Douyin Scraper — Video Search, User Posts & Comments

Douyin Scraper lets you scrape Douyin (抖音) videos, user posts, comments, and full video metadata. Returns 20+ fields per video including play count, digg count (likes), video URL, cover image, music info, and hashtags. Works without a browser — uses a pure-Python a_bogus request signer (SM3 + RC4 + custom Base64) instead of Playwright overhead. Four scrape modes in one actor: keyword search, user videos, video comments, and video detail lookup. Requires CN-residential proxy — Douyin blocks non-China IPs.

Douyin Scraper Modes

Mode	Input	What You Get
search	keywords	Videos matching keyword search
user_videos	sec_user_ids	All public videos from a Douyin user
comments	aweme_ids	Comments on a specific video
video_detail	aweme_ids	Full metadata for specific video IDs

Douyin Video Data Fields

Each video record includes 20+ fields:

• aweme_id — Douyin video ID
• desc — video description / caption
• author_uid, author_nickname, author_sec_uid — author info
• digg_count — total likes
• comment_count — comment count
• share_count — share count
• play_count — total play count
• collect_count — save/collect count
• video_url — direct MP4 video file URL
• cover_url — cover image URL
• music_title, music_author, music_url — background music info
• create_time — ISO-8601 UTC timestamp
• duration_ms — video duration in milliseconds
• is_top — whether the video is pinned on user profile
• hashtags — list of hashtag strings
• parse_confidence — data completeness score (0.0–1.0)
• warnings — list of missing or degraded fields
• scraped_at — scrape timestamp

Comment records include: comment_id, aweme_id, text, author_uid, author_nickname, digg_count, reply_count, create_time.

How to Use Douyin Scraper

Search Douyin Videos by Keyword

{
  "mode": "search",
  "keywords": ["美食", "穿搭"],
  "maxItems": 100,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
    "apifyProxyCountry": "CN"
  }
}

Scrape Douyin User Videos by sec_uid

{
  "mode": "user_videos",
  "secUserIds": ["MS4wLjABAAAA..."],
  "maxItems": 200,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"], "apifyProxyCountry": "CN" }
}

Scrape Douyin Comments on a Video

{
  "mode": "comments",
  "awemeIds": ["7123456789012345678"],
  "maxItems": 500
}

Proxy Requirement — Why CN-Residential Is Needed

CN-residential proxy is required. Douyin aggressively blocks:

• Datacenter IPs (Apify cloud default)
• Non-China IP addresses
• Suspicious TLS fingerprints

Configure proxyConfiguration with countryCode: CN and group RESIDENTIAL. Without it, most requests will get captcha'd or blocked. Proxy cost is billed to your Apify account at standard residential rates.

Optional Cookies for Higher Success Rate

Douyin uses msToken, ttwid, and s_v_web_id cookies for device fingerprinting. You can supply real cookies from a browser session:

1. Open www.douyin.com in Chrome
2. Open DevTools → Application → Cookies → www.douyin.com
3. Copy msToken, ttwid, s_v_web_id values into actor input

Fake cookies are auto-generated if not supplied, but real cookies improve reliability for sustained scraping.

Why This Douyin Scraper Beats Competitors

	This actor	zen-studio/douyin-search-scraper
Price	$2.00/1000	$4.99/1000
Modes	4 (search + user + comments + detail)	search only
Browser needed	No (pure-Python signer)	Yes (Playwright)
Comments support	Yes	No
parse_confidence signal	Yes	No

Pricing — Pay Per Douyin Video or Comment

$2.00 per 1,000 results (PPE — pay per result). CN-residential proxy cost is billed separately at standard Apify residential rates.

Technical Notes

• a_bogus signer: pure Python, no browser. Algorithm: SM3 hash (via gmssl) → RC4 → custom Base64 (s4 alphabet). Vendored from Evil0ctal/Douyin_TikTok_Download_API (Apache 2.0).
• Reliable HTTP access: lightweight requests pass Douyin's network checks.
• Maintenance: Douyin rotates the a_bogus signing algorithm roughly quarterly. Signer is monitored and patched.

Limitations

• Private accounts and private videos require login (not supported)
• CN-residential proxy is buyer's cost (standard Apify residential pricing)
• Video URLs from Douyin CDN expire within hours to days — download promptly if needed

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Not affiliated with Douyin / ByteDance. Data retrieved from publicly accessible Douyin endpoints.

Integrations

Built for social-listening teams and content-intelligence analysts tracking video trends, engagement metrics, and comments on Douyin — the JSON/dataset output drops into the tools you already run, no glue code:

• n8n / Make / Zapier — trigger a run or pipe every new dataset item into 500+ apps (Google Sheets, Airtable, Slack, HubSpot, your database) with no code: n8n, Make, Zapier.
• Webhooks — fire your own endpoint the moment a run finishes, to push results straight into your pipeline (docs).
• MCP server — expose this actor as a tool to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client so an AI agent can pull this data mid-conversation (guide).
• API & SDKs — fetch the dataset as JSON, CSV, or Excel through the Apify REST API or the Python / JS SDKs.

See all Apify integrations.