Snapchat Scraper | Profiles | Stories | Spotlight | Lenses

Snapchat Scraper — Public Profiles, Stories, Spotlight, Lenses & Discover Data

Extract public Snapchat data without login: profiles with subscriber counts, stories, highlights, Spotlight videos (with view/share/comment counts), Lenses, Explore/hashtag feeds, Places, Discover stories, comments and transcripts. No account, no cookies, no API keys — just public Snapchat pages and feeds returned as clean structured rows.

Main Use Cases

• Snapchat influencer discovery — profiles, bio contact info (emails, phones, handles, websites), subscriber counts and verification status.
• Spotlight trend research — videos, captions, hashtags, engagement counts and comments by search query or hashtag.
• Lens analytics — official and community lenses with creator, unlock URL and interaction data.
• Story & highlight monitoring — capture story timeline, media URLs, timestamps and auto-generated transcripts.
• Discover & Explore research — publisher stories, episodes, places and topic feeds per country/locale.

How It Works

Snapchat's public web pages (profiles, Spotlight, Lenses, Explore) embed their full state in __NEXT_DATA__ JSON. The Actor reads that JSON directly, pages the anonymous DiscoverFeed GraphQL API for the Discover tab, and uses the getreplies protobuf API for public Spotlight comments. No login, no cookies, no API keys — the same data anyone can see in a browser, delivered as structured rows.

Scrape Public Snapchat Data — No Official API Needed

Snapchat's official Public Profile API requires special OAuth allowlisting (a manual approval process) and exposes only a read-only subset of profile data. This Actor needs none of that: it reads the public web pages and feeds directly, so profiles, stories, highlights, Spotlight clips, lenses, hashtag/Explore feeds, Places, Discover stories, episodes and topics all come from one tool. Free Apify users can run it with their monthly free credit — no per-result pricing is applied today.

Input

Field	Type	Required	Default	Notes
targets	array	Yes	—	Mix any: profile URLs (snapchat.com/add/nasa), Spotlight URLs, Lens URLs, Explore/hashtag URLs (snapchat.com/explore/soccer), bare usernames (nasa) or #hashtags — auto-classified
maxItemsPerUser	integer	No	600	Cap on story/highlight/spotlight/lens rows per profile (profile row always kept)
maxRowsPerSearchQuery	integer	No	200	Cap per explore/hashtag query (profiles, spotlights, lenses, places, episodes, topics)
resultTypes	array	No	["profile","story","highlight","spotlight","lens","explore"]	Row types to emit per target; discover = global feed, off by default
includeSpotlightComments	boolean	No	false	Fetch full paginated public comments per Spotlight video
maxCommentsPerSpotlight	integer	No	0	0 = all pages (up to ~50); set a number to cap
includeRelated	boolean	No	true	Emit related items embedded on Spotlight/Lens pages (multiplies rows)
maxConcurrency	integer	No	5	Parallel URLs
maxRetries	integer	No	3	Retries on network errors / 429 / 5xx
includeTranscripts	boolean	No	false	Attach auto-generated VTT transcripts for snaps that have them
discoverCountry	string	No	US	ISO country code for Discover ranking (e.g. US, BA, GB)
discoverLocale	string	No	en-US	Locale for the Discover feed
maxDiscoverStories	integer	No	100	Max Discover stories to fetch (rows expand to one per snap)
maxDiscoverPages	integer	No	10	Max GraphQL DiscoverFeed pages (~50 stories per page)
proxy	proxy	No	—	Datacenter works for light runs; switch to residential if blocked

Example input:

{
  "targets": ["nasa", "https://www.snapchat.com/spotlight/W7_Dh9eYdQw", "#soccer"],
  "maxItemsPerUser": 400,
  "includeSpotlightComments": true,
  "maxCommentsPerSpotlight": 50
}

Output

One row per item, discriminated by type:

type	Key fields
profile	username, displayName, bio, subscriberCount, verified, emails, phones, handles, websiteUrl, url
story	storyId, mediaUrl, capturedAt, transcript, creator
highlight	storyId, mediaUrl, capturedAt, transcript, creator
spotlight	snapId, mediaUrl, caption, hashtags, viewCount, shareCount, commentCount, boostCount, capturedAt, creator
lens	lensId, unlockUrl, isOfficial, creator, name, iconUrl
discover	placement, title, mediaUrl, creator, capturedAt
place / episode / topic	name, lat, lon, address, url

Example profile row:

{
  "type": "profile",
  "source": "https://www.snapchat.com/add/nasa",
  "username": "nasa",
  "displayName": "NASA",
  "bio": "Explore the universe...",
  "subscriberCount": 1342000,
  "verified": true,
  "emails": [],
  "phones": [],
  "handles": ["nasa"],
  "websiteUrl": "https://www.nasa.gov",
  "url": "https://www.snapchat.com/add/nasa"
}

Snapchat Spotlight & Hashtag Research at Scale

Use targets with #hashtags or Explore URLs and raise maxRowsPerSearchQuery to collect dozens of Spotlight videos per query with full engagement data (viewCount, shareCount, commentCount, boostCount). Add includeSpotlightComments to capture the public comment threads. Subscribe the actor to an Apify Schedule for regular trend tracking.

Integrations & Automation

• Apify API — run anywhere, pull JSON/CSV/Excel results programmatically.
• Standby HTTP API — turn any input into a one-call HTTP request (/v2/acts/ahmed_jasarevic~snapchat-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items).
• Scheduling — daily/weekly influencer or trend monitoring (recurring usage also improves Apify Store recommendation signals).
• Webhooks — post results to your own backend as runs finish.

Related Actors

• Snapchat Scraper (tri_angle) — profile-focused Snapchat scraper ($0.002/profile)
• Snapchat Spotlight Scraper (tri_angle) — Spotlight-only ($0.0015/row)
• Snapchat Profile Scraper (easyapi) — profile + video downloader
• Snapchat Username Checker — bulk username availability check
• Snapchat Hashtag Scraper (crawlerbros) — hashtag-focused alternative

FAQ

Why use this Actor instead of the official Snapchat Public Profile API?

Snapchat's official Public Profile API requires OAuth allowlisting via a manual approval process and only exposes read-only profile data. This Actor reads public web pages and feeds directly — no approval, no login, and it covers far more than profiles: stories, highlights, Spotlight, lenses, Explore, Places, Discover and comments.

Is this Actor scraping private or personal data?

No. It only reads publicly visible Snapchat content: public profiles, public Spotlight clips, public lenses, public hashtag/Explore feeds and Discover stories. No account-based data, no friend lists, no private snaps or messages.

What are alternatives to this Actor?

Other Apify actors: tri_angle's Snapchat Scraper ($0.002/profile) and Spotlight Scraper ($0.0015/row), easyapi's Profile Scraper (start fee $0.09), crawlerbros' Hashtag Scraper ($0.00083/row). This Actor is the all-in-one option — profiles, stories, highlights, Spotlights, lenses, Explore, Places, Discover, comments and transcripts in one run, with no per-row pricing today.

How can I find Snapchat influencers in a niche?

Use #hashtag or Explore URLs for your niche, then widen the Spotlight/profile rows and filter by subscriberCount, verified or engagement counts. Profile rows include emails/phones/website URLs when the creator lists them publicly.

Does the Actor download stories or videos?

It returns mediaUrl links and metadata (capturedAt, transcripts) for every snap/story/Spotlight — the media itself can then be downloaded from those URLs.

For AI Agents & LLM Apps

Purpose: returns public Snapchat rows discriminated by type — profiles (subscriber counts, bio contact info), stories/highlights (media URLs, timestamps, transcripts), Spotlight (captions, hashtags, view/share/comment/boost counts), lenses, Discover stories, places and topics.

Minimal input:

{ "targets": ["nasa"] }

Trend-research variant:

{ "targets": ["#soccer"], "includeSpotlightComments": true, "maxRowsPerSearchQuery": 500 }

Output fields (row-level): type, source, url, username, displayName, bio, subscriberCount, verified, emails, phones, handles, websiteUrl, storyId, snapId, mediaUrl, caption, hashtags, viewCount, shareCount, commentCount, boostCount, transcript, capturedAt, creator, lensId, unlockUrl, isOfficial, name, lat, lon, address.

Behaviors an agent should know:

• targets accepts any mix of profile URLs, Spotlight/Lens/Explore URLs, bare usernames and #hashtags — entries are auto-classified, no need to pre-sort.
• resultTypes controls which row types each target emits; discover is the only type that needs no URL (global feed, uses discoverCountry/discoverLocale).
• includeSpotlightComments adds one protobuf request per Spotlight video — enable deliberately.
• includeTranscripts adds a VTT fetch only for snaps that have transcripts.
• Billing: compute-based today, no per-result charge.

Legal & Compliance Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Snapchat. It reads only publicly available Snapchat pages and feeds — it does not log in, bypass authentication, or access private accounts, stories or messages. Users are responsible for complying with Snapchat's Terms of Service and applicable data-protection law (e.g. GDPR/CCPA for personal data such as emails or phone numbers in public bios), and should not use extracted contact data for unsolicited commercial outreach in violation of applicable law.

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