Pexels Stock Media Scraper

Scrape Pexels — the free stock photo and video platform — without needing an API key. Search by keyword, browse the curated/popular feed, pull an entire photographer's portfolio, grab every photo and video in a curated collection, look up exact photos by ID, or find photos similar/related to a given one. Get direct, hotlink-safe image and video file URLs at multiple sizes/qualities, photographer credit and full profile stats, EXIF camera data, engagement counts, tags, dominant colors, and dimensions. No login, no cookies, no paid proxy required.

What this actor does

• Six modes: search, curated, byPhotoId, byUser, byCollection, similarPhotos
• Photos and videos: every mode returns photos, videos, or both
• Filters: orientation, minimum width/height, video duration range, number of people (photo search)
• Direct media URLs: multiple image sizes and video file qualities, ready to download or embed
• Photographer credit: name, profile URL, avatar, social links, and donation link where available
• Bonus detail data (mode=byPhotoId): EXIF camera metadata, view/download/like counts, and the photographer's full profile stats — all bundled free with the same page fetch
• Empty fields are omitted — you never have to defend against null

Output per photo (recordType: "photo")

• photoId, title, description, alt, slug
• width, height, orientation (landscape / portrait / square), aspectRatio
• license, featured (Pexels editor's pick)
• createdAt, publishedAt
• photographerName, photographerId, photographerUsername, photographerUrl, photographerAvatarUrl, photographerLocation, photographerInstagram, photographerTwitter, photographerIsHero, photographerDonateUrl
• tags[]
• imageSmallUrl, imageMediumUrl, imageLargeUrl, imageOriginalUrl, downloadUrl
• avgColor (hex), colorPalette[] (hex)
• collectionIds[] — curated collections this photo belongs to (if any)
• pageUrl, sourceUrl
• recordType: "photo", scrapedAt

Bonus fields (mode=byPhotoId only — bundled free with the detail-page fetch)

• Camera / EXIF: cameraMake, cameraModel, cameraIso, cameraAperture, cameraFocalLength, cameraShutterSpeed, cameraSoftware, photographedAt, fileSizeBytes, latitude, longitude, locationName — present only when the photographer's upload retained this metadata
• Engagement stats: viewsCount, downloadsCount, likesCount
• Full photographer profile: photographerBio, photographerWebsite, photographerYoutube, photographerTiktok, photographerFollowersCount, photographerFollowingsCount, photographerPhotosCount, photographerMediaCount, photographerPortfolioMediaCount, photographerCollectionsCount, photographerFirstUploadedOn (also included for every record in mode=byUser, fetched once per run)

Output per video (recordType: "video")

• videoId, title, description, slug
• width, height, orientation, aspectRatio
• durationSeconds, fps
• license, featured
• createdAt, publishedAt
• photographerName, photographerId, photographerUsername, photographerUrl, photographerAvatarUrl, photographerLocation, photographerInstagram, photographerTwitter, photographerIsHero, photographerDonateUrl
• tags[]
• videoPreviewUrl, thumbnailSmallUrl, thumbnailMediumUrl, thumbnailLargeUrl, downloadUrl
• videoFiles[] — every available quality: { url, width, height, fps, fileType, downloadUrl }
• bestVideoUrl — the highest-resolution file, for convenience
• collectionIds[]
• pageUrl, sourceUrl
• recordType: "video", scrapedAt

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	search	search / curated / byPhotoId / byUser / byCollection / similarPhotos
searchQuery	string	nature	Keyword to search (mode=search)
mediaType	string	photos	photos / videos / all
orientation	string	all	all / landscape / portrait / square
minWidth	int	0	Minimum width in pixels (0 = no filter)
minHeight	int	0	Minimum height in pixels (0 = no filter)
minDuration	int	0	Minimum video length in seconds (videos only)
maxDuration	int	0	Maximum video length in seconds (videos only, 0 = no cap)
peopleCount	string	all	all / 0 / 1 / 2 (mode=search, photos only)
photoIds	array	–	Photo IDs or URLs (mode=byPhotoId: look these up; mode=similarPhotos: find photos similar to these)
username	string	–	Photographer handle or profile URL (mode=byUser)
collectionSlug	string	–	Collection slug or URL (mode=byCollection)
maxItems	int	30	Hard cap on returned records (1–1000)
proxyConfiguration	object	off	Optional Apify proxy

Example: search for landscape nature photos

{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "nature",
  "mediaType": "photos",
  "orientation": "landscape",
  "minWidth": 3000,
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: search for short ocean videos

{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "ocean waves",
  "mediaType": "videos",
  "minDuration": 5,
  "maxDuration": 30,
  "maxItems": 20
}

Example: a photographer's full portfolio

{
  "mode": "byUser",
  "username": "alex-ivanov-773258579",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Example: look up specific photos by ID

{
  "mode": "byPhotoId",
  "photoIds": ["18872916", "37237947"]
}

Example: everything in a curated collection

{
  "mode": "byCollection",
  "collectionSlug": "aquatic-aesthetic-bw7dkse",
  "mediaType": "all",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Example: photos similar to a given photo

{
  "mode": "similarPhotos",
  "photoIds": ["18872916"],
  "maxItems": 12
}

Use cases

• Content creators — source royalty-free photos and videos for blogs, social media, and presentations
• App/website placeholders — bulk-fetch themed imagery for mockups and prototypes
• Marketing teams — pull a specific photographer's or collection's catalog for campaign moodboards
• Machine learning — build labeled image/video datasets with tags and dominant colors
• Digital asset management — mirror direct download URLs into your own DAM system

FAQ

Is this affiliated with Pexels? No, this is an independent third-party actor that reads Pexels' public web pages. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Pexels.

Do I need a Pexels account or API key? No. All modes work against Pexels' public pages with no login and no API key.

Are the media files free to use? Yes — all content returned is licensed under the Pexels License (free for personal and commercial use, no attribution required), per Pexels' own terms.

Why do some records not have photographerLocation or photographerInstagram? Those fields are only included when the photographer has filled them in on their Pexels profile. Empty fields are always omitted rather than returned as blank values.

What does peopleCount filter, exactly? It filters Pexels' own photo search index by how many people appear in the photo (0, 1, or 2). It only applies to mode=search with mediaType=photos.

Can I look up a single video by ID? Not currently — Pexels' individual video pages are protected more aggressively than photo pages and could not be scraped reliably (re-verified 2026-07: 5/5 test lookups still blocked with HTTP 403, versus a high success rate for photo detail pages). Videos are still fully available through search, curated, byUser, and byCollection.

Can I filter by color or a minimum "quality" preset? Not currently — Pexels' color= and size= search URL parameters were re-tested (2026-07) and confirmed to have no effect on which photos are returned (the result set changes only due to normal ranking variance, identically for any parameter value, real or nonsense). Use minWidth/minHeight instead, which are enforced by this actor itself against each photo's real dimensions.

What is mode=similarPhotos? It returns photos Pexels itself considers visually/topically similar to each photo ID you supply — the same "related photos" feed shown on a photo's own page, sourced from the same request used by mode=byPhotoId (no extra cost).

Why do some byPhotoId records have camera/EXIF fields and others don't? cameraMake, cameraModel, cameraIso, photographedAt, latitude/longitude, etc. come from the photo's original file metadata. Pexels only retains this when the photographer's upload included it — many uploads have it stripped, in which case those fields are omitted entirely rather than returned empty.

Why does pageUrl return an error when I open it with curl but works fine in my browser? pageUrl/sourceUrl point at Pexels' own page, which is protected by a JavaScript challenge that only real browsers can pass — it opens normally for people (and for anything that renders JavaScript), it just won't respond to a plain command-line request. All imageXxxUrl, videoFiles[].url, thumbnailXxxUrl, and downloadUrl fields are direct CDN links and work everywhere, including curl and server-side downloads, with no such restriction.

How fresh is the data? Every run reads Pexels' live pages, so results reflect what's on the site at run time.

How many items can I get per run? Up to maxItems (max 1000). Actual results depend on how many matches exist for your query/filters. For mode=similarPhotos, each input photo ID contributes up to ~12 similar photos; supply more IDs to get more results.

Why did mode=search return only ~450 items even though I set maxItems to 1000 and Pexels shows thousands of results? Pexels' own search-results pagination reports a large total_results/total_pages count, but it only actually serves the first ~20 pages (~450-480 photos) of guest/anonymous search results per query — page 21 onward returns an empty result set, even though earlier pages still claimed hundreds of pages remained (re-verified 2026-07 across multiple unrelated queries). This is a hard limit on Pexels' side, not a filter or bug in this actor — once you hit it, set a narrower searchQuery, add orientation/minWidth/minHeight/peopleCount filters, or switch to mode=curated/byUser/byCollection (which paginate differently) to source more items.