title: How to Get Historical Data from Instagram API
body: <p>I'm making an Instagram analytics web app.  I've carefully read all of the Instagram API endpoints and I can't find any way to get historical data (ie, followers over time).  All I would need would be something like a date followed, attached to each follower object.</p>
  <h3>However, there are Instagram analytics sites that offer this, for example, minter.io.</h3>
  <p><a href="https://minter.io/faq#faq-posting-1" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://minter.io/faq#faq-posting-1</a></p>
  <p>From link above:   &quot;<em>Minter.io provides full historical data on Instagram accounts and hashtags except for:
  Accounts – List of Lost Followers
  Hashtags – Reach and Exposure
  In these reports the data will only be available from the date the report is first generated.&quot;</em></p>
  <p>An example of this historical data, from minter.io report on my account:</p>
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/TG4Lo.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/TG4Lo.png" alt="Followers on instagram over time, generated by minter.io" /></a></p>
  <h3>At this point, I think that either:</h3>
  <ol>
  <li>Minter has some special arrangement with Instagram to get additional data that otherwise isn't provided through API.</li>
  <li>I'm missing something..</li>
  </ol>
  <p>I understand how this could be done by comparing user data to previous reports (<a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30038149/is-it-possible-to-retrieve-historical-data-from-instagram-api">like this SO question asked</a>) but clearly Minter is doing it some other way, because that report was generated from the very first time I created a trial account with them.</p>
  <p>Any help would be much appreciated.</p>