.println(profile.followings);       // following count
   

On the Web client, followers and followings return -1 when the value is not included in the API response for a given endpoint. Check for -1 before displaying the count.

Profile actions

Once you have a Profile object you can follow, unfollow, or block the account. All three methods throw InstagramException on failure.

profile.follow();    // send a follow request
profile.unfollow();  // remove an existing follow
profile.block();     // block the account

These actions are performed as the authenticated account. There is no confirmation step — calling block() immediately blocks the user.

Fetching stories and highlights

getStory() returns the account’s currently active story reels. getHighlights() returns all items from the account’s saved highlight collections.

List<Story> stories    = profile.getStory();      // active stories
List<Story> highlights = profile.getHighlights(); // highlight items

Both methods return an empty list (Mobile) or null (Web) when no content is available, so check before iterating.

List<Story> stories = profile.getStory();
if (stories != null && !stories.isEmpty()) {
    for (Story story : stories) {
        System.out.println(story);
    }
}

Paginating posts

getPosts() returns a PostPaginator which implements Iterator<List<Post>>. Call hasNext() before each next() call to avoid a NoSuchElementException.

Mobile

The Mobile paginator takes no cursor argument — pagination state is managed internally.

PostPaginator paginator = profile.getPosts();

while (paginator.hasNext()) {
    List<Post> page = paginator.next();
    for (Post post : page) {
        System.out.println(post.id + " — " + post.caption);
    }
}

Web

The Web paginator accepts an optional starting cursor. Pass null to start from the beginning.

PostPaginator paginator = profile.getPosts(null);

while (paginator.hasNext()) {
    List<Post> page = paginator.next();
    for (Post post : page) {
        System.out.println(post.id + " — " + post.caption);
    }
}

Paginating followers and followings

getFollowers() and getFollowings() return a ProfilePaginator which implements Iterator<List<Profile>>. Each page contains up to 200 profiles (Mobile) or 50 profiles (Web).

Mobile

ProfilePaginator followerPages = profile.getFollowers();

while (followerPages.hasNext()) {
    List<Profile> page = followerPages.next();
    for (Profile follower : page) {
        System.out.println(follower.username + " (" + follower.pk + ")");
    }
}

Web

The Web paginator accepts an optional cursor. Pass null to start from the first page.

ProfilePaginator followerPages = profile.getFollowers(null);

while (followerPages.hasNext()) {
    List<Profile> page = followerPages.next();
    for (Profile follower : page) {
        System.out.println(follower.username + " (" + follower.pk + ")");
    }
}

Use getFollowings() in the same way to iterate over accounts that the profile follows.

Each Profile object returned by the paginator is a full Profile instance, so you can call follow(), getStory(), and other actions directly on paginated results.

ProfileData field reference

Field	Type	Description
username	String	The account’s username handle.
pk	String	The numeric user ID (primary key).
name	String	The full display name.
biography	String	The bio text from the profile.
profilePicURL	String	URL of the profile picture.
isPrivate	boolean	Whether the account is private.
isVerified	boolean	Whether the account has a verified badge.
isBusinessAccount	boolean	Whether the account is a business profile.
posts	int	Total number of posts published.
followers	int	Number of followers (-1 if not available).
followings	int	Number of accounts followed (-1 if not available).