Last updated: October 21, 2026
Reel Scout is a Chrome extension made by Crew (crewedits.com). It helps you study public Instagram reels: it ranks a creator's reels by how far each one beat their usual views and writes out the first 3 seconds of the top ones.
The short version: your research stays in your browser and on your own Competitor outliers page. We never receive it. No accounts with us, no ads, no analytics, no tracking, and we never sell anything about you.
What Reel Scout reads
Only when you open a public Instagram creator's page and press Scan (or switch on the daily update), Reel Scout reads what Instagram already shows you there: each reel's views, likes, comments, date, length, audio name and caption, its cover image, and the creator's public name and follower count. To write out a reel's spoken hook, it downloads the reel's video and turns its first 3 seconds of audio into text, inside Chrome on your computer.
It does not read your messages, your password, your own account's private data or any other website. It never logs in, posts, likes, follows or comments for you.
Where it's kept
- In Chrome on your computer (the extension's own storage): your scans, the hooks, small cover thumbnails, which Competitor outliers page you linked, and your daily-update setting.
- On your own Competitor outliers page: a private page in your own Claude account (claude.ai). Reel Scout passes your research to that one page, inside your browser, and the page saves it there. Anthropic's privacy policy covers your Claude account. Only you can see the page unless you share it.
Who it's shared with
Nobody. We (Crew) don't run a server for Reel Scout and receive none of this data. Reel Scout only connects to:
- instagram.com and Instagram's own image and video servers, to read what Instagram shows you;
- huggingface.co, once, to download the speech model. No audio or other data is sent to it.
What we don't do
We don't sell or rent data, use it for advertising, use it to decide credit or loans, or use it for anything other than Reel Scout's one purpose.
Your choices
- Switch off or remove Reel Scout at any time in chrome://extensions. Removing it deletes everything it kept in Chrome.
- Unlink your Competitor outliers page in Reel Scout's options (chrome://extensions > Reel Scout > Details > Extension options).
- Remove a creator on your Competitor outliers page, or delete the page in your Claude account, to remove what's saved there.
- Turn the daily update off on your Competitor outliers page or in Reel Scout's options.
Fair use
Reel Scout reads only what Instagram already shows you, at a normal pace, for study. Please use it to learn what works, never to repost anyone's videos. Reel Scout is not made by, endorsed by or affiliated with Instagram or Meta.
Children
Reel Scout is a tool for adult creators and isn't meant for children under 13.
Changes
If this policy changes, we'll update this page and the date at the top.