Facebook Post & Group Comment Thread Extractor

Get public comments and full reply threads from Facebook posts, photos, and public group posts. Returns comment text, author details, per-reaction-type counts, timestamps, attachment and mention data, plus the post's own comment totals — no login or cookies required.

What this actor does

• Scrapes comments from public Facebook posts, photos, reels, videos, and public group posts, with full pagination (thousands of comments per post when Facebook serves them)
• Reels and videos are followed through Facebook's canonical video permalink, with a strict check that the returned thread belongs to the requested video
• Follows reply threads and includes nested replies (direct replies plus deeper nesting when Facebook returns it)
• Three comment orderings: Facebook's ranked view, all comments, or newest first
• Captures author details (name, profile picture, profile URL, ID), reaction totals and a per-reaction-type breakdown
• Surfaces the parent post's context on every row: page name, post text, Facebook's total comment count, and the count visible to anonymous visitors
• Filters results to comments posted after a given date
• reactionBreakdown, attachmentType, hashtags, mentions, groupCommentInfo and similar optional fields are only added when Facebook's data carries them

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
startUrls	array	–	Required. Facebook post, photo, or public group post URLs. Comment permalinks (?comment_id=) are resolved to their post; legacy story.php, permalink.php and share links are normalized automatically
maxItems	integer	100	Maximum number of comment rows (including replies) per URL; 1–10,000
onlyCommentsNewerThan	string	–	Date filter: YYYY-MM-DD, full ISO 8601, or relative (1 day, 2 weeks, 3 months, 1 year). Comments are fetched newest-first so pagination stops early
commentsMode	string	ALL	Comment ordering: ALL (Facebook's unfiltered view), NEWEST (newest first), or MOST_RELEVANT (Facebook's ranked view)
includeNestedComments	boolean	true	Also collect reply rows under top-level comments (with parent/reply metadata). Turn off for faster, top-level-only runs
maxReplyDepth	integer	1	Reply nesting depth to collect: 1 = direct replies only, 2+ also includes deeper nested replies; 1–5

At least one URL in startUrls is required. Provide URLs as plain strings, { "url": "..." } objects, or several URLs separated by spaces/newlines in one string.

Supported URL formats

• Posts: https://www.facebook.com/PageName/posts/1234567890
• Posts (pfbid): https://www.facebook.com/PageName/posts/pfbid0...
• Legacy permalinks: story.php?story_fbid=...&id=..., permalink.php?... (normalized automatically)
• Photos: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1234567890, photo.php?fbid=..., PageName/photos/...
• Reels: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1234567890 (resolved through Facebook's video permalink)
• Videos: https://www.facebook.com/PageName/videos/1234567890, https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1234567890
• Public group posts: https://www.facebook.com/groups/groupname/permalink/1234567890/, groups/<id>/posts/<id>
• Comment permalinks: any post URL with ?comment_id=... — the parent post's thread is returned
• Share links: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/... (resolved through Facebook's redirect)
• Mobile URLs: m.facebook.com/... links are normalized to www

Some individual videos are restricted by Facebook and do not expose their comment thread to anonymous visitors; the actor reports that per video instead of guessing (see Limitations).

Example input

{
  "startUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.facebook.com/NASA/posts/1234567890" },
    { "url": "https://www.facebook.com/groups/pythondevelopers/posts/28449935087979081/" }
  ],
  "maxItems": 500,
  "commentsMode": "NEWEST",
  "includeNestedComments": true,
  "maxReplyDepth": 2,
  "onlyCommentsNewerThan": "3 months"
}

Output

Each dataset row is one comment or reply.

Field	Type	Description
facebookUrl	string	URL of the post the comment belongs to
commentUrl	string	Direct permalink to the comment
commentId	string	Numeric (legacy) comment ID
id	string	Internal relay ID
feedbackId	string	Feedback ID for the comment
date	string	Comment timestamp (ISO 8601, UTC)
text	string	Full comment text; [Attachment] for media-only comments
profilePicture	string	Author's profile picture URL
profileId	string	Author's numeric or pfbid profile ID
profileName	string	Author's display name
profileUrl	string	Author's profile URL (when Facebook exposes one)
likesCount	integer	Total reactions on the comment
reactionBreakdown	object	Per-reaction-type counts (like, love, care, haha, wow, sad, angry, other); only reaction types with a non-zero count are included
threadingDepth	integer	0 = top-level comment, 1+ = reply depth
commentsCount	integer	Number of replies (0 for replies themselves)
replyToCommentId	string	Parent comment's ID; for deep replies where Facebook withholds the direct parent, the thread's top-level comment ID
directParentCommentId	string	Facebook's direct parent pointer, when the response includes it
facebookId	string	Numeric story/post ID
inputUrl	string	The URL exactly as provided in the input
postTitle	string	Page name that published the post (kept for integrations)
pageName	string	Page name that published the post
postText	string	The post's own text (when available)
postCommentsCount	integer	Facebook's total comment count for the post
postVisibleCommentsCount	integer	Comments Facebook serves to anonymous visitors for the selected ordering
gender	string	Author's gender, when Facebook exposes it
spamDisplayMode	string	Facebook's own spam classification for the comment
isDisabled	boolean	Whether the comment was hidden/removed by moderation
isHiddenByViewer	boolean	Whether Facebook hides the comment from anonymous viewers
attachmentType	string	gif, sticker, image, video or attachment for media comments
attachmentUrl	string	Media URL for attachment comments — rehosted into Apify's key-value store so it does not expire
attachmentUrlOriginal	string	Original signed Facebook CDN URL of the attachment (expires after a few days)
attachmentUrlExpiresAt	string	Expiry time of the original signed attachment URL (ISO 8601)
hashtags	array	Hashtags used in the comment (without #)
mentions	array	Profiles mentioned in the comment (without @)
groupCommentInfo	object	Group posts only: groupId, isAuthorAnonymous, isAuthorNickname, isAuthorWithMemberProfile
groupId	string	Group ID for group-post comments

Example output

{
  "facebookUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/NASA/posts/pfbid025kwyoB...",
  "commentUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/NASA/posts/pfbid02BnSBZiZ...?comment_id=809453025548580",
  "commentId": "809453025548580",
  "id": "Y29tbWVudDoxNDg3MDE3OTEyNzkzNTgwXzgwOTQ1MzAyNTU0ODU4MA==",
  "feedbackId": "ZmVlZGJhY2s6MTQ4NzAxNzkxMjc5MzU4MF84MDk0NTMwMjU1NDg1ODA=",
  "date": "2026-03-26T23:31:17.000Z",
  "text": "Ah I remember the moon landing of 1969 on the eve of my 9th birthday!",
  "profileId": "pfbid0246xYyRVsKr1v7nDryWNgA4iynY2GKcEVzuVzx2knUikMNEzUNN5RtWsiX945JRt4l",
  "profileName": "Gwen Weidell",
  "profileUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/gwen.weidell.9",
  "likesCount": 69,
  "reactionBreakdown": { "like": 54, "haha": 9, "love": 4, "care": 1, "wow": 1 },
  "threadingDepth": 0,
  "commentsCount": 31,
  "facebookId": "1487017912793580",
  "inputUrl": "https://www.facebook.com/NASA/posts/pfbid025kwyoB...",
  "postTitle": "NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
  "pageName": "NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
  "postText": "Our Artemis II crew's journey around the Moon is on the horizon...",
  "postCommentsCount": 1083,
  "postVisibleCommentsCount": 813,
  "gender": "FEMALE",
  "spamDisplayMode": "none",
  "isDisabled": false,
  "isHiddenByViewer": false
}

Use cases

• Brand monitoring — track what people say about your brand across public posts
• Market research — analyze audience sentiment and topics at scale (pipe text into your own NLP/LLM step)
• Community insights — understand how audiences react to news, announcements, or campaigns
• Competitor analysis — monitor comment threads on competitor pages and public groups
• Lead generation — identify engaged users from comment activity
• Moderation triage — use Facebook's own spam/disabled/hidden signals plus reply structure to prioritize review

Tips for best results

1. Set maxItems per URL — it caps runtime and dataset size; the actor also stops on its own when Facebook runs out of comments
2. Use NEWEST for fresh-comment monitoring — with onlyCommentsNewerThan, pagination stops as soon as an older comment appears, saving requests
3. Keep includeNestedComments on for full threads; turn it off for fast top-level-only exports
4. Test with 1–2 URLs first, then scale up
5. Public content only — posts, photos and groups must be visible without login

Limitations

• Some videos are restricted per video: Facebook serves reel and video comment threads anonymously for most public videos, but a minority return no thread at all; those are reported as "not served to anonymous visitors" instead of returning unrelated content (every returned thread is verified against the requested video id).
• Anonymous visibility ceiling: Facebook serves only part of a post's comments to visitors without a session (for example, a post reporting 1,083 comments served 813 to anonymous viewers). The dataset reports what Facebook actually served; postCommentsCount vs postVisibleCommentsCount shows the difference, and the run status message notes it.
• Some photo pages are login-walled from cloud networks: photo URLs return the photo's own comment thread when it is a standalone photo. When the photo belongs to a post and Facebook blocks the anonymous photo viewer, the actor reports that a logged-in session would be required — paste the post URL that contains the photo to scrape its comments.
• Some authors have no public profile URL; those rows simply omit profileUrl.
• Attachment media (attachmentUrl) is rehosted so it does not expire; original signed URLs stay in attachmentUrlOriginal. Profile pictures are Facebook CDN links that expire after a few days (per-row avatars are not rehosted — see FAQ).
• Private, friends-only, and restricted content cannot be accessed.
• Occasionally Facebook changes its internal comment API; the actor discovers the current API identifiers at runtime and falls back to the last known ones, but comment ordering and reply visibility are always Facebook's decision.

FAQ

Q: Do I need a Facebook account or cookies? A: No. The actor reads public content without any login. Nothing in the input asks for credentials.

Q: Do I need to configure a proxy? A: No. The actor picks its route automatically, starting with a direct connection and escalating only when Facebook blocks it. There is no proxy input.

Q: Why are some comments missing? A: Facebook shows anonymous visitors a filtered view of large threads ("Most relevant" ordering may hide some comments) and withholds some replies. The actor reports what Facebook serves and never fabricates rows.

Q: Can I scrape comments from Reels or videos? A: Yes for most public reels and videos — they are followed through Facebook's own canonical video permalink and the returned thread is verified to match the requested video. A minority of videos are restricted by Facebook and return no thread to anonymous visitors; those are reported clearly instead of returning unrelated comments.

Q: I passed a photo URL and got 0 results. Why? A: Facebook serves some photo pages only to logged-in sessions (this depends on the network the actor runs from). When that happens the actor says so; paste the post URL that contains the photo instead — post URLs are always supported.

Q: How many comments can I scrape per post? A: Up to maxItems (10,000 by default max), and often Facebook's own visibility limit comes first. Exploding threads of thousands of comments are paginated 10 at a time until maxItems or Facebook's last page.

Q: What does threadingDepth mean? A: 0 is a top-level comment, 1 is a direct reply, 2+ is a deeper reply. Use maxReplyDepth to control how deep the actor collects.

Q: Why are profile picture URLs temporary? A: They are signed Facebook CDN links that expire after a few days. Rehosting every row's avatar would dominate run bandwidth, so the actor keeps the CDN link for profile pictures while attachment media (rarer) is rehosted permanently.

Q: Is this affiliated with Facebook or Meta? A: No. This is an independent, third-party actor that reads publicly accessible comments; it is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by Meta Platforms, Inc.