Wikimedia Commons License Templates Scraper

Wikimedia Commons License Templates Scraper

Scrape license templates from any Wikimedia Commons category, up to a million per run. Each template comes with its page ID, namespace, and title. No login or API key required. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

Wikimedia Commons hosts thousands of license templates across multiple categories, but browsing them manually page by page is slow and you cannot export a structured list. This Actor reads the category members directly from the MediaWiki API, so you get every license template name and its metadata in one dataset. It works for the main License tags category, Copyright templates, and any other category you specify.

Who uses it	What they scrape Wikimedia Commons for
Digital archivists	Building a complete inventory of license templates available on Wikimedia Commons.
Compliance officers	Auditing which Creative Commons and free-culture licenses are in active use across a media collection.
Data analysts	Creating a structured dataset of license template metadata for research on open-content licensing trends.
Tool developers	Populating a license picker or upload wizard with the canonical list of Commons license tags.

What it does

This Actor collects license template entries from a Wikimedia Commons category and returns each one as a flat row with its page ID, namespace, and title.

• 📂 Category-driven extraction: point the Actor at any category like Category:License_tags or Category:Copyright_templates and it returns every member template.
• 🔢 Flexible volume control: set a max items limit from a quick 10-item preview up to 1,000,000 templates for full-scale extraction.
• 📋 Fixed flat schema: every result delivers pageid, ns, and title so your dataset is consistent across runs.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with Wikimedia Commons data

📋 Audit license template coverage.

A compliance officer runs the Actor on Category:License_tags to get a full list of recognized license templates, then cross-references it against the licenses used in their organization's Commons uploads.

🏗️ Build a license chooser tool.

A developer extracts all templates from Category:Copyright_templates and uses the structured title list to populate a dropdown in an upload wizard, so users always pick a valid Commons license tag.

📊 Analyze open-license adoption.

A researcher scrapes the full license template catalog and joins it with file usage data to study which Creative Commons variants are most common on Wikimedia Commons over time.

🗂️ Create a master license reference.

A digital archivist runs the Actor periodically to maintain an up-to-date, machine-readable registry of every license template available on Commons, stored as CSV for integration with cataloging software.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
Direct API access	Reads the live MediaWiki API, the same endpoint that powers the Commons website, with no scraping of HTML pages.
Structured output	Every license template is returned as a clean row with pageid, namespace, and title, ready for analysis or import.
No authentication	Uses the public API with no OAuth, no app registration, and no API key to manage.
Scalable volume	From a 10-item free preview to a million items for paid users, the same Actor scales to your project size.

What a Wikimedia Commons record looks like

Every record returns as one flat JSON row. Here is a real one from a run:

{
 "pageId": 2996815,
 "namespace": 4,
 "title": "Commons:Image copyright tags visual",
 "url": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons%3AImage_copyright_tags_visual",
 "scrapedAt": "2026-08-26T15:56:13.508Z"
}

Every value above comes from a real run. A field a record does not have comes back as null.

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from a single category title and set a maximum number of items to return, so you control exactly how many license templates land in your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
 "categoryTitle": "Category:License_tags",
 "maxItems": 10
}

A larger pull:

{
 "categoryTitle": "Category:License_tags",
 "maxItems": 200
}

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the Wikimedia Commons License Templates Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to Wikimedia Commons through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/wikimedia-commons-license-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check that the categoryTitle input is spelled exactly as it appears on Commons, including the Category: prefix. Also verify that the category contains pages. An empty or misspelled category will return zero results.

Why does the Actor stop before reaching my maxItems limit?

The Actor returns every member of the category. If the category contains fewer templates than your maxItems value, the run finishes after returning all available items. This is expected behavior, not an error.

I am a free user and I cannot set maxItems above 10.

Free accounts are limited to 10 items per run as a preview. Upgrade to a paid plan to increase the limit up to 1,000,000 items.

The output contains unexpected page titles that are not license templates.

The Actor returns every page in the specified category. If the category contains subcategories, redirects, or other non-template pages, they will appear in the output. Use the namespace field (10 for templates) to filter the dataset after the run.

FAQ

Question	Answer
What exactly does this Actor return?	It returns a list of license template pages from the Wikimedia Commons category you specify. Each row contains the pageid, namespace, and title of one template.
Can I scrape categories other than License_tags?	Yes. The categoryTitle input accepts any valid Wikimedia Commons category name, such as Category:Copyright_templates or any subcategory you need.
Do I need a Wikimedia API key or login?	No. The Actor uses the public MediaWiki API endpoint, which requires no authentication, no app registration, and no API key.
How many license templates can I scrape in one run?	Free users can scrape up to 10 items as a preview. Paid users can set maxItems up to 1,000,000, limited only by the actual number of templates in the category.
Does this Actor download the license template content or images?	No. It returns only the metadata (pageid, namespace, title) for each template page. It does not fetch the wikitext, rendered HTML, or any images.
What output formats are supported?	You can export your dataset to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML directly from the Apify platform.
Is this Actor scraping the Commons website HTML?	No. It calls the official MediaWiki API, the same structured endpoint that powers the Commons web interface, so the data is clean and reliable.
Can I filter templates by license type or keyword?	The Actor returns all members of the specified category. If you need a subset, you can filter the output dataset by title after the run using your own tools.
How often is the data refreshed?	Every run queries the live Wikimedia Commons API, so you always get the current list of templates as they exist at that moment.
What is the namespace field in the output?	The namespace is a numeric code that identifies the type of page. For license templates, this is typically 10 (Template namespace), confirming each result is a template.

Related actors

Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.

💰 How much does it cost to scrape Wikimedia Commons License Templates?

This Actor uses pay-per-result pricing: $0.004 per result collected. You are billed only for the results you receive, so a run that returns nothing costs nothing.