Wikimedia Commons Users Scraper

Wikimedia Commons Users Scraper

Scrape Wikimedia Commons user profiles by group, activity, or up to a million records per run. Every user comes with their user ID, username, and group membership, returned directly from the public API. No login or API key. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

Wikimedia Commons does not offer a simple download of its contributor directory. This Actor reads the public allusers API endpoint, filters by user group or recent activity, and returns each matching user in one fixed schema. It handles pagination and rate limits so you get a clean dataset without writing a single API call.

Who uses it	What they scrape Wikimedia Commons for
Community managers	Identify active administrators and moderators for outreach.
Researchers	Study contributor demographics and group distributions over time.
Tool developers	Build a local index of bot accounts to monitor automated edits.
GLAM professionals	Find registered users who upload institutional media collections.

What it does

This Actor collects Wikimedia Commons user records by group filter or active status, and returns each one as a flat row with user ID, name, and group membership.

• 👥 Group filter: restrict results to administrators, bots, bureaucrats, interface admins, or registered users.
• ⚡ Active users only: toggle to return only users who have been active recently.
• 📊 Flat row output: each user is a single record with user ID, name, and group, ready for analysis.

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

What you can do with Wikimedia Commons data

👥 Map the administrator community.

A community manager runs the Actor with the Administrators group filter to get a current list of sysops for a governance review.

🤖 Audit bot accounts.

A tool developer scrapes all users in the Bot group to cross-reference active bots against a list of approved automation tasks.

📈 Track contributor growth.

A researcher runs the Actor weekly with the active users toggle to measure how the active contributor base changes over time.

🏛️ Find institutional uploaders.

A GLAM professional extracts all registered users and filters the dataset locally for names matching known museum accounts.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API coding	The Actor calls the Wikimedia Commons API, handles pagination, and respects rate limits.
Fixed schema	Every user record has the same fields, so your downstream processing never breaks.
Preview mode	Free users can pull up to 10 records to test the output before scaling.
Large scale	Paid users can extract up to one million user records in a single run.

What a Wikimedia Commons record looks like

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

{
 "userid": 8965929,
 "name": "! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 00000D",
 "scrapedAt": "2026-09-04T06:06:59.403Z"
}

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 with a user group filter and an active users toggle, and set a maximum item count to control the size of your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
 "maxItems": 10
}

A larger pull:

{
 "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.
2. Open the Wikimedia Commons Users 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-users-scraper"

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

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check your user group filter. If you selected a group with very few members, like Interface administrators, the list may be empty. Try setting the filter to All users and run again.

Why does the run stop before reaching my max items?

The Wikimedia Commons API returns all users that match your filter. If the total number of matching users is less than your max items setting, the Actor will finish early.

I got a timeout error. What should I do?

The Wikimedia Commons API may be slow during high traffic. Increase the Actor's timeout setting in your run configuration and retry.

The active users toggle returns fewer users than expected.

The API defines recent activity internally. If you need a broader set, disable the toggle and filter the results locally by the last edit date if you collect that data separately.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Do I need a Wikimedia API key to use this Actor?	No. The Actor calls the public allusers API endpoint, which requires no authentication or API key.
What user groups can I filter by?	You can filter by Administrators, Bots, Registered users, Bureaucrats, and Interface administrators. Leave the filter empty to get all users.
How many users can I scrape in one run?	Free users can scrape up to 10 records for a preview. Paid users can set a maximum of up to one million records per run.
Does this Actor return user upload counts or edit histories?	No. The Actor returns the user ID, username, and group membership as provided by the allusers API. It does not include contribution statistics.
What does the active users toggle do?	When enabled, the Actor requests only users who have been active recently, as determined by the Wikimedia Commons API.
Can I scrape users from a specific category or project?	No. The Actor uses the allusers list, which covers the entire Commons user base. It does not filter by category, project, or upload topic.
How is the data exported?	You can export your dataset in CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML formats directly from the Apify platform.
Does the Actor handle API rate limits?	Yes. The Actor is built to respect the Wikimedia Commons API rate limits and paginates automatically using the continue token.
Can I get user email addresses or real names?	No. The public API only returns the user ID and username. Private information like email addresses is never exposed.

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.

Pricing

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.

⚠️ 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.