Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper

Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper — Views, Shares, Boosts and Captions

Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper reads a public Snapchat profile and returns every Spotlight video posted there as structured JSON — one row per video, with viewCount, shareCount, commentCount, boostCount, recommendCount, caption, hashtags, upload date and a canonical Spotlight link. No parsing, no browser, no Snapchat login. Point it at one or many usernames and start the run.

What is Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper?

Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper is an Apify Actor that fetches a Snapchat creator's public profile page and extracts every Spotlight video it publishes — engagement counts, caption, hashtags, upload timestamp, video dimensions and a stable Spotlight ID — into a typed JSON row per video. It reads only the public profile page; no Snapchat account, login or API key is required. Built for social media analysts, creator-partnership teams, and developers wiring Snapchat data into dashboards or AI agents.

What Snapchat Spotlight video data is publicly available to scrape?

Snapchat publishes a creator's Spotlight videos — including their view, share, comment, boost and recommend counts, caption, hashtags and upload date — directly on the public profile page, with no login needed to view them.

Data category	Publicly available	Restricted (login/friendship)
Spotlight video metadata (label, caption, hashtags, upload date)	✅	—
Spotlight engagement counts (views, shares, comments, boosts, recommends)	✅	—
Canonical Spotlight link, thumbnail and video URLs	✅	—
Video pixel dimensions and duration	✅	—
The video file itself	❌ not downloaded by this Actor	—
Stories	❌	✅ requires login/friendship
Snap Score, friend list, chat history	❌	✅ requires login
Private-account content	❌	✅ requires being added as a friend

Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper only returns publicly visible data — what any visitor sees on a profile page. Nothing behind a login wall.

What data can I extract with Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper?

Every run returns identity fields that describe each Spotlight video, engagement and format metrics, and status/run metadata — 25 fields in total.

Video identity and content fields

Field	Description
username	Snapchat handle the video belongs to
type	video for a Spotlight video row, status for an explanatory row
spotlightId	Canonical Spotlight video ID, parsed from the video's own link — a stable join/dedup key
spotlightUrl	Clean https://www.snapchat.com/spotlight/{id} link built from spotlightId
videoTitle	Snapchat's own label for the entry (kept for compatibility)
llmTitle	A descriptive per-video title, when the profile page provides one
description	The video's caption
hashtags	Array of hashtags Snapchat attaches to the video (separate from any hashtags a creator types directly into the caption)
thumbnailUrl	URL of the video's thumbnail image
contentUrl	URL of the video file (link only — never downloaded)
deeplink	Snapchat app deep link / tracking link for the video

Engagement and format metrics

Field	Description
viewCount	Views. null when Snapchat has not published a number — never a fabricated 0
shareCount	Shares
commentCount	Comments
boostCount	Boosts
recommendCount	Recommends
publishedAt	Upload time, ISO 8601 UTC
uploadDate	Upload time in epoch milliseconds (number)
uploadDateMs	The same epoch-millisecond value, as text
durationMs	Video length in milliseconds
width	Video width in pixels
height	Video height in pixels

Row status and run metadata

Field	Description
status	ok on a video row, or a plain-language explanation on a status row
success	true on a video row, false on a status row
scrapedAt	When the row was collected, ISO 8601 UTC

🤖 Add-on: Need additional Snapchat data?

If you already have a Spotlight video link instead of a profile, Snapchat Spotlight Scraper pulls the same engagement and creator details from that single video URL. To find creators before you scrape their Spotlight content, Snapchat Popular Accounts Scraper discovers public profiles by keyword and returns subscriber counts, verification badges, category and snapcode.

How does Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper differ from the official Snapchat API?

Snapchat's Public Profile and Creator Discovery APIs give approved developers profile-level metadata, but as of 2026-08-15 the Creator Discovery endpoint's own documentation states that a spotlight_views count is "no longer provided in the response for each creator" — per-video Spotlight engagement is not published through the official API (source).

Feature	Snapchat Public Profile / Creator Discovery API	Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper
Access requirement	OAuth access token via Snap's Marketing API	Public profile URL or username — no account
Per-video Spotlight metrics (views, shares, comments, boosts)	Not included — spotlight_views was removed from the Creator Discovery response	Returned per video: viewCount, shareCount, commentCount, boostCount, recommendCount
Looking up one specific creator	Discovery search by filters (follower count, country, category)	Direct username or profile URL input
Data granularity	Profile/creator-level metadata	One row per Spotlight video
Result set size	Discovery queries capped at 5,000 creators per query	Bounded by maxVideosPerAccount per profile you list

Use the official API if you already have Marketing API access and only need creator-level discovery metadata. Use Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper when you need per-video engagement numbers for specific creators without going through Snap's approval process.

How to use Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper

1. Open Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper on the Apify Console.
2. Add one or more entries to startUrls — a username, an @handle, or a full profile URL. This is the only required input.
3. Optionally set maxVideosPerAccount to bound how many videos come back per profile, and choose a proxyConfiguration if you want a specific proxy setup.
4. Click Start. Rows are written to the dataset as each profile finishes.
5. Export the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel or XML, or pull it through the Apify API.

How to scale to bulk Spotlight video extraction

startUrls is an array — list as many usernames, handles or profile URLs as you want in a single run, and every profile is processed concurrently in the same run. There is no separate "bulk mode" input; adding more entries to startUrls is the bulk pattern.

What can you do with Snapchat Spotlight video data?

• 📊 Social media analysts tracking Snapchat performance use viewCount, shareCount and boostCount to compare a creator's Spotlight videos over time.
• 🤝 Creator-partnership teams vetting an influencer before a deal use spotlightId, viewCount and publishedAt to check whether a creator's recent Spotlight reach is real and current.
• 🔍 Competitive intelligence teams monitoring rival brands list several usernames in one run and compare hashtags and description to see which topics competitors lean on.
• ✍️ Content strategists studying what earns views use description, hashtags, durationMs and llmTitle alongside viewCount to find patterns in caption style and video length.
• 🤖 AI engineers building a RAG pipeline or agent tool pass llmTitle, description and hashtags as grounding text, paired with viewCount and boostCount as numeric signals, so an agent can answer questions about a creator's Spotlight performance without re-scraping.

How does Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper handle rate limits and blocking?

Requests are made directly with aiohttp (no browser), capped at 10 concurrent connections and 2 per host, with browser-matching request headers. Each profile is retried up to 3 times with a randomized 1–1.75 second backoff between attempts. On a failed or unreadable response, the connection automatically escalates from your chosen proxy setting to Apify's RESIDENTIAL proxy group as a fallback tier for the next attempt. A 404 response is treated as a definitive "profile not found" and is not retried. If a profile still can't be read after all attempts, the run writes a single free status row explaining why instead of throwing an error — the run itself always completes. No CAPTCHA-solving is implemented.

⬇️ Input

Parameter	Required	Type	Description	Example value
startUrls	Yes	array of strings	Public Snapchat profiles to collect Spotlight videos from. Accepts a bare username (realmadrid), an @handle (@realmadrid) or a full profile URL (https://www.snapchat.com/@realmadrid). Spotlight video URLs and Explore pages are not profiles and are skipped with a clear note.	["https://www.snapchat.com/@realmadrid"]
maxVideosPerAccount	No	integer (min 0)	Caps how many Spotlight videos are returned for each profile, so you can bound the size of a run. Example: 10 with two profiles returns at most 20 rows. Set 0 for no cap.	10
proxyConfiguration	No	object (proxy editor)	Optional. Select Apify Proxy here if you want the run to go through it. Leaving this unchanged is fine for most runs.	{ "useApifyProxy": false }

⚠️ The schema's default doesn't match its own description text. maxVideosPerAccount's description says "Default is 0," but the field's actual configured default is 5. Leave it blank and you get up to 5 videos per profile, not an uncapped run — set it to 0 explicitly if you want every Spotlight video on the profile.

Example input

{
  "startUrls": [
    "https://www.snapchat.com/@realmadrid",
    "https://www.snapchat.com/@fcbarcelona"
  ],
  "maxVideosPerAccount": 10,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": false }
}

⬆️ Output

Every run produces typed, normalized JSON with a consistent schema across runs — no HTML, no selectors to write. Results are stored in the Actor's dataset and can be exported as JSON, CSV, Excel or XML from the Apify Console, or pulled through the Apify API.

Example output

{
  "username": "realmadrid",
  "type": "video",
  "spotlightId": "W7_EDlXWTBiXAEEniNoMPwAAYaXpjZWNzcWRpAZ_dPe41AZ_dPewTAAAAAQ",
  "spotlightUrl": "https://www.snapchat.com/spotlight/W7_EDlXWTBiXAEEniNoMPwAAYaXpjZWNzcWRpAZ_dPe41AZ_dPewTAAAAAQ",
  "videoTitle": "Spotlight Snap",
  "llmTitle": "Real Madrid Training Session Highlights",
  "description": "#RMCity #RealMadrid #Training",
  "hashtags": ["#RealMadrid"],
  "publishedAt": "2025-12-19T18:27:29Z",
  "uploadDate": 1766173649643,
  "uploadDateMs": "1766173649643",
  "durationMs": 50120,
  "width": 540,
  "height": 960,
  "viewCount": 26262,
  "shareCount": 31,
  "commentCount": 41,
  "boostCount": 2162,
  "recommendCount": 141,
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://cf-st.sc-cdn.net/d/thumbnail.jpg",
  "contentUrl": "https://cf-st.sc-cdn.net/d/video.mp4",
  "deeplink": "https://click.snapchat.com/aVHG?param=spotlight",
  "status": "ok",
  "success": true,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-08-08T09:14:02Z"
}

If a profile has no public Spotlight videos, doesn't exist, or couldn't be read on a given run, the row looks different and carries no charge — see the FAQ below.

How does it work?

Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper requests each profile's public page (snapchat.com/@username) directly over HTTP with browser-matching headers — no browser rendering is used. Snapchat embeds each profile's Spotlight videos as a single JSON object inside the page (a __NEXT_DATA__ script tag), and the Actor parses that JSON directly rather than scanning the rendered HTML for text. That's also why the output schema stays stable even when Snapchat changes its page layout or styling — the Actor reads the same structured data contract Snapchat's own client reads, not the visual markup around it. Requests go out with retries and an automatic proxy-tier fallback (see above), and only the page a logged-out visitor would see is ever requested — nothing from a login-gated surface.

Integrations

Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper runs like any Apify Actor, so it works with the tools you already use to orchestrate scraping jobs.

Calling Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper programmatically

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_API_TOKEN>")

run = client.actor("snapchat-user-spotlight-scraper").call(run_input={
    "startUrls": ["https://www.snapchat.com/@realmadrid"],
    "maxVideosPerAccount": 10,
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

Works in Go, Ruby, Node.js, cURL — any language that can make an HTTP request to the Apify API.

No-code tools (n8n, Make, LangChain)

In n8n, use the HTTP Request node (or the Apify community node) pointed at the Actor's run endpoint, with your API token in the header. In Make, the Apify app's "Run an Actor" module takes the same startUrls input and returns dataset items to the next module. In LangChain, the ApifyWrapper community integration can call this Actor and load its dataset directly as documents for a retrieval chain.

⚖️ Is it legal to scrape Snapchat Spotlight videos?

Scraping publicly visible content — the same content a logged-out visitor already sees — is generally permitted; U.S. courts have found that scraping public web data does not, on its own, violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn). Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper returns only public Spotlight videos and their creator's public username, caption and engagement counts — nothing from Stories, private accounts or any logged-in surface. Because each row is tied to an identifiable creator's username and authored caption text, it can qualify as personal data under GDPR and CCPA when the creator is an EU or California resident; you act as the data controller for anything you store, so keep only what you need and be ready to honor a removal request. Automated access to snapchat.com is also governed by Snapchat's own Terms of Service. Consult legal counsel if your use case involves bulk storage of personal data.

Frequently asked questions

What Snapchat Spotlight video fields does Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper return?

The top fields are viewCount, shareCount, commentCount, boostCount and description, alongside hashtags, spotlightId and upload timestamps. See What data can I extract above for the full 25-field list.

Does Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper require a Snapchat account or login?

No. The Actor requests only the public profile page with no authentication headers or cookies — the same page a logged-out visitor sees.

How many Spotlight videos can I extract in one run?

Every Spotlight video published on each profile you list in startUrls, up to the maxVideosPerAccount cap (5 by default; set it to 0 for no cap). List multiple profiles in one run and each is capped independently.

What happens if a profile is private, doesn't exist, or has no Spotlight videos?

The Actor writes a single type: "status" row explaining exactly which case it hit — "no public Spotlight videos," "no public Snapchat profile was found," or "this profile could not be read during this run" — with success: false. That row is free of charge; you are only billed for type: "video" rows. A profile page that returns HTTP 404 is reported as not-found immediately, without retrying.

Can I scrape multiple Snapchat profiles at once?

Yes. startUrls accepts an array of usernames, handles or URLs, and every profile in the list is fetched concurrently in the same run.

Does Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper work with Claude, ChatGPT, and other AI agent tools?

It is callable as an HTTP endpoint through the Apify API by any agent framework or tool-calling setup — start a run, then read the dataset it produces. No dedicated MCP server is documented for this Actor.

How does Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper compare to Snapchat's own API?

Snapchat's Public Profile / Creator Discovery API requires OAuth access through Snap's Marketing API and, as of 2026-08-15, does not include per-video Spotlight engagement in its Creator Discovery response. Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper needs no account and returns viewCount, shareCount, commentCount, boostCount and recommendCount for every individual video. See the comparison table above.

Does Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper return data in a format LLMs can use directly?

Yes. Every row is typed, normalized JSON with consistent field names across runs — no HTML parsing or CSS selectors involved. Pass it straight to an LLM, index it into a vector store, or feed it to an agent tool.

What happens when Snapchat changes its layout or anti-bot system?

The Actor is maintained and its output schema is designed to stay stable across Snapchat UI changes, since it reads Snapchat's own embedded JSON data rather than the rendered page markup. No specific turnaround time for fixes is published.

Can I use Snapchat User Spotlight Scraper without managing proxies or browser infrastructure?

Yes. The Actor makes its own HTTP requests, retries failed attempts, and falls back to Apify's residential proxy pool automatically — you don't need to run a browser, rotate proxies yourself, or handle retries in your own code.

Which fields work best for AI training data and RAG indexing?

For RAG, index description, llmTitle and hashtags — the highest-information text fields. For training or feature data, viewCount, shareCount, commentCount, boostCount, recommendCount and durationMs return as consistently typed numbers (or null when Snapchat hasn't published a count) across every video row.

Related scrapers

Scraper	What it extracts
Snapchat Spotlight Scraper	Metadata and engagement for a single Spotlight video, from its own video URL
Snapchat Popular Accounts Scraper	Public Snapchat profiles discovered by keyword — subscriber counts, verification badge, category, snapcode
TikTok Scraper	Profile, video and engagement data from TikTok
Instagram Post Details Scraper	Likes, comments, captions and owner details from Instagram posts, reels and TV

💬 Your feedback

Found a bug or missing a field? Let us know through the Actor's Issues tab on Apify or the Console's built-in support chat — reports like these go straight into the next update.