TikTok Search Scraper

🔎 What does TikTok Search Scraper do?

TikTok Search Scraper searches public TikTok keywords, then exports clean, structured video discovery rows with TikTok video URLs, post IDs, captions, publish timestamps, views, likes, comments, shares, saves, author identity, author stats, and query provenance.

Use it for reliable trend tracking, UGC research, creator discovery, competitor monitoring, content research, social listening, and data-pipeline seeding when you need a list of TikTok video candidates for a topic before doing deeper analysis.

With TikTok Search Scraper, you can:

• 🔍 Search TikTok by one keyword or many keywords.
• 📎 Export TikTok video URLs and stable postId values.
• 📊 Collect public views, likes, comments, shares, and saves when TikTok exposes them in search results.
• 👤 Get author handles, author IDs, profile URLs, verification, follower counts, total likes, and video counts when available publicly.
• 🧭 Preserve search context with rootQuery, query, querySource, pageIndex, and pageRank.
• 🧪 Run broad concept panels with balanced distribution across query families.
• 🔁 Optionally add TikTok-native related searches for wider discovery.
• 📦 Download results as JSON, JSONL, CSV, Excel, XML, RSS, or HTML.

This Actor uses logged-out public TikTok web search surfaces. No login is required. It does not use search engines, TikTok API keys, user cookies, logged-in accounts, private analytics, comment text scraping, or video downloads.

✨ What You Get

Each dataset row represents one discovered public TikTok video candidate.

Data group	Example fields
🔍 Query context	rootQuery, query, querySource, pageIndex, pageRank
🔗 Video identity	postUrl, postId
🧾 Video metadata	description, publishedAt
👤 Author identity	authorId, authorSecUid, profileHandle, profileUrl, authorNickname, authorVerified
👥 Author stats	authorFollowerCount, authorFollowingCount, authorHeartCount, authorVideoCount
📊 Post metrics	views, likes, comments, shares, saves
🚦 Row status	status, statusReason, observedAt

Metric availability depends on what TikTok exposes publicly for each search result at run time. Missing counts stay missing; they are not guessed and they are not replaced with fake zeroes.

⚙️ Can I use this Actor through an API?

Yes. You can run TikTok Search Scraper manually in Apify Console or use it through:

• Apify API
• Python SDK
• Node.js SDK
• Webhooks
• Scheduled runs
• Apify integrations

This makes it useful for research pipelines, creator databases, trend monitors, content intelligence dashboards, enrichment queues, and automated market research workflows.

🎯 Why scrape TikTok search results?

TikTok search results show what videos TikTok currently surfaces for a topic. This is useful when you need to understand which concepts, creators, hooks, keywords, and content angles are visible in a market.

Use case	How TikTok search data helps
🔥 Concept research	Find videos ranking for a topic before deciding what to analyze next.
📈 Trend discovery	Compare topics by visible videos, views, likes, comments, and author context.
🧑‍🎨 Creator discovery	Build lists of creators publishing around a niche, product, keyword, or format.
🕵️ Competitor monitoring	See what content appears for competitor, category, or product keywords.
🧱 Data pipeline seeding	Feed discovered TikTok URLs into downstream metrics, databases, or review flows.
🧭 Content planning	Study captions, ranks, query language, creator mix, and visible engagement.

💵 Pricing Event

TikTok Search Scraper uses pay-per-result pricing. One result means one unique TikTok video discovery row written to the default dataset.

Use maxResults to control result volume before a run. Start with 10 to 25 results when testing a keyword, then increase the cap for broader concept research.

🚀 How do I use TikTok Search Scraper?

1. Create or log in to your Apify account.
2. Open TikTok Search Scraper.
3. Enter one or more TikTok keyword searches.
4. Set the maximum number of unique videos to collect.
5. Leave related search expansion off for the cleanest direct keyword panel, or enable it for broader concept discovery.
6. Click Start.
7. Open the Output tab to inspect the dataset and run summary.
8. Download your data in JSON, JSONL, CSV, Excel, XML, RSS, or HTML.

⬇️ Input

The main input is queries. Enter one or more TikTok keyword searches.

{
    "queries": ["ugc ad examples"],
    "maxResults": 25,
    "resultsPerQuery": 25,
    "maxPagesPerQuery": 1
}

For broader concept discovery, enter multiple related queries and enable TikTok-native related searches:

{
    "queries": [
        "ugc ad examples",
        "small business marketing ideas",
        "ai tools for small business",
        "productivity hacks"
    ],
    "searchDistribution": "balanced",
    "maxResults": 50,
    "resultsPerQuery": 15,
    "maxPagesPerQuery": 2,
    "expandQueries": true,
    "maxExpandedQueries": 5
}

🎛️ Settings

Option	What it does
queries	TikTok topics, keywords, or phrases to search. Each entry becomes a TikTok search term.
maxResults	Maximum unique TikTok video rows to save across the whole run.
resultsPerQuery	Maximum unique videos to collect from each searched term before the total cap is reached.
maxPagesPerQuery	Maximum TikTok search result pages or cursors to try for each search term. Higher values cost more.
searchDistribution	balanced rotates across terms; sequential fills earlier terms before later terms.
expandQueries	Adds TikTok-suggested related search phrases for broader concept discovery.
maxExpandedQueries	Maximum TikTok-suggested related phrases to add. This adds search terms, not extra video quota.

Balanced mode is best for broad concept panels because it gives each query a turn before going deeper. Sequential mode is best when earlier queries should take priority.

⬆️ Output sample

Results are stored in the default dataset. Each result is one discovered TikTok video candidate.

{
    "platform": "tiktok",
    "rootQuery": "ugc ad examples",
    "query": "ugc ad examples",
    "querySource": "input",
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "pageRank": 6,
    "postUrl": "https://www.tiktok.com/@juliets.ugc/video/7569000459701161247",
    "postId": "7569000459701161247",
    "authorId": "6759284387357443078",
    "authorSecUid": "MS4wLjABAAAAkGUBbxjBZIhCe2L8vg-3oyxbQDuvVPKL1MhHQbxdg7sssxWapSK8KPuAor1US8nU",
    "authorNickname": "Juliet | UGC & Travel Creator",
    "authorVerified": false,
    "authorFollowerCount": 39400,
    "authorHeartCount": 280200,
    "authorVideoCount": 183,
    "profileHandle": "juliets.ugc",
    "profileUrl": "https://www.tiktok.com/@juliets.ugc",
    "description": "No materials needed! All you need is a plain wall, some natural lighting, and your good to go. Using my absolute favorite @Kiehl's Since 1851 product, the Retinol Skin-Renewing Daily Micro-Dose Serum.",
    "publishedAt": "2025-11-04T22:27:51.000Z",
    "views": 1200000,
    "likes": 60800,
    "comments": 1371,
    "shares": 11900,
    "saves": 60900,
    "status": "ok",
    "statusReason": null,
    "observedAt": "2026-07-02T00:09:38.094Z"
}

🧭 Query fields explained

rootQuery is the original search term you entered.

query is the exact term searched on TikTok. When related searches are off, query usually matches rootQuery. When related searches are on, query may be a TikTok-suggested related search.

querySource explains where the searched query came from:

• input means the query was entered directly by the user.
• related_search means TikTok suggested the related search term.

pageIndex is the TikTok search page or cursor number, starting at 0 for the first page.

pageRank is the video's position within that page when TikTok exposes a page-shaped search payload. It is not a virality or relevance score.

🧾 Run Summary

The OUTPUT key-value-store record includes:

• urls: discovered TikTok video URLs;
• videoCandidates: compact candidate rows with immediate metadata;
• field coverage and metric coverage;
• candidate, duplicate, cap, and stop-reason counters;
• per-query accounting.

If no videos are found, the Actor does not fail the run. It returns a successful run summary with status: "no_public_results" and a statusReason explaining the outcome.

🔒 Source Boundary

TikTok Search Scraper uses logged-out public TikTok web search surfaces only.

It does not use:

• TikTok API keys;
• user cookies;
• private sessions;
• logged-in account automation;
• search engines;
• private TikTok analytics;
• challenge solving;
• comment text scraping;
• video downloads.

⚠️ Limits and interpretation

TikTok search ranking and result availability are live public TikTok behavior and can change between runs.

maxResults is a saved-row cap, not a guarantee that TikTok has that many public candidates for every query. Narrow queries may source-exhaust below the requested cap.

TikTok native search can return broad matches. Use the query provenance fields to decide which rows to keep downstream.

This Actor does not compute a proprietary virality score. When TikTok exposes metrics in public search payloads, users can rank rows directly by views, likes, comments, shares, saves, author follower count, and query context.

❓ FAQ

Does this Actor need a TikTok API key?

No. It uses logged-out public TikTok web surfaces and does not require a TikTok API key.

Does this Actor scrape private TikTok data?

No. It only returns data available from logged-out public TikTok surfaces.

Does this Actor use Google or other search engines?

No. Discovery comes from TikTok public search surfaces, not external search engines.

Does this Actor download videos or scrape comments?

No. It discovers video candidates and returns public metadata and metrics when available.