Facebook Group Details Scraper

Facebook Group Insights Scraper is a Facebook group scraper that extracts current public Facebook group details from exact group URLs—without supplying a Facebook account, cookie, access token, or third-party data API key.

The Actor returns the numeric group ID, name, full About description, location when present, privacy and discoverability, membership-question flag, cover image, audience size, creation date, admin information, rules, and scrape timestamp. Use it to monitor communities, compare audience sizes, enrich a group directory, or build research datasets.

Input

Add one to five URLs in groupUrls:

{
  "groupUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.facebook.com/groups/cheapmealideas/" },
    { "url": "https://www.facebook.com/groups/2200032550/" }
  ]
}

Slug URLs, numeric group-ID URLs, mobile URLs, and /about/ URLs are normalized automatically. maxRetries controls how many fresh proxy sessions are attempted if Facebook soft-blocks an exit IP.

Input options

Field	Type	Required	Default	What it does
groupUrls	array	Yes	—	One to five exact public Facebook group URLs.
maxRetries	integer	No	4	Number of fresh residential sessions allowed for each group.
proxyConfiguration	object	No	Apify Residential, US	Advanced proxy override. The tested default is recommended.

Validation happens before any group is requested. Invalid inputs fail before the run-start charge. For a valid batch, unavailable or blocked URLs are recorded in the run summary while the other valid URLs continue.

Ready-to-run examples

Open a public example to inspect its input, run it, or reuse it as a task:

• Compare Public Facebook Group Details
• Extract Public Facebook Group Details

Inspect one group by numeric ID:

{
  "groupUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.facebook.com/groups/2200032550/" }
  ]
}

Use extra rotations for a batch:

{
  "groupUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.facebook.com/groups/cheapmealideas/" },
    { "url": "https://m.facebook.com/groups/2200032550/about/" }
  ],
  "maxRetries": 6
}

Output

Each successful dataset item follows this stable core contract:

{
  "status": "success",
  "group_id": "126966114029232",
  "group_name": "Cheap Meal Ideas",
  "group_url": "https://www.facebook.com/groups/cheapmealideas/",
  "description": "This group is open for anyone to join or share with others...",
  "group_location": null,
  "privacy": "Public group",
  "has_questions": false,
  "cover_photo_url": "https://scontent...fbcdn.net/...jpg",
  "cover_photo_width": 720,
  "cover_photo_height": 405,
  "members_count": 6000000,
  "members_count_text": "6.0M members",
  "privacy_description": "Anyone can see who's in the group and what they post.",
  "discoverability": "Visible",
  "discoverability_description": "Anyone can find this group.",
  "created_at": "2010-11-29T01:18:52.000Z",
  "admin_count": 5,
  "rules": [],
  "scraped_at": "2026-08-29T00:00:00.000Z"
}

Unavailable, private, or repeatedly blocked URLs do not create a billable group row and do not stop the remaining valid URLs. Check the run summary for their count.

What this Actor does

Use one exact public group URL per target. The Actor returns one group-level record when Facebook makes that group's public details available. It does not require your Facebook credentials and does not use a paid third-party data API.

Who is it for?

• Community and social-media teams tracking the size of public communities.
• Market researchers comparing audience, location, privacy, and group age.
• Developers who need a numeric group ID from a human-readable URL.
• Data teams enriching existing URL lists with consistent metadata.
• Agencies building repeatable public-community monitoring reports.

This is a details Actor, not a feed crawler. It is a good fit when one clean row per group is more useful than thousands of post or comment records.

Use cases

• Track group member growth by scheduling repeat runs and comparing members_count.
• Compare community size, privacy, location, discoverability, and age for market research.
• Resolve a human-readable group slug to its numeric Facebook group ID.
• Enrich CRM, Sheets, n8n, Make, or warehouse records with group metadata.
• Build public-group directories and research datasets.

API usage

Run the Actor from Apify Console, API, CLI, JavaScript/Python clients, schedules, webhooks, or MCP-capable agents. Results are stored in the default dataset and can be exported as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or RSS.

JavaScript

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('fetch_cat/facebook-group-insights-scraper').call({
  groupUrls: [{ url: 'https://www.facebook.com/groups/cheapmealideas/' }],
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Python

import os
from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient(os.environ['APIFY_TOKEN'])
run = client.actor('fetch_cat/facebook-group-insights-scraper').call(run_input={
    'groupUrls': [{'url': 'https://www.facebook.com/groups/cheapmealideas/'}],
})
items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items
print(items)

cURL

curl -X POST \
  'https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/fetch_cat~facebook-group-insights-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"groupUrls":[{"url":"https://www.facebook.com/groups/cheapmealideas/"}]}'

Pricing

The Actor uses pay-per-event pricing: one small run-start event and one tiered Group result event for each successful public group row. Unavailable targets do not create a group result or group-result charge. Higher Apify plans receive lower per-result rates.

See the live Apify Pricing tab for current rates and plan-specific discounts. Apify may separately charge platform usage for compute, storage, residential proxy traffic, or data transfer as shown for your account.

Field reference

Field	Meaning
group_id	Facebook's numeric group identifier.
group_name	Current public group name.
group_url	Canonical public group URL.
description	Full public About description when exposed.
group_location	Public group location, otherwise null.
privacy	Public privacy label such as Public group.
has_questions	Whether membership screening questions are configured.
members_count	Integer conversion of Facebook's public count.
members_count_text	Original Facebook count text, including rounding suffix.
cover_photo_url	Current signed cover-image URL.
created_at	Group creation timestamp when publicly exposed.
admin_count	Public admin count when available.
moderator_summary	Public admin/moderator summary sentence.
rules	Public rule titles and descriptions.
scraped_at	Timestamp for this observation.

Limitations and responsible use

• Public groups only. Private group content and member lists are outside this Actor's scope; public-field availability can vary by group.
• The audience count is the public formatted count Facebook exposes; compact values such as 6.0M are converted to an integer estimate and preserved verbatim in members_count_text.
• Facebook can change its public page structure or temporarily block individual proxy exits. The Actor rotates sessions and returns clear errors when retries are exhausted.
• Cover-image URLs are signed CDN URLs and can expire; save the image separately if you need a durable asset.
• Use public data responsibly and follow applicable laws and platform terms.

FAQ

What data can I export with Facebook group details?

Export the public group ID, name, URL, About description, privacy, discoverability, member count, cover image, creation date, public admin summary, rules, and scrape timestamp when Facebook exposes those fields.

Can I run Facebook Group Insights Scraper through an API, schedule, or MCP client?

Yes. Use the API examples above, create a schedule in Apify Console for recurring checks, or call the Actor from an MCP-capable workflow.

How much does it cost to use Facebook Group Insights Scraper?

The Actor charges a small run-start event plus one tiered result event for every successful public group row. See the live Pricing tab for current plan-specific rates.

Does it need my Facebook cookie or login?

No. The default public-group workflow uses no user cookie, password, or access token.

Is this a wrapper around another scraping API?

No. It reads Facebook's own public logged-out HTML and embedded first-party metadata.

Can it scrape posts, comments, members, or private groups?

No. This Actor is deliberately limited to public group-level metadata and About insights.

Can I monitor member growth?

Yes. Schedule the same input and compare members_count and scraped_at between runs.

Why is the member count sometimes rounded?

Facebook may expose a compact public value such as 43.3K members. The Actor returns 43300 and also preserves 43.3K members in members_count_text.

Why can group_location be null?

Many groups do not set a location. The Actor emits null when Facebook's current public About payload has no location rather than guessing from the group name or description.

Does a successful run expose my proxy or session details?

No. Dataset items contain group metadata only. Proxy credentials and request state are never written to the dataset.

Troubleshooting

If a public group returns an error, first open the exact URL in a logged-out browser and confirm it still exists. Removed, renamed, restricted, private, or region-limited groups may not expose a public About payload. Raising maxRetries can help when an individual residential exit is temporarily blocked, but it cannot make private data public.

For batch work, keep the unavailable URL in the input: the Actor records it in the run summary and continues processing the remaining groups.

Related Actors

• Facebook Groups Search Scraper discovers public group URLs by keyword before you enrich them here.
• Facebook Pages Scraper exports public Page details for a complementary brand-presence view.
• Facebook URL to ID Scraper resolves supported Facebook URLs to numeric IDs.
• Facebook Marketplace Scraper supports public marketplace research workflows.
• Facebook Events Scraper complements group research with public event discovery.

Support

Open an issue from this Actor's Apify Console page with the input, run ID, expected behavior, and a public example URL. Do not include credentials, cookies, or personal data.