Facebook Video Extractor

Facebook Video Extractor pulls structured data from any public Facebook video post or Reel: title, caption, author, thumbnail, view count, reaction count, comment count, duration, and publish date. Give it a video URL and get the results back as clean JSON, CSV, or Excel, ready to use in a spreadsheet, a dashboard, or your own pipeline.

What it does

Paste a link to a Facebook video, whether that's a facebook.com/watch/?v= link, a page's /videos/ link, or a facebook.com/reel/ link, and the actor returns:

• Video title and caption
• Author name and profile URL
• Thumbnail image
• View count, reaction count, comment count
• Duration in seconds
• Publish date
• Canonical post URL
• Direct HD and SD video file URLs

Run it against a single video or a batch of hundreds. No Facebook login required, and nothing to install locally.

Why use it

• Track performance for your own Facebook videos, or a client's, without digging through Facebook's native analytics dashboard.
• Monitor competitors by pulling view and engagement counts from public pages on a recurring schedule.
• Build a research dataset of video metadata for content analysis, trend tracking, or academic research.
• Power SEO and content reporting by turning raw engagement numbers into a structured table you can chart or compare.
• Feed other tools: export to Google Sheets, connect the dataset to a BI dashboard, or pull results via the Apify API straight into your own pipeline.

Who it's for

• Social media managers who need weekly video performance snapshots without opening each post
• Marketing and SEO teams tracking video reach and engagement across public pages
• Researchers and journalists collecting Facebook video metadata at scale
• Developers who want Facebook video data as an API call instead of a scraping project

Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
startUrls	array of strings	Yes	Facebook video URLs to extract data from
maxItems	integer	No	Maximum number of URLs to process per run (default 100, max 1000)
requestTimeoutSecs	integer	No	Per-request timeout in seconds (default 30)

Example input:

{
  "startUrls": [
    "https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=414232415974682",
    "https://www.facebook.com/reel/2124425745096915"
  ],
  "maxItems": 100
}

Accepted URL formats:

• https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=<video_id>
• https://www.facebook.com/<page>/videos/<video_id>/
• https://www.facebook.com/reel/<video_id>
• https://facebook.com/watch?v=<video_id> (with or without www.)

Output

Each result is pushed to the dataset as one item:

{
  "inputUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=414232415974682",
  "videoId": "414232415974682",
  "postUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/kidstoysandcolors/videos/.../414232415974682/",
  "videoTitle": "Car Toys Construction Trucks Looking for Excavator Vehicles Toy",
  "videoCaption": "Car Toys Construction Trucks Looking for Excavator Vehicles Toy",
  "authorName": "Kids Toys and Colors",
  "authorProfileUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/kidstoysandcolors/",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://scontent.fna.fbcdn.net/...",
  "hdVideoUrl": "https://video.fna.fbcdn.net/...",
  "sdVideoUrl": "https://video.fna.fbcdn.net/...",
  "durationSeconds": 634.1,
  "viewCount": 649022,
  "reactionCount": 10000,
  "commentCount": 174,
  "publishedAt": "2019-04-25T10:34:00+00:00",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-08-16T05:20:29.621949+00:00",
  "error": null
}

Output fields

Field	Description
inputUrl	The URL you provided in startUrls
videoId	Facebook's numeric ID for the video
postUrl	Canonical URL of the video post
videoTitle	Video title
videoCaption	Full caption or post text
authorName	Name of the page, profile, or account that posted the video
authorProfileUrl	Link to the author's Facebook page or profile
thumbnailUrl	Video thumbnail image
hdVideoUrl	Direct link to the HD video file, when available
sdVideoUrl	Direct link to the SD video file, when available
durationSeconds	Video length in seconds
viewCount	Total view count
reactionCount	Total reactions (likes, love, etc.)
commentCount	Total comment count
publishedAt	Publish date and time (ISO 8601, UTC)
scrapedAt	When the actor collected this data (ISO 8601, UTC)
error	Set when extraction failed for this URL, otherwise null

If a URL fails, the actor logs the reason and pushes an item with error set, instead of stopping the whole run. Some fields, such as hdVideoUrl, viewCount, or authorProfileUrl, may come back null for certain videos depending on visibility settings and how Facebook renders that specific post.

How to use it

1. Open the actor on Apify and click Try for free or Start.
2. Paste one or more Facebook video or Reel URLs into startUrls.
3. Set maxItems if you're running a large batch.
4. Click Start, then open the Dataset tab once the run finishes.
5. Export results as JSON, CSV, Excel, or push them straight to Google Sheets.
6. Or pull the dataset programmatically via the Apify API or one of the Apify SDKs (Python, JavaScript).

Frequently asked questions

Does this actor download Facebook videos? No. It extracts public metadata and the video's direct CDN link. Downloading and storing video files is your responsibility, and you should always respect Facebook's terms of service and the content owner's rights.

Can it access private videos or videos that require login? No. Only publicly accessible Facebook video posts can be extracted.

Do the video URLs in hdVideoUrl and sdVideoUrl work forever? No. These are signed Facebook CDN links that expire after a period of time, so use them soon after the run completes.

Does this work on Reels? Yes, facebook.com/reel/ links are supported alongside standard /watch/ and page video links.

How many videos can I process in one run? Up to 1000 per run via maxItems. Run it again or on a schedule for larger or recurring jobs.

Support

Found a bug or have a feature request? Reach out through the Issues tab on the actor's Apify page.