TikTok Explore Scraper

Scrape TikTok's Explore and trending feed to collect the most popular videos across one or more content categories. Category 123 ("All") is always available and works without login. An auto-discovery mode navigates the live Explore page to detect all available category IDs automatically.

What this actor does

• Accepts a list of category objects (id + name) and paginates TikTok's Explore item list API for each one
• Returns full post rows enriched with feedType, categoryId, and categoryName so results from multiple categories can be distinguished
• Deduplicates posts that appear in more than one category so each video is emitted only once
• Supports an auto-discovery mode that navigates TikTok's Explore page and detects all available category IDs from the live UI
• Category 123 ("All") is the default and is always available without additional configuration
• Empty fields are omitted

Output per post

• feedType — always "explore"
• categoryId — numeric TikTok category type ID
• categoryName — human-readable category label (e.g. "All", "Entertainment", "Sports")
• postId — unique TikTok video ID
• postUrl — direct URL to the video
• caption — full caption text
• likeCount — total likes
• commentCount — total comments
• shareCount — total shares
• playCount — total plays/views
• author.id — author's TikTok user ID
• author.secUid — author's secondary unique ID
• author.username — author handle
• author.displayName — author display name
• author.verified — verification status
• author.avatarUrl — author profile image URL
• music.id — sound ID
• music.title — sound title
• music.authorName — sound creator name
• video.width — video width in pixels
• video.height — video height in pixels
• video.duration — video duration in seconds
• video.playUrl — streamable video URL (expires)
• video.cover — cover/thumbnail image URL
• hashtags — array of hashtag names parsed from caption
• scrapedAt — ISO 8601 timestamp of when the record was collected

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
categories	object[]	[{"id": 123, "name": "All"}]	Category objects with numeric id and human-readable name.
maxItemsPerCategory	integer	50	Maximum trending posts to collect per category (1–500).
autoDiscoverCategories	boolean	false	Navigate TikTok's Explore page to discover all available category IDs from the live UI.

Example: default All-category feed

{
  "categories": [{"id": 123, "name": "All"}],
  "maxItemsPerCategory": 10
}

Example: multiple specific categories

{
  "categories": [
    {"id": 123, "name": "All"},
    {"id": 4, "name": "Entertainment"},
    {"id": 9, "name": "Sports"}
  ],
  "maxItemsPerCategory": 50
}

Example: auto-discover all categories

{
  "categories": [],
  "autoDiscoverCategories": true,
  "maxItemsPerCategory": 30
}

Example: daily trend snapshot

{
  "categories": [{"id": 123, "name": "All"}],
  "maxItemsPerCategory": 100
}

Use cases

• Trend analysts monitoring which video formats and topics are surfacing on TikTok's Explore feed each day
• Content strategists identifying high-performing content styles across specific categories like Sports or Entertainment
• Brand safety teams reviewing what trending content is appearing alongside ad placements on Explore
• Academic researchers building time-series datasets of trending TikTok content for algorithmic studies
• Media companies benchmarking which creators and formats are being amplified by TikTok's discovery system
• Developers building trend dashboards or notification systems that surface breakout content early

FAQ

Q: What is category 123?
A: Category 123 is TikTok's "All" Explore feed — the default tab showing trending posts across all content types. It is always available and is the recommended starting point.

Q: How do I find other category IDs?
A: Enable autoDiscoverCategories: true. The actor navigates TikTok's Explore page and records each tab's category ID. You can then hardcode those IDs for future runs without re-discovery.

Q: Do posts get deduplicated across categories?
A: Yes. If the same video appears in multiple categories, it is only emitted once in the dataset.

Q: How many posts can I get per category?
A: Up to 500 per category. TikTok's Explore API returns approximately 8 posts per page and the actor paginates automatically.

Q: Do I need login or cookies?
A: No. TikTok's Explore feed is publicly accessible. The actor uses a stealth browser without any credentials.

Q: Do video URLs expire?
A: Yes. TikTok signs all CDN URLs with short-lived tokens. Download or cache media promptly. The mediaUrlExpiresAt field indicates the expiry time.

Q: Can I use this to monitor trending content over time?
A: Yes. Schedule this actor to run daily or hourly and use the categoryId and scrapedAt fields to track how trending content changes across sessions.

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