v1.5

Features and Improvements:

• NEW: Possibility to skip getting posts details (new -w / --skip_getting_posts_details parameter)
• IMPROVE: Print message changed when empty followers list is returned
• IMPROVE: Added message about fetching user's latest post/reel (as it might take a while)

Bug fixes:

• BUGFIX: Fixed bug with saving removed followers/followings to CSV file when empty list is returned and count is > 0
• BUGFIX: Fixed wrong CSV entry timestamp in case posts number decreases

v1.4

Features and Improvements:

• NEW: Detection when user changes profile visibility from public to private and vice-versa; the code already supported both private and public profiles, however it did not inform the user when the profile visibility has changed; now the tool will notify about it in the console and also via email notifications (-s) and CSV file records (-b)
• IMPROVE: Added info about used mode of the tool in the main screen, so it is easier to correlate it with the description in the README

Bug fixes:

• BUGFIX: Indentation fixes in the code

v1.3

Features and Improvements:

• NEW: Added new parameter (-z / --send_test_email_notification) which allows to send test email notification to verify SMTP settings defined in the script
• IMPROVE: Checking if correct version of Python (>=3.8) is installed
• IMPROVE: Possibility to define email sending timeout (default set to 15 secs)

Bug fixes:

• BUGFIX: Fixed "SyntaxError: f-string: unmatched (" issue in older Python versions
• BUGFIX: Fixed "SyntaxError: f-string expression part cannot include a backslash" issue in older Python versions

v1.2

Features and Improvements:

• IMPROVE: pyright complained the code is too complex to analyze, so it has been simplified little bit (so it does not complain anymore)
• IMPROVE: Changed email notifications string in SIGUSR1 signal handler

Bug fixes:

• BUGFIX: Fixed nasty bug terminating the script in case of issues while processing story items (yes, copy & paste bug ;-))

v1.1

Features and Improvements:

• NEW: Support for detecting multiple stories (if session login is used)
• NEW: Fully anonymous download of user's story images & videos (thumbnail image will be also attached in email notifications and displayed in the terminal if imgcat is installed); yes, user won't know you watched their stories 😉
• NEW: Download of user's post images & videos (thumbnail image will be also attached in email notifications and displayed in the terminal if imgcat is installed)
• NEW: Detection of changed profile pictures; since Instagram user's profile picture URL seems to change from time to time, the tool detects changed profile picture by doing binary comparison of saved jpeg files; initially it saves the profile pic to instagram_{user}_profile_pic.jpeg file after the tool is started; then during every check the new picture is fetched and the tool does binary comparison if it has changed or not; in case of changes the old profile picture is moved to instagram_{user}_profile_pic_old.jpeg file and the new one is saved to instagram_{user}_profile_pic.jpeg and also to file named instagram_{user}_profile_pic_YYmmdd_HHMM.jpeg (so we can have history of all profile pictures); in order to control the feature there is a new DETECT_CHANGED_PROFILE_PIC variable set to True by default; the feature can be disabled by setting it to False or by enabling -k / --do_not_detect_changed_profile_pic parameter
• NEW: Detection of empty profile pictures; Instagram does not signal the fact of empty user's profile image in their API, that's why we can detect it by using empty profile image template (which seems to be the same on binary level for all users); to use this feature put instagram_profile_pic_empty.jpeg file in the dir from which you run the script; this way the tool will be able to detect when user does not have profile image set; it is not mandatory, but highly recommended as otherwise the tool will treat empty profile pic as regular one, so for example user's removal of profile picture will be detected as changed profile picture
• NEW: Attaching changed profile pics and stories/posts images directly in email notifications (when -s parameter is used)
• NEW: Feature allowing to display the profile picture and stories/posts images right in your terminal (if you have imgcat installed); put path to your imgcat binary in IMGCAT_PATH variable (or leave it empty to disable this functionality)
• IMPROVE: Improvements for running the code in Python under Windows
• NEW: Automatic detection of local timezone if you set LOCAL_TIMEZONE variable to 'Auto' (it is default now); requires tzlocal pip module
• NEW: Support for honoring last-modified timestamp for saved profile pics (it turned out it reflects timestamp when the picture has been actually added by the user)
• IMPROVE: Information about time zone and posts checking hours is displayed in the start screen now
• NEW: Fetching of post's location and comments + likes list is back (however needs to be enabled via -t parameter as it highly increases the risk that Instagram will mark the account as an automated tool)
• NEW: Added new parameter -r / --skip_getting_story_details to skip getting detailed info about stories and its images/videos, even if session login is used; you will still get generic information about new stories in such case
• NEW: Added new parameter -t / --get_more_post_details to get more detailed info about new posts like its location and comments + likes list, only possible if session login is used; if not enabled you will still get generic information about new posts; it is disabled by default as for some unknown reasons it highly increases the risk of the account being flagged as an automated tool
• NEW: Added new parameter -k / --do_not_detect_changed_profile_pic which allows to disable detection of changed user's profile picture
• IMPROVE: Email sending function send_email() has been rewritten to detect invalid SMTP settings + possibility to attach images
• IMPROVE: Strings converted to f-strings for better code visibility
• IMPROVE: Rewritten get_date_from_ts(), get_short_date_from_ts(), get_hour_min_from_ts() and get_range_of_dates_from_tss() functions to automatically detect it time object is timestamp (int/float) or datetime
• IMPROVE: Better checking for wrong command line arguments
• IMPROVE: Help screen reorganization
• IMPROVE: pep8 style convention corrections

Bug fixes:

• BUGFIX: Improved exception handling while processing JSON files
• BUGFIX: Escaping of potentially dangerous variables in HTML email templates
• BUGFIX: Fix for saving empty followers/followings list to JSON file when the tool is started and Instagram API returns empty list

v1.0

Initial instagram_monitor v1.0 release. Features:

• Real-time monitoring of different activities performed by monitored Instagram users:
  • new posts & stories
  • changed followings, followers, bio
• Email notifications for different events (new posts & stories, changed followings, followers, bio, errors)
• Saving all user activities with timestamps to the CSV file
• Support for both public and private profiles
• Two modes of operation: with or without logged in Instagram account
• Different mechanisms to prevent captcha and detection of automated tools
• Possibility to control the running copy of the script via signals

RELEASE NOTES:

Features and Improvements:

• NEW: Support for Instagram users having no posts yet
• NEW: Support for handling private profiles
• IMPROVE: Improvements in monitoring Instagram user activity without session

Bug fixes:

• BUGFIX: Disabled fetching location, list of likes and comments for posts due to errors after recent Instagram changes (HTTP Error 400)