Snapchat Spotlight Comment & Reaction Scraper

Scrape public Snapchat Spotlight comment threads — not just the handful of comments Snapchat embeds on a video page. Collect root comments and their direct replies for specific Spotlight videos, a creator's pinned Spotlights, a hashtag or topic, or the trending Spotlight feed of a country. Every row can include commenter details, reaction breakdowns, moderation fields, timestamps and hydrated video context such as the creator, caption, thumbnail and engagement counts.

What this actor does

• Four modes: bySpotlightUrls, byUsername, byTopic, byFeed
• Full threads: pages through the public comment service instead of stopping at the first embedded page
• Optional replies: emits depth-1 replies as separate rows linked by parentCommentId
• Video context: attaches creator, caption, hashtags, media URLs and engagement counts to every comment
• Global row cap: maxItems stops the run at a predictable dataset size
• Omit-empty: fields the source does not publish for a record are left out, never sent as null

Services

Service	What it gives you
Spotlight URL or ID lookup	Every root comment and optional reply for one or more specific videos
Creator profile lookup	Comments for the Spotlight videos pinned on a public creator profile
Hashtag / topic discovery	Comments for videos found on public tag, explore and topic pages
Country trending feed	Comments for videos in the public Spotlight feed of one country
Video hydration	Creator, caption, hashtags, thumbnail, video URL, duration, dimensions, post time and engagement counts
Error rows	A readable error row when an input cannot be resolved, so one bad input does not fail the whole run

How it works

The actor reads the same public Spotlight pages and public comment data that any visitor can see on snapchat.com. It discovers videos first, then pages through the comment service for each video, optionally follows the reply cursor for comments that have replies, and hydrates video details in batches. It runs without a login, cookies, API key or proxy configuration. Requests are paced politely and repeated briefly when Snapchat returns a temporary server error.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	byUsername	bySpotlightUrls / byUsername / byTopic / byFeed
spotlightUrls	array	–	Spotlight URLs, @user/spotlight links, t.snapchat.com links or raw snap IDs (mode=bySpotlightUrls)
usernames	array	["brentrivera"]	Snapchat usernames, @names or profile URLs (mode=byUsername)
topics	array	["food"]	Hashtags, topic slugs or /tag, /explore, /topic URLs (mode=byTopic)
country	string	US	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code for the trending feed (mode=byFeed)
maxVideosPerSource	integer	50	Stop after this many videos per username, topic or feed (1–100); ignored for explicit URLs
maxCommentsPerVideo	integer	100	Maximum comment rows per video, including replies (1–100000)
includeReplies	boolean	false	Emit direct replies as separate rows
maxItems	integer	1000000	Global dataset row cap (1–1000000)

Older tasks that send maxCommentsPerSnap are mapped automatically to maxCommentsPerVideo; an explicit non-default maxCommentsPerVideo takes precedence. The former bySpotlightUrl mode value is still accepted.

Example: full thread for one video, with replies

{
  "mode": "bySpotlightUrls",
  "spotlightUrls": [
    "https://www.snapchat.com/@brentrivera/spotlight/W7_EDlXWTBiXAEEniNoMPwAAYdXd0bndkZmd1AZrNg9asAZrNg8LXAAAAAQ"
  ],
  "maxCommentsPerVideo": 5000,
  "includeReplies": true,
  "maxItems": 10000
}

Example: comments for a creator's pinned Spotlights

{
  "mode": "byUsername",
  "usernames": ["brentrivera", "waqarzaka"],
  "maxVideosPerSource": 10,
  "maxCommentsPerVideo": 200
}

Example: discover videos by hashtag

{
  "mode": "byTopic",
  "topics": ["food", "https://www.snapchat.com/tag/travel"],
  "maxVideosPerSource": 20,
  "maxCommentsPerVideo": 100,
  "includeReplies": true
}

Example: trending feed in the United Kingdom

{
  "mode": "byFeed",
  "country": "GB",
  "maxVideosPerSource": 25,
  "maxCommentsPerVideo": 50
}

Output

Every comment row is a flat object. Identity and thread fields come first, followed by commenter, engagement, video context and scrape metadata.

• recordType — comment or error
• commentId, snapId, snapUrl
• sourceUsername, inputUrl, topic, topicUrl, feedCountry — mode context
• parentCommentId, depth — 0 for root comments, 1 for replies
• replyText
• postedAt, updatedAt
• threadedReplyCount
• commenterDisplayName, commenterId, commenterProfileId, commenterUsername, commenterProfileUrl, commenterIsPostAuthor
• commenterBitmojiAvatarId, commenterBitmojiSelfieId, commenterProfileLogoUrl
• reactionCounts — array of {reactTypeId, count}
• likeCount — sum of all reaction counts
• reportCount, approvalState — Snapchat moderation fields
• rankingScore
• creatorUsername, creatorDisplayName, creatorProfileUrl, creatorIsOfficial
• videoCaption, videoHashtags, videoThumbnailUrl, videoUrl
• videoDurationSeconds, videoWidth, videoHeight, videoPostedAt
• videoViewCount, videoShareCount, videoCommentCount, videoBoostCount, videoRecommendCount
• videoAiTitle, videoAiDescription, videoKeywords
• scrapedAt

Error rows use recordType: "error", the relevant input field (inputUrl, inputUsername, topic, topicUrl or feedCountry), an optional snapId, an error message and scrapedAt.

Use cases

• Audience research — read what viewers say under a creator's or a brand's Spotlights.
• Campaign monitoring — collect comment volume, reactions and replies around a hashtag or country feed.
• Moderation and safety — export public comments, reports and moderation state for review.
• Sentiment and trend analysis — feed comment text and timestamps into NLP or dashboard pipelines.
• Creator benchmarking — compare comment engagement across several creators or videos.
• Video-level reporting — join comments with captions, hashtags and video engagement in one dataset.

Usage cost

Apify charges for the compute your runs use, based on the actor's memory setting and run time. This actor runs at 1 GB by default. Cost grows with the number of videos and comment pages you request, so use maxVideosPerSource, maxCommentsPerVideo and maxItems to keep runs inside your budget. A small run over one video or one creator costs a fraction of a cent; a large full-thread crawl across many videos costs more because it makes more requests. No paid proxy or external API is required.

FAQ

Do I need a Snapchat account, cookies or an API key? No. The actor reads public Snapchat pages and public comment data without logging in.

Do I need to configure a proxy? No. The actor connects to Snapchat automatically.

Why are there fewer comments than Snapchat shows on a video? Snapchat can display a total comment count that is larger than the number of comments it pages out to anonymous visitors. The actor pages until the source stops returning a cursor, and records the reported videoCommentCount when Snapchat publishes one. It never invents rows.

What is the difference between a comment and a reply? Root comments have depth: 0. Direct replies have depth: 1 and a parentCommentId. Enable includeReplies to emit them.

Why is a commenter username or Bitmoji missing? Snapchat only exposes some commenter profile fields for some accounts. When a field is not published for that comment, it is omitted from the row.

Why does byUsername return only a few videos? Public creator profiles list the creator's pinned Spotlight highlights, not their complete Spotlight history. Increase maxVideosPerSource to use every pinned video that is available.

Can I scrape comments for a hashtag that has no /tag page? Yes. The actor falls back to Snapchat's explore page for the same term, and also accepts an explicit /topic/<slug> URL.

What happens when a video was removed? Snapchat may keep its comment thread available even when the video page and metadata are gone. Such rows keep the comments and omit the missing video fields.

Is this affiliated with Snapchat? No. This is an independent third-party actor that reads publicly visible Snapchat data and has no relationship with Snap Inc.

Notes

• Comment text is returned exactly as published, including emoji and non-Latin scripts.
• Timestamps are ISO 8601 UTC.
• Duplicate comment IDs from Snapchat's own pages are removed within a run.
• One invalid URL, username or topic produces an error row and the run continues with the remaining inputs.
• The default task is deliberately small: one profile, one video and a few comments.

Limitations

• Creator profiles expose only pinned Spotlight videos, not the full back catalogue.
• Replies are depth-1 only; nested reply chains are not followed recursively.
• Commenter usernames and some profile fields are published for a minority of comments.
• Snapchat may page out fewer comments than the count shown in its interface.
• Topic and tag pages expose a limited set of videos (roughly 20–30 per page) with no pagination.
• The trending feed is personalised and changes between requests; results are a snapshot of the moment the run executes.
• Removed videos can keep comments while losing metadata, so video context may be absent on those rows.