How ReelGrabber Converts Instagram Reels to Podcast Albums

What It Does

Most people follow creators on Instagram for the insight, not the aesthetic. But the feed is a slot machine — every scroll buries the content you actually want. ReelGrabber solves this by extracting the audio layer from Instagram Reels and assembling it into a proper podcast file, complete with ID3v2 metadata, cover art, and track numbers.

The result is an .mp3 file that appears in Apple Music, VLC, Doppler, or any podcast app as a clean, browsable album — exactly like a real podcast. You can listen while commuting, working out, or cooking, without touching Instagram at all.

How It Works Technically

The tool is a Python 3 script with four distinct stages:

1. 1. Collect— A headless Playwright browser session scrolls the creator's /reels/ page and extracts all shortcodes. No API key required. Works with your existing Firefox profile.

   ./reelgrabber leoballar --collect

2. 2. Download — yt-dlpfetches each reel using the creator's CDN URL. ReelGrabber performs direct stream extraction — the original AAC audio is preserved with zero re-compression.

   ./reelgrabber leoballar --download

3. 3. Filter (you control) — Open thevideos/leoballar/folder. Delete any reels you don't want — promotions, irrelevant content, anything. This is intentional. You curate your own feed.
4. 4. Build Podcast — ffmpegconverts each MP4 to MP3, concatenates them into a medley, and embeds ID3v2 tags: artist name, album title, track number, and cover art upscaled from the creator's profile picture.

   ./reelgrabber leoballar --build-podcast

Why Local-First?

Every existing Instagram Reels downloader either requires a web upload (your content goes through a stranger's server), enforces rate limits, charges a monthly subscription, or breaks every time Instagram updates its frontend.

ReelGrabber runs entirely on your machine. It reads your existing Firefox or Chrome cookie store — the same session you use to browse Instagram — so there is no login prompt, no API token, and no cloud dependency. Your data never leaves your computer.

This also means zero API rate-limiting. Instagram sees your requests as normal browser activity because they are normal browser activity — just automated.

Supported Platforms

ReelGrabber is a Python 3 script. It runs anywhere Python runs:

• macOSIntel and Apple Silicon. Tested on macOS 13+. Homebrew or pyenv recommended for Python.
• LinuxUbuntu, Debian, Arch, Fedora. Any distro with Python 3.10+ and ffmpeg available.
• WindowsWorks via WSL2 (recommended) or natively with Python for Windows + Chocolatey ffmpeg.

External dependencies: yt-dlp, ffmpeg, playwright with the Firefox driver. Full setup instructions on GitHub.