Twitter Profile Scraper

A robust Apify Actor for scraping tweets from Twitter/X profiles with comprehensive data extraction including all engagement metrics, media, and metadata.

⚠️ IMPORTANT: Authentication Required for Recent Tweets

Without authentication cookies, Twitter shows "Highlights" (popular old tweets) instead of recent chronological posts.

• ❌ Without cookies: You'll get old popular tweets (sometimes years old)
• ✅ With cookies: You'll get recent chronological tweets

To scrape recent tweets, you MUST provide authentication cookies. See the Authentication section below.

🚀 Features

Profile Information Extraction

• Profile Details
  • Username and display name
  • Bio/description
  • Location
  • Website URL
  • Joined date
  • Verification status
  • Profile image URL
  • Profile banner URL
  • Followers count
  • Following count

Complete Tweet Data Extraction

• Tweet Content

  • Full tweet text
  • Tweet ID and URL
  • Timestamp and creation date
  • Tweet type (regular, reply, retweet)

• Author Information

  • Author username and display name
  • Verification status
  • Profile being scraped

• Engagement Metrics

  • ❤️ Likes count
  • 🔄 Retweets count
  • 💬 Replies count
  • 💭 Quotes count
  • 🔖 Bookmarks count
  • 👁️ Views count
  • 📊 Total engagement

• Media & Links

  • 📸 Media URLs (combined images and videos in one array)
  • 🔗 External URLs
  • #️⃣ Hashtags
  • @ Mentions

• Tweet Context

  • Is reply? (with parent user)
  • Is retweet?
  • Reply-to username
  • Clean text (newlines removed)

Advanced Features

✅ Authenticated Scraping - Use cookies to access private/protected profiles ✅ Session Persistence - Save cookies between runs for efficiency ✅ Human Behavior Simulation - Random delays, mouse movements, natural scrolling ✅ Rate Limit Protection - Configurable delays to avoid detection ✅ Block Detection - Automatic detection of account restrictions ✅ Filter Options - Include/exclude replies and retweets ✅ Multi-Profile Support - Scrape multiple profiles in one run ✅ Stealth Mode - Firefox with anti-detection measures

📋 Input Parameters

Required

• usernames (array) - List of Twitter usernames to scrape (without @)
  • Example: ["elonmusk", "openai", "github"]

Optional

• maxTweets (integer, default: 50) - Maximum tweets per profile (1-500)
• includeReplies (boolean, default: false) - Include reply tweets
• includeRetweets (boolean, default: true) - Include retweets
• cookies (string) - Twitter auth cookies in JSON format
• sessionName (string, default: "default_session") - Session name for cookie storage
• minDelayBetweenRequests (integer, default: 3) - Min delay between actions (1-30s)
• maxDelayBetweenRequests (integer, default: 7) - Max delay between actions (2-60s)
• delayBetweenProfiles (integer, default: 10) - Delay between profiles (5-300s)
• humanizeBehavior (boolean, default: true) - Enable human-like behavior

📊 Output Format

The scraper returns a structured JSON object with profile information and all posts:

{
  "username": "elonmusk",
  "display_name": "Elon Musk",
  "bio": "Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, The Boring Company",
  "location": "Texas, USA",
  "website": "https://tesla.com",
  "joined_date": "Joined June 2009",
  "birth_date": null,
  "followers_count": 228100000,
  "following_count": 1219,
  "tweets_count": 0,
  "verified": true,
  "profile_image_url": "https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/...",
  "profile_banner_url": "https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_banners/...",
  "scraped_at": "2024-01-15T12:00:00.000000",
  "posts": [
    {
      "profile_username": "elonmusk",
      "tweet_id": "1234567890",
      "tweet_url": "https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1234567890",
      "text": "Tweet content here without newlines",
      "author_name": "Elon Musk",
      "author_username": "elonmusk",
      "author_verified": true,
      "timestamp": "2024-01-15T10:30:00.000Z",
      "created_at": "2024-01-15T10:30:00+00:00",
      "likes_count": 15000,
      "retweets_count": 3000,
      "replies_count": 500,
      "quotes_count": 200,
      "bookmarks_count": 1000,
      "views_count": 500000,
      "total_engagement": 19700,
      "is_retweet": false,
      "is_reply": false,
      "reply_to": null,
      "media_urls": [
        "https://pbs.twimg.com/media/image1.jpg",
        "https://pbs.twimg.com/media/video1.mp4"
      ],
      "hashtags": ["AI", "Technology"],
      "mentions": ["openai", "github"],
      "urls": ["https://example.com"],
      "scraped_at": "2024-01-15T12:00:00.000000"
    }
  ]
}

🔧 Usage Examples

Basic Usage

{
  "usernames": ["elonmusk"],
  "maxTweets": 20
}

Advanced Usage with Authentication

{
  "usernames": ["elonmusk", "openai"],
  "maxTweets": 100,
  "includeReplies": true,
  "includeRetweets": false,
  "cookies": "[{\"name\":\"auth_token\",\"value\":\"your_token\",\"domain\":\".twitter.com\"}]",
  "sessionName": "my_twitter_account",
  "minDelayBetweenRequests": 5,
  "maxDelayBetweenRequests": 10,
  "humanizeBehavior": true
}

Conservative Settings (Avoid Detection)

{
  "usernames": ["elonmusk"],
  "maxTweets": 30,
  "minDelayBetweenRequests": 8,
  "maxDelayBetweenRequests": 15,
  "delayBetweenProfiles": 30,
  "humanizeBehavior": true
}

🔐 Authentication (REQUIRED for Recent Tweets)

Why you need authentication:

• ❌ Without login: Twitter shows "Highlights" tab with old popular tweets (can be years old)
• ✅ With login: Twitter shows recent chronological tweets from the profile

Bottom line: If you want recent tweets, you MUST provide cookies.

For accessing private profiles or getting recent chronological tweets, you must provide Twitter authentication cookies:

How to Get Cookies

1. Open Twitter/X in your browser
2. Log in to your account
3. Open Developer Tools (F12)
4. Go to Application/Storage → Cookies → https://twitter.com
5. Export cookies in JSON format

Required Cookies

• auth_token - Main authentication token
• ct0 - CSRF token (optional but recommended)

Cookie Format

[
  {
    "name": "auth_token",
    "value": "your_auth_token_value",
    "domain": ".twitter.com",
    "path": "/",
    "expires": 1234567890,
    "httpOnly": true,
    "secure": true
  },
  {
    "name": "ct0",
    "value": "your_ct0_value",
    "domain": ".twitter.com",
    "path": "/",
    "expires": 1234567890,
    "httpOnly": false,
    "secure": true
  }
]

⚠️ Important Notes

🔴 CRITICAL: Recent Tweets Require Authentication

Without authentication cookies, you will get OLD tweets (highlights), not recent ones!

• Twitter shows logged-out users a "Highlights" feed with popular old tweets
• This is Twitter's deliberate behavior, not a bug in the scraper
• Solution: Provide authentication cookies in the input (see Authentication section)

Rate Limits

• Twitter has rate limits for both authenticated and unauthenticated access
• Use slower settings (higher delays) to avoid detection
• Start with fewer tweets (20-50) when testing
• Use authenticated sessions for better limits

Best Practices

1. Use Authentication - REQUIRED for recent tweets, better access, fewer restrictions
2. Start Small - Test with maxTweets: 10-20 first
3. Slow Down - Higher delays = less likely to be blocked
4. Rotate Sessions - Use different sessionName for different accounts
5. Monitor Logs - Watch for warning/block messages about login status

Limitations

• Cannot access truly private accounts without authentication (requires following)
• Some tweets may be hidden due to privacy settings
• Rate limits apply (especially without authentication)
• Twitter's structure may change, requiring updates
• Without cookies, you get old "highlight" tweets, not recent chronological ones

🛠️ Running Locally

Prerequisites

pip install apify playwright beautifulsoup4
playwright install firefox

Create Input File

Create storage/key_value_stores/default/INPUT.json:

{
  "usernames": ["elonmusk"],
  "maxTweets": 20
}

Run

cd Twitter-Profile
apify run

📈 Performance Tips

For Maximum Speed

{
  "minDelayBetweenRequests": 2,
  "maxDelayBetweenRequests": 4,
  "humanizeBehavior": false
}

For Maximum Stealth

{
  "minDelayBetweenRequests": 8,
  "maxDelayBetweenRequests": 15,
  "delayBetweenProfiles": 30,
  "humanizeBehavior": true
}

For Private Profiles

{
  "cookies": "[...]",
  "sessionName": "authenticated_session"
}

🐛 Troubleshooting

No Tweets Scraped

• Check if profile exists and is public
• Try with authentication cookies
• Increase wait times
• Check logs for error messages

Account Blocked/Suspended

• Reduce scraping speed (increase delays)
• Use authenticated session
• Wait 24 hours before retrying
• Use different account

Tweets Missing Data

• Some data may not be available publicly
• Use authentication for better access
• Some metrics require additional API calls

📄 License

This actor is provided as-is for educational purposes. Be aware of Twitter's Terms of Service when scraping data.

🔗 Related

• Twitter API
• Apify Platform
• Playwright Documentation

💡 Tips

• Use for research, analytics, monitoring
• Respect robots.txt and Terms of Service
• Don't overload Twitter's servers
• Consider official Twitter API for production use

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Happy Scraping! 🚀