A post with four thousand comments holds a lot: who engages with a competitor, which questions keep coming back, who entered a giveaway. Instagram shows it twenty comments at a time and gives you no way to take it anywhere.
Gramlens exports the thread. Open the post, open the side panel, and the comments come out as a file — including the replies nested under them, which most exporters flatten away or skip entirely.
The columns
| Column | What it holds |
|---|---|
comment_id | Instagram's own identifier for the comment |
username | Who wrote it |
profile_url | Direct link to their profile |
is_verified | Yes / No |
comment_text | The comment itself |
like_count | Likes on that comment |
date | 2026-08-29 14:22:07 |
is_reply | Whether it sits under another comment |
parent_id | Which comment it replies to |
is_reply and parent_id are the pair that makes a thread reconstructable. In CSV and Excel the thread is flattened into rows and those two columns hold the shape; in JSON the replies stay nested inside their parent, which is usually what you want if a script is reading the file.
Threads, not just top-level comments
Instagram treats a reply as a different object from the comment it answers. An exporter that only walks the top level will quietly drop the entire conversation underneath — often the half that matters, because that is where the account itself answered questions.
Gramlens walks both. Pages of fifty come back at a time, replies are pulled in with their parents, and the file carries the whole thread.
Where the ceiling is
Comment export stops after 100 pages. At fifty comments a page that is roughly five thousand comments, and when a post is bigger than that the export is marked as truncated rather than silently cut — you can see that you got a slice.
For almost every post this is irrelevant. For a viral post with 80,000 comments, it means you are working with the first several thousand, and you should know that going in.
Enriching the commenters
A comment export gives you handles. Running Deep Parse over the result turns those handles into profiles: bio, follower count, public email, public phone, website, business flag, category, city. That is what makes a comment thread usable as a prospect list instead of a screenshot.
It is one extra request per commenter, so it takes longer than the export itself — and it only ever returns what the account chose to publish.
Reels count as posts
Open a Reel on its own page — a /reel/ URL — and the export works exactly as it does on a feed post, comments and likers alike. The endless scrolling /reels/ feed is not a post, so tap through to the Reel itself first.
FAQ
Does it work on any post?
Any public post or Reel, and any post on an account you can already see. If you cannot open the comments in your own browser, the extension cannot either — it reads through your session, not around it.
Do I paste a link?
No. You open the post the normal way and the export appears in the side panel. Smart Detect notices what kind of page you are on and preselects the right type.
Are replies included?
Yes, with the comment they reply to identified by parent_id. This is the part most comment exporters skip.
Can I export the people who liked a post too?
Yes, that is a separate export type on the same panel. Instagram limits how many likers it will return, which is covered on the likes export page.
Can I pick a giveaway winner with this?
You can export every entrant with their comment text and timestamp, which is the part that needs the data. Choosing among them happens in your spreadsheet — Gramlens does not draw the winner for you.
Does exporting comments notify anyone?
No. Reading comments is reading a public page; nobody is told, and no like or follow is sent on your behalf.
What does it cost?
The Free plan covers 500 records per parse with unlimited parses, which is enough for most posts. Plus and Pro remove the ceiling.
Explore the feature