Facebook Group Feed & Engagement Extractor

Collect public Facebook group posts as structured data: full text, author, timestamp, media, reaction breakdown, comment and share counts, top comments, reshares, and optional full comment threads. Add group profiles, paste individual post links, or monitor a group on a schedule — without logging in or supplying cookies.

What this actor does

• Scrape public group feeds from a group URL, bare slug, or numeric group ID.
• Scrape individual group posts by pasting one or more post links.
• Fetch full comment threads with comment text, author, reactions, timestamps, and nested replies.
• Include group profiles: name where available, description, exact member count, creation date, privacy, rules, plus admins and tags when Facebook exposes them.
• Work with private groups honestly: their posts are not public, but their public profile data (description, member count, rules, privacy) is returned when group enrichment is enabled.
• Four feed orders: top posts, chronological, recent activity, and buy/sell listings.
• Filter while collecting: date range, keyword, and monitor mode for new posts only.
• Handle mixed languages and formats: English, Arabic, Vietnamese, and other group content is returned as written.
• Omit empty fields at every level — no nulls or blank placeholders.

Output per post

Field	Type	Description
postId	string	Facebook post ID
id	string	Facebook's internal post identifier
permalinkUrl	string	Direct link to the post
groupId	string	Group ID
groupUrl	string	Group URL
text	string	Full post text
postType	string	text, photo, video, link, or share
hashtags	array	Hashtag links found in the post
mentions	array	Mentioned profiles or pages, when present
externalLinks	array	Clean destination links found in the post
creationTime	integer	Unix timestamp
authorId	string	Post author ID
authorName	string	Post author name
authorUrl	string	Author profile URL; a profile.php fallback is flagged
authorUrlIsFallback	boolean	true when the author URL was built from the numeric ID
attachments	array	Photos/videos with direct media URLs, dimensions and image captions
reactionsTotal	integer	Total reactions
reactionBreakdown	array	Reactions by type (Like, Love, Care, Haha, Wow, Sad, Angry)
commentsCount	integer	Total comments including replies
commentsVisible	integer	Comments visible without a login, when a full thread is fetched
comments	array	Full comment thread, when enabled; each comment can include replies
sharesCount	integer	Share count
topComments	array	Inline top comments with author, reactions and reply count
sharedPost	object	Original post details when this post is a reshare
group	object	Group profile data when enrichment is enabled
inputUrl	string	The input URL that produced this record
scrapedAt	string	ISO 8601 scrape time

Comment fields

Comments carry id, text, authorId, authorName, authorUrl, createdAt, reactionsTotal, replyCount, and permalinkUrl when Facebook exposes them; missing fields are omitted. Comments fetched with replies enabled also carry a replies array using the same shape.

Group profile fields

id, name when available (post-link mode; some group-feed About payloads omit it), url, description, memberCount, memberCountFormatted, createdAt, admins, rules, privacy, discoverability, and tags.

Private and empty groups produce a status row with _status, _inputUrl, _groupUrl, _message, scrapedAt, and the public group object when enrichment is enabled.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
startUrls	array	—	Group URLs, bare slugs, numeric group IDs, or group post URLs (required)
sortBy	select	top	top, chronological, recent_activity, listings
maxItems	integer	50	Posts per group (1–500); post links always return one
includeTopComments	boolean	true	Include inline top comments
fetchAllComments	boolean	false	Fetch each post's full comment thread
maxCommentsPerPost	integer	20	Comment budget per post, including replies
includeCommentReplies	boolean	true	Attach replies to fetched comments
onlyPostsNewerThan	string	—	YYYY-MM-DD, ISO date, or relative value such as 7 days
onlyPostsOlderThan	string	—	Same formats; keeps older posts
searchKeyword	string	—	Case-insensitive keyword filter
enrichGroupInfo	boolean	false	Attach group profile data to posts; also returns a profile row for private/empty groups
monitoringMode	boolean	false	Return only posts not seen in a previous run

Examples

Scrape the newest 50 posts from a group:

{
    "startUrls": ["https://www.facebook.com/groups/pythondevelopers/"],
    "sortBy": "chronological",
    "maxItems": 50
}

Fetch full comment threads for two group posts:

{
    "startUrls": [
        "https://www.facebook.com/groups/pythondevelopers/posts/29000349089604342/",
        "https://www.facebook.com/groups/OPonemillion/posts/29298552993071994/"
    ],
    "fetchAllComments": true,
    "maxCommentsPerPost": 50,
    "includeCommentReplies": true
}

Monitor a group and include its profile:

{
    "startUrls": ["https://www.facebook.com/groups/pythondevelopers/"],
    "sortBy": "recent_activity",
    "maxItems": 100,
    "enrichGroupInfo": true,
    "monitoringMode": true
}

Supported URL formats

• https://www.facebook.com/groups/pythondevelopers/
• https://www.facebook.com/groups/527595400639758/
• pythondevelopers or 527595400639758
• https://www.facebook.com/groups/pythondevelopers/posts/29000349089604342/
• https://www.facebook.com/groups/pythondevelopers/permalink/29000349089604342/
• Mobile and web variants of the same links

FAQ

Do I need a Facebook account, cookies, or a proxy? No. The actor reads public data without logging in and chooses its connection automatically. You do not need to configure a proxy.

Can it scrape private groups? Private group posts are not available without membership. The actor returns the group's public profile when group enrichment is enabled, and a clear status message explaining that posts are private.

Why are some engagement fields missing, and why do others show 0? Facebook reports 0 for some posts with no reactions, comments, or shares; those exact zeros are kept. Fields Facebook does not return at all are omitted, along with empty strings, arrays, objects, and nulls. Counts are preserved exactly as Facebook reports them, never rounded up or fabricated.

Are date and keyword filters applied by Facebook? No. Facebook's group feed does not expose a server-side date or keyword filter, so the actor applies these filters while collecting posts. A very narrow filter can stop after the configured scan ceiling; the status message explains this.

Why is videoUrl missing on some video posts? Facebook exposes a direct MP4 for some group videos only. When it does not, the actor returns the thumbnail, duration, dimensions, and permalink instead of inventing a URL.

How many comments can I get? Facebook serves comments in pages of ten. Set maxCommentsPerPost to control the budget. Public visibility can be lower than the total shown on the post; commentsVisible reports what was available.

Why is a group feed shorter than the requested number of posts? Facebook returns three posts per request and may stop serving older posts. The actor stops when the feed ends or the requested number is reached.

Does this actor use cookies or a login for post links? No. Public group post links and their comment threads are read without authentication.

Can I export the results? Yes. Any run's dataset can be exported to JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or pushed to Google Sheets from the run page.