Facebook Posts Scraper

Facebook Posts Scraper

The Facebook Posts Scraper is a production-ready Apify actor that collects public Facebook Page and profile posts at scale — fast, reliable, and export-ready. It solves the tedious, error-prone work of manually tracking post content and engagement by automating Facebook posts data extraction with cursor-based pagination and robust anti-blocking. Built for marketers, developers, data analysts, and researchers, this Facebook post extractor helps you scrape Facebook posts, capture engagement, and export clean datasets for reporting and analysis.

What data / output can you get?

Below are examples of the structured fields you’ll receive for each post. You can export the dataset to JSON, CSV, or Excel.

Data field	Description	Example value
facebookUrl	Input page/profile URL being scraped	https://www.facebook.com/nytimes/
postId	Unique post identifier	123456789012345
pageName	Page or profile handle derived from the URL	nytimes
url	Direct link to the post	https://www.facebook.com/100011122233344/posts/123456789012345
time	Post time in ISO format	2024-12-01T09:32:10.000Z
timestamp	Unix timestamp (seconds)	1733045530
user.id	Owning profile/page ID	100011122233344
user.name	Owning profile/page name	The New York Times
user.profileUrl	Canonical profile URL	https://www.facebook.com/100011122233344
user.profilePic	Profile picture URL (if available)	https://.../profile_pic.jpg
text	Post caption text (may be blank if disabled)	Breaking: …
likes	Total reactions count	1542
comments	Total comments count	287
shares	Total shares count	119
topReactionsCount	Total number of top reactions returned	6
reactionLikeCount	“Like” reaction count	980
reactionLoveCount	“Love” reaction count	410
reactionHahaCount	“Haha” reaction count	42
reactionCareCount	“Care” reaction count	21
reactionSadCount	“Sad” reaction count	8
reactionWowCount	“Wow” reaction count	64
reactionAngryCount	“Angry” reaction count	17
media[]	Array of media attachments with thumbnails, dimensions, URLs, optional OCR captions	[{"thumbnail":"https://...%22,%22photo_image%22:%7B%22uri%22:%22https://...%22,%22height%22:1080,%22width%22:1080}, "ocrText":"..."}]
collaborators[]	Collaborator objects when present	[{"id":"...","name":"..."}]
feedbackId	Facebook feedback identifier	ZmVlZGJhY2s6MTIzNDU2Nzg5MDEyMzQ1
topLevelUrl	Canonical permalink constructed from IDs	https://www.facebook.com/100011122233344/posts/123456789012345
facebookId	Owning profile/page ID (duplicate of user.id)	100011122233344
pageAdLibrary.id	Page ID reference for Ad Library use	100011122233344
inputUrl	Original input URL	https://www.facebook.com/nytimes/

Note: Media entries may include ocrText when accessibility captions are available. All results are saved to an Apify dataset you can download as JSON, CSV, or Excel.

Key features

• 🚀 GraphQL-powered timeline scraping
  Discovers the page/profile ID and the correct GraphQL document ID from the live site, then paginates the timeline with cursors for high-throughput Facebook posts crawling.

• ❤️ Full engagement breakdown
  Extracts likes, comments, shares, and reaction breakdowns (Like, Love, Haha, Care, Sad, Wow, Angry) — ideal for social listening and competitor analytics.

• 🖼️ Rich media capture
  Collects attachment thumbnails, dimensions, URLs, and optional accessibility captions (OCR-like alt text) for downstream creatives analysis.

• 🛡️ Smart proxy strategy
  Prefers Apify Residential proxy for success and falls back to Apify Datacenter or your custom proxies when needed — with built-in retries and backoff.

• 🧠 Date filtering at the source
  Apply absolute or relative date filters to limit the Facebook posts crawler to your desired time window and speed up runs.

• 🔌 Developer-friendly & export-ready
  Works as a Facebook posts API scraper on Apify infrastructure: integrate via Apify API, and export to CSV/JSON/Excel for pipelines and dashboards.

• 🧱 Production-grade reliability
  No browser required. Uses robust HTTP/TLS fingerprints, defensive parsing, and cursor-based pagination to scrape Facebook posts at scale.

How to use Facebook Posts Scraper - step by step

1. Create or log in to your Apify account.
2. Open the Facebook Posts Scraper actor on Apify.
3. Add targets in startUrls:
   • Full URL: https://www.facebook.com/nytimes/
   • Username only: nytimes
     You can mix formats; targets run sequentially to reduce rate limits.
4. Set maxPosts to cap how many posts to collect per target (1–10,000).
5. (Optional) Apply date filters:
   • Posts Newer Than (Start Date): oldestPostDateUnified (absolute like 2024-01-01 or relative like 7 days, 2 months).
   • Posts Older Than (End Date): newestPostDate (absolute or relative such as 0 days for “today”).
6. (Optional) Configure proxyConfiguration or leave it — the scraper prefers Residential and falls back to Datacenter automatically when possible.
7. Click Start. The actor will resolve IDs, discover GraphQL doc IDs, and paginate the feed. You’ll see “Dataset row …” logs as items are saved.
8. Download results from the run’s Dataset tab (JSON, CSV, or Excel) or fetch via the Apify API.

Pro tip: Chain this Facebook posts export tool into n8n/Make.com or your data warehouse. Use the Apify Dataset API to automate “Extract Facebook posts to CSV” in scheduled workflows.

Use cases

Use case	Description
Marketing & social listening	Monitor public Facebook posts at scale to benchmark competitors and track content performance trends.
Competitor content analysis	Analyze posting cadence, formats, and reactions to prioritize your own Facebook content strategy.
Brand monitoring & PR	Track engagement (likes, comments, shares, reaction mix) on public Facebook posts for brand and campaign insights.
Content analytics for teams	Export structured post data to CSV/JSON and build dashboards for reach and resonance KPIs.
Academic & policy research	Collect public Facebook posts data for longitudinal studies and discourse analysis.
Developer pipelines (API)	Automate Facebook posts data extraction and push cleaned JSON to storage, BI, or LLM pipelines.

Why choose Facebook Posts Scraper?

The Facebook Posts Scraper is built for precision, scale, and operational reliability.

• ✅ Accurate post capture with reaction breakdowns and media metadata
• 🌍 Works on public Pages and profiles without login or cookies
• 📈 Scales to thousands of posts per run with cursor-based pagination
• 🔌 Developer-first: export via Apify API to JSON/CSV/Excel for integrations
• 🛡️ Anti-block ready: Residential/Datacenter proxy support and retry/backoff
• 💸 Cost-effective automation compared to fragile browser extensions
• 🔄 Easy to operationalize for teams (dashboards, alerts, enrichment)

Unlike unstable scraping extensions, this Facebook posts scraping software runs on production infrastructure, using stable HTTP requests and resilient parsing to keep your pipelines flowing.

Is it legal / ethical to use Facebook Posts Scraper?

Yes — when used responsibly. This public Facebook posts scraper is designed to extract only publicly available content. You should:

• Only target public Pages/profiles and respect platform terms.
• Avoid collecting private or non-public content.
• Use data in compliance with applicable laws (e.g., GDPR, CCPA).
• Consult your legal team for edge cases and jurisdiction-specific requirements.

The tool does not access logged-in content or private endpoints.

Input parameters & output format

JSON input example

{
  "startUrls": [
    "nytimes",
    "https://www.facebook.com/Cristiano/"
  ],
  "maxPosts": 25,
  "includeVideoTranscript": false,
  "oldestPostDateUnified": "2024-01-01",
  "newestPostDate": "0 days",
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}

Parameters

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
startUrls	array	Yes	—	Facebook Page targets as full URLs (e.g., https://www.facebook.com/nytimes/) or usernames (e.g., nytimes). Mixed formats allowed; targets run sequentially.
maxPosts	integer	No	10	Maximum posts to collect per target. Min 1, Max 10,000. The actor stops per page after reaching this count.
includeVideoTranscript	boolean	No	false	“Include Video Transcripts” option. When disabled in the current implementation, the actor omits post text for faster runs.
oldestPostDateUnified	string	No	—	Posts Newer Than (Start Date). Absolute (YYYY-MM-DD) or relative (e.g., 7 days, 2 months, 1 year).
newestPostDate	string	No	—	Posts Older Than (End Date). Absolute (e.g., 2024-12-31) or relative (e.g., 0 for “today” or N days/months/years ago).
proxyConfiguration	object	No	{"useApifyProxy": false}	Proxy settings. The actor prefers Apify Residential proxy; falls back to Apify Datacenter; supports custom proxy URLs.

JSON output example

{
  "facebookUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/nytimes/",
  "postId": "123456789012345",
  "pageName": "nytimes",
  "url": "https://www.facebook.com/100011122233344/posts/123456789012345",
  "time": "2024-12-01T09:32:10.000Z",
  "timestamp": 1733045530,
  "user": {
    "id": "100011122233344",
    "name": "The New York Times",
    "profileUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/100011122233344",
    "profilePic": "https://.../profile_pic.jpg"
  },
  "collaborators": [],
  "text": "Breaking: …",
  "likes": 1542,
  "comments": 287,
  "shares": 119,
  "topReactionsCount": 6,
  "reactionLikeCount": 980,
  "reactionLoveCount": 410,
  "reactionHahaCount": 42,
  "reactionCareCount": 21,
  "reactionSadCount": 8,
  "reactionWowCount": 64,
  "reactionAngryCount": 17,
  "media": [
    {
      "thumbnail": "https://.../thumb.jpg",
      "__typename": "Photo",
      "__isMedia": "Photo",
      "accent_color": "FFFFFFFF",
      "photo_product_tags": [],
      "photo_image": {
        "uri": "https://.../image.jpg",
        "height": 1080,
        "width": 1080
      },
      "url": "https://.../photo",
      "id": "9876543210",
      "feedback": {
        "can_viewer_comment": false,
        "id": "ZmVlZGJhY2s6OTg3NjU0MzIxMA=="
      },
      "ocrText": "A crowd gathers at..."
    }
  ],
  "feedbackId": "ZmVlZGJhY2s6MTIzNDU2Nzg5MDEyMzQ1",
  "topLevelUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/100011122233344/posts/123456789012345",
  "facebookId": "100011122233344",
  "pageAdLibrary": {
    "id": "100011122233344"
  },
  "inputUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/nytimes/"
}

Note: The text field may be intentionally empty if includeVideoTranscript is set to false (for faster scraping).

FAQ

Do I need to log in to scrape Facebook posts?

No. This tool works on publicly available Facebook Pages and profiles without requiring login or cookies. It discovers the necessary IDs from the public site and uses HTTP requests to collect data.

How many posts can I scrape per target?

You can control this with maxPosts, from 1 up to 10,000 per target. The actor stops for each target once it reaches your specified limit.

Can I export to CSV?

Yes. All results are stored in an Apify dataset. From there you can download as JSON, CSV, or Excel, or fetch programmatically via the Apify API.

Does it capture comments or reactions?

It captures total comments count, total shares, total reactions, and a full reactions breakdown (Like, Love, Haha, Care, Sad, Wow, Angry). It does not extract individual comments in this actor.

Why is the text field empty in my results?

If includeVideoTranscript is false, the actor clears the text field for faster runs. Set includeVideoTranscript to true if you want the post caption text included in the output.

Can I use proxies with this scraper?

Yes. By default it prefers Apify Residential proxy for the best success rates; if unavailable, it falls back to Apify Datacenter. You can also provide custom proxy URLs via proxyConfiguration.

Does this work for private content?

No. The scraper targets public content only. It’s not designed to access private or authenticated data.

Is there an API I can integrate with?

Yes. You can access the run’s dataset via the Apify API, making it easy to automate Facebook posts data extraction and feed your pipelines or dashboards.

Closing thoughts

The Facebook Posts Scraper is built to help teams extract public Facebook post data reliably and at scale. With engagement breakdowns, media metadata, date filtering, and export-ready datasets, it’s a powerful Facebook posts scraper tool for marketers, analysts, and developers. Connect it to your stack via the Apify API, automate “Download Facebook posts” to CSV or JSON, and start turning public Facebook timelines into actionable insights today.