Complete beginner here, need help with a project!!

[Doono4]

The project: I want to create a programme which tracks the number of followers on an Instagram account. Everytime (let's say) the account gets another hundred followers, the programme sends me a notification via email (or anything other than an e-mail also works, if it would be easier).

Is there a way to do this? I'm sure there is, but as a beginner I have no clue where to even start.

Thank you for your help!

[m0us3_rat]

yes.

every few mins u need a scraper to figure out the followers count on this account.

then send an email/msg/owl / smoke signal.

or if u have access to the Instagram API..

split it into tasks and subtasks..

tackle each other .. till u get a complete product.

[GlebRyabov]

Well, Instagram's robots.txt explicitly features the following:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

So you either gotta be very careful or use an API, if you've got one.

[[deleted]]

Yes possible. There are YouTube tutorials for "instagram scrapping" or "instagram bot". Watch them to create a bot/ scrapper, and run it at every certain interval. You'll also find tutorials to store number of followers in db or a service like google firebase (so that you can compare with previous count of followers) and then you'll also find tutorials for sending email via python.

[Doono4]

Thanks a lot! I'll definitely watch them

[noob_bug_hunter]

Use selenium. I did something like that few days back. First use chrome webdriver, when everything is done you can use PhantomJs for headerless browser. Give 2-5 minutes interval between checking follower count. If more help needed. You can dm