TikTok Scraper for Profiles, Hashtags, Keywords, Videos & Transcripts

At a glance: input examples, output examples, use cases, limitations, troubleshooting, and pricing/cost guidance are included below for small profile, hashtag, keyword, and video checks before larger TikTok exports.

Scrape public TikTok profiles, hashtags, keyword search results, and individual video URLs into clean structured datasets. Use this TikTok profile scraper, TikTok hashtag scraper, TikTok keyword scraper, TikTok video scraper, and TikTok transcript scraper to collect video metadata, engagement counts, captions, transcripts when available, media links, hashtags, music data, and account context without building or maintaining your own TikTok data pipeline.

This Actor is built for teams that need TikTok data for trend tracking, influencer research, brand monitoring, social listening, content analysis, market research, AI enrichment, and analytics workflows. Results are written to an Apify dataset, so you can export TikTok data to JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, RSS, or connect it to your API, warehouse, dashboard, spreadsheet, CRM, or automation stack.

What This TikTok Scraper Does

• Scrapes public videos from TikTok usernames, @handles, and profile URLs
• Enriches specific TikTok video URLs with available public metadata
• Discovers videos from TikTok keyword and hashtag searches
• Extracts captions, hashtags, music title, duration, timestamps, and author context
• Collects engagement metrics including views, likes, comment counts, shares, and saves when available
• Extracts subtitle transcript text when TikTok exposes transcript or caption metadata
• Falls back to cleaned caption text when a transcript track is not available
• Streams results to the dataset during the run to reduce memory usage on larger jobs
• Adds quality flags so downstream systems can separate complete rows from partial rows

This Actor does not scrape TikTok comment text, comment authors, replies, or comment threads. It only returns comment_count as a video-level metric.

Best Use Cases

• Monitor TikTok accounts for new public videos
• Track hashtags, trends, products, brands, and creator niches
• Build influencer discovery and creator research datasets
• Enrich known TikTok video URLs with metrics, captions, media links, and metadata
• Feed TikTok video data into BI dashboards, spreadsheets, CRMs, or data warehouses
• Collect TikTok captions and available transcripts for content analysis or AI enrichment
• Schedule repeat runs for lightweight TikTok monitoring

Who Uses This Actor

• Social listening teams tracking TikTok conversations, hashtags, and campaigns
• Brand and reputation monitoring teams watching products, events, competitors, and creators
• Influencer marketing teams researching creator activity, engagement, and content themes
• Market researchers collecting public TikTok videos for trend and audience analysis
• AI and data teams extracting captions and available transcripts for classification, search, and summarization
• Journalists, researchers, and analysts monitoring public narratives and emerging topics

Popular Workflows

Goal	Input to use	Typical output
Track TikTok hashtags	keywords: ["#skincare", "#aitools"]	Videos, captions, transcripts, metrics, authors, hashtags
Monitor creators	users: ["tiktok", "khaby.lame"]	Public videos, account context, engagement counts, captions
Enrich known videos	urls: ["https://www.tiktok.com/@.../video/..."]	One row per video with metadata, caption, transcript, media links
Build influencer lists	keywords first, then scrape discovered users	Creators, videos, engagement signals, content themes
Low-cost discovery	keywords: ["ai tools"]	Faster keyword results with cost-aware enrichment defaults
Full research export	users, urls, or keywords	Rich video rows for analysis, AI workflows, and databases

What You Get

Data category	Example fields
Video identity	video_id, video_url, source_input_url, search_keyword
Text content	caption_text, transcript, has_transcript, has_caption_text_fallback
Engagement metrics	play_count, like_count, comment_count, share_count, save_count
Creator data	author_username, author_id, account
Discovery context	hashtags, music_title, create_time, create_time_epoch
Media data	media_links, direct playback URL when available, thumbnail links when available
Quality checks	metadata_quality, missing_fields, transcript_detail

Use the output for TikTok trend monitoring, TikTok influencer research, TikTok hashtag tracking, TikTok social listening, competitor research, campaign reporting, content classification, and AI analysis pipelines.

Simple Input

Provide any combination of users, urls, and keywords. The Actor assumes cost-aware defaults for enrichment depth, transcript discovery, continuation, output size, retries, delays, and fallbacks.

Scrape TikTok Users

{
  "users": ["tiktok", "khaby.lame"],
  "maxItems": 20
}

Enrich TikTok Video URLs

{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.tiktok.com/@tiktok/video/1234567890123456789"
  ],
  "maxItems": 10
}

Search TikTok Keywords Or Hashtags

{
  "keywords": ["ai tools", "fitness tips", "#skincare"],
  "maxItems": 20
}

Combine Inputs In One Run

{
  "users": ["tiktok"],
  "urls": ["https://www.tiktok.com/@tiktok/video/1234567890123456789"],
  "keywords": ["creator economy"],
  "maxItems": 10
}

Input Reference

Field	Type	Default	Description
users	array[string]	-	TikTok usernames, @handles, or profile URLs.
urls	array[string]	-	TikTok video URLs to enrich directly.
keywords	array[string]	-	TikTok keyword or hashtag searches.
maxItems	integer	20	Maximum videos per user or keyword, and maximum video URLs to process. The Actor caps this at 100 per user or keyword to avoid accidental runaway runs.

Provide at least one of users, urls, or keywords.

Advanced scraping controls are intentionally defaulted and hidden from the normal input form. Existing API clients can still pass older advanced fields, but most users only need the four fields above.

Dataset Output

Each dataset item is one TikTok video record. The output is designed for analysis, search indexing, enrichment, and automated workflows.

Common fields include:

• video_id
• video_url
• caption_text
• transcript
• has_transcript
• has_caption_text_fallback
• create_time
• create_time_epoch
• author_username
• author_id
• hashtags
• play_count
• like_count
• comment_count
• share_count
• save_count
• duration_s
• music_title
• media_links
• account
• search_keyword
• metadata_quality
• missing_fields

Example dataset item:

{
  "video_id": "1234567890123456789",
  "video_url": "https://www.tiktok.com/@creator/video/1234567890123456789",
  "caption_text": "Example TikTok caption #trend",
  "transcript": "Transcript text when TikTok exposes captions or subtitles.",
  "has_transcript": true,
  "has_caption_text_fallback": false,
  "author_username": "creator",
  "hashtags": ["trend"],
  "play_count": 125000,
  "like_count": 8400,
  "comment_count": 320,
  "share_count": 180,
  "save_count": 95,
  "duration_s": 24,
  "music_title": "Original sound",
  "metadata_quality": "full",
  "missing_fields": []
}

Transcript Handling

TikTok does not expose transcripts for every video. When transcript or subtitle metadata is available, the Actor returns it in transcript and marks has_transcript as true.

When no transcript track is available, the Actor uses cleaned caption text as a fallback and marks has_caption_text_fallback as true. Caption fallback is useful for search and classification, but it is not the same as a spoken-word transcript.

Quality Signals

TikTok availability can vary by region, account, video type, and current platform behavior. To make the output easier to trust, each row includes quality fields:

• metadata_quality: full, partial, or url_only
• missing_fields: important fields that were not available for that row
• transcript_detail: transcript status and source details when available

These fields help you filter results before sending TikTok data into analytics, AI workflows, or databases.

Run Summary

Every run stores an OUTPUT_SUMMARY record in the default key-value store. Useful fields include:

• status
• videos_scraped
• videos_with_transcript
• videos_with_caption_text_fallback
• metadata_quality_counts
• dataset_items_pushed
• dataset_push_batches
• streaming_enabled
• memory_peak_mb
• health

Performance, Cost, And Scaling

Rows are streamed to the dataset after each user, video URL, or keyword is processed. This keeps memory usage lower than holding the full run output until the end.

For best results:

• Start with a small maxItems value when testing a new query
• Use urls when you already know the exact TikTok videos to enrich
• Use users for account monitoring
• Use keywords for discovery, trends, hashtags, and topic research
• Schedule repeat runs for ongoing monitoring instead of running very large one-off jobs
• Put multiple users in one run when possible. The Actor processes and streams each user separately, so batching small accounts reduces fixed actor-start overhead without holding all results in memory.
• For lower-cost keyword discovery, start with small maxItems values, then scrape discovered authors with users
• For lower-cost user monitoring, use users and schedule repeat runs instead of one very large run
• Direct signed playback URLs and deeper enrichment are off by default to keep rows smaller and runs cheaper
• If pay-per-event pricing is enabled, keyword searches charge the custom keyword-search-started event once per keyword before discovery begins.

The Actor defaults to 1024 MB memory and a 2 hour timeout, with 512 MB suitable for many user and URL runs. Use 2048 MB only for heavier keyword searches or unusually large mixed runs. Keyword search depends on TikTok browser pages and can be slower or more variable than user and URL scraping.

Pricing

Apify platform usage depends on runtime, memory, storage writes, and network transfer. This Actor is designed for pay-per-event pricing when monetized, with one dataset item representing one useful TikTok video result. A small keyword-search start event can also be used if keyword discovery remains materially more expensive than profile or URL scraping.

Recommended simple pricing:

• Charge per successful dataset result.
• Keep platform usage included in the event price for simple billing.
• Use compact output and the default 1024 MB memory for the best cost-to-result balance.
• Offer lower per-result rates for higher monthly tiers only after checking current run costs.

Exact pricing can change with Apify platform prices and TikTok availability, so check the latest Store pricing before running large jobs.

Troubleshooting

Problem	What to try
No results for a user	Confirm the profile is public and the username is correct. Try a lower maxItems first.
Keyword search is slow	Lower maxItems or scrape known users instead.
Missing transcript text	TikTok does not expose transcripts for every video. Use caption_text or rows marked has_caption_text_fallback.
Missing account profile fields	User runs prioritize video rows and cost. Some profile fields can be sparse.
Large rows or exports	Keep maxItems focused and split very large exports into several runs.
Run hits timeout	Split the input into smaller runs, lower maxItems, or use user/profile scraping instead of broad keyword discovery.

API Usage

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")

run_input = {
    "users": ["tiktok"],
    "keywords": ["ai tools"],
    "maxItems": 5,
}

actor = client.actor("thescrapelab/tiktok-scraper-2-0")
run = actor.call(run_input=run_input)

dataset = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in dataset.iterate_items():
    print(item["video_url"], item.get("play_count"), item.get("transcript"))

HTTP

curl -sS -X POST \
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/thescrapelab~tiktok-scraper-2-0/run-sync-get-dataset-items?format=json&clean=true" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "keywords": ["ai tools"],
    "maxItems": 5
  }'

Notes And Limitations

• The Actor collects public TikTok data that is available during the run.
• Some videos, accounts, or search results can be unavailable because of region, age restrictions, login challenges, or TikTok platform changes.
• Transcript tracks are only returned when TikTok exposes caption or subtitle metadata.
• Direct media URLs can be signed and short-lived. Store stable video_url values for long-term references.
• This Actor is not affiliated with TikTok.

FAQ

Can I scrape TikTok profiles?

Yes. Provide usernames, @handles, or profile URLs in users. The Actor returns public video rows and available account context.

Can I scrape TikTok hashtags or keyword searches?

Yes. Provide terms in keywords, including hashtags such as #skincare. Keyword search uses browser discovery and can be slower than profile scraping.

Does this scrape TikTok comments?

No. It returns video-level comment_count, but it does not scrape comment text, comment authors, replies, or comment threads.

Can I get TikTok transcripts?

The Actor returns transcript text when TikTok exposes captions or subtitles. If no transcript is available, it can use cleaned caption text as a fallback.

What is the cheapest way to monitor TikTok accounts?

Use users, keep maxItems focused, and schedule repeat runs instead of one very large run. The Actor already defaults the cost controls for this workflow.