Snapchat Public Explore Search Scraper

Search a public Snapchat Explore page and return the lens, Spotlight, user, place, and topic cards it renders for a query. The Actor uses anonymous Chromium, waits for lazy-loaded sections, scrolls through bounded passes, and normalizes the visible card links and text with local type filtering and deduplication.

Get started

1. Open the Actor Store page and select Try for free or open the Input tab.
2. Enter a public Explore search phrase in query, for example coffee.
3. Keep contentTypes at its default to accept every supported card type, or remove the types you do not need. Keep maxItems and maxPages small for the first run.
4. Start the Actor, open the dataset, and export the saved cards as JSON, CSV, or Excel. Open Run summary (OUTPUT_SUMMARY) to check the outcome and counts.

Input

query is required. All other fields are optional and the defaults below are ready to use. Unsupported field names and out-of-range values are rejected before the browser starts.

Field	Type	Required?	Default	Meaning
query	string	Required	coffee	Non-blank public Snapchat Explore search phrase, 1–120 characters.
contentTypes	string array	Optional	["lens","spotlight","user","place","topic"]	Card types to retain: lens, spotlight, user, place, or topic. An empty array accepts all supported types; up to 5 values.
maxItems	integer	Optional	25	Maximum unique result records saved, 1–100.
maxPages	integer	Optional	2	Maximum page extraction and scroll passes, 1–10. Each pass re-reads the same Explore page after scrolling.
pageScrollDelayMs	integer	Optional	700	Wait after navigation and after each scroll for lazy-loaded cards, 200–6,000 ms.
requestDelayMs	integer	Optional	500	Wait between scroll passes, 0–5,000 ms.
locale	string	Optional	en-US	Browser locale and Accept-Language prefix, up to 35 characters.
headless	boolean	Optional	true	Run Chromium without a visible browser window.
maxResponseBytes	integer	Optional	5000000	Maximum rendered page HTML retained for one browser attempt, 100,000–10,000,000 bytes.
timeoutSecs	integer	Optional	45	Maximum navigation wait per browser attempt, 5–60 seconds.
maxRequestRetries	integer	Optional	1	Bounded browser retries for the public search page, 0–2.
proxyConfiguration	object	Optional	{"useApifyProxy":false}	Optional Apify Proxy settings used as a transparent browser transport. Direct public access is the default.

Full default input:

{
  "query": "coffee",
  "contentTypes": [
    "lens",
    "spotlight",
    "user",
    "place",
    "topic"
  ],
  "maxItems": 25,
  "maxPages": 2,
  "pageScrollDelayMs": 700,
  "requestDelayMs": 500,
  "locale": "en-US",
  "headless": true,
  "maxResponseBytes": 5000000,
  "timeoutSecs": 45,
  "maxRequestRetries": 1,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}

The Actor reads the public Explore page at the Snapchat web host. contentTypes is a local post-extraction filter, not a Snapchat search parameter, and maxPages controls scroll passes over that page rather than separate URLs. No login, private API, CAPTCHA solving, or access-control bypass is used.

Output

The dataset contains one row per saved Explore card. recordType identifies the card type, and optional fields are omitted when the rendered card does not expose them. Values are not inferred, and no diagnostic or placeholder rows are written.

Field	Type	Availability	Meaning
recordId	string	Always	Stable identifier derived from the result type and target URL or identifier.
recordType	string enum	Always	Card type: lens, spotlight, user, place, or topic.
legacyRecordType	string	When published	Backward-compatible copy of the card type.
position	integer	Always	One-based position after deduplication and the maxItems limit.
sourceWebsite	string	Always	Official Snapchat source website.
sourceUrl	string	Always	Public Explore page that supplied the card.
query	string	Always	Search phrase used for the Explore page.
title	string	Always	Card title as displayed on the public page.
url	string	Always	Public target URL exposed by the card.
description	string	When published	Card description or subtitle text.
imageUrl	string	When published	Public preview-image URL reference.
username	string	When published	Public username associated with a user, lens, or Spotlight card.
topic	string	When published	Topic label associated with the card.
placeName	string	When published	Place name shown on a place card.
externalId	string	When published	Source identifier parsed from the card URL, such as a lens UUID.
tags	string array	When published	Public tags or labels shown with the card.
scrapedAt	string	Always	Time the card was saved, in ISO UTC.

The example below is a real saved row from the 2026-10-25 run, limited to fields declared in the dataset schema. That run requested two results with all card types enabled; both saved rows were lenses.

{
  "recordId": "snapchat_search_9be875a9422764f16d8d487c",
  "recordType": "lens",
  "legacyRecordType": "lens",
  "position": 1,
  "sourceWebsite": "https://www.snapchat.com/",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.snapchat.com/explore/coffee",
  "query": "coffee",
  "title": "CoffeeNaif.F |📸🍂",
  "url": "https://www.snapchat.com/unlock/?type=SNAPCODE&uuid=3601b99c9e2d47ac892869814cf86ec5",
  "description": "CoffeeNaif.F |📸🍂",
  "imageUrl": "https://community-lens.storage.googleapis.com/preview-media/thumbnail/dfef1f8c-eccc-4213-b5bb-16422a0f5dda.jpg",
  "externalId": "3601b99c9e2d47ac892869814cf86ec5",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-25T21:42:05.115Z"
}

Run summary

Run summary is stored separately from the dataset in the run's key-value store under OUTPUT_SUMMARY; OUTPUT is a compatibility alias with the same core fields. SOURCE_METADATA records the public-source policy and transport details.

Field	Meaning
actor	Actor slug that produced the run artifact.
recordType	Artifact discriminator; runSummary.
status	Actor process status: SUCCEEDED or FAILED. A clean empty result is SUCCEEDED.
runStatus	Canonical run status; matches status.
dataStatus	Completeness of the saved cards: COMPLETE, PARTIAL, NO_RESULTS, or FAILED.
query	Search phrase used for the Explore page.
itemCount	Number of cards saved to the dataset.
publicRecords	Number of public card records saved.
diagnosticCount	Number of operational issues recorded for the run.
attemptCount	Browser extraction attempts, including retries.
pageCount	Explore page scroll passes completed.
candidateCount	Card candidates parsed before type filtering and deduplication.
deduplicated	Unique result identities after deduplication, before the final cap.
uniqueIdentities	Unique result identities saved.
duplicateCount	Duplicate cards removed.
incompleteRecordCount	Cards skipped because required public fields were missing.
requestErrorCount	Browser requests that produced an error.
failedRequestCount	Browser requests that remained failed after retries.
publicJsonResponseCount	Public JSON responses observed by the browser.
renderedMediaElementCount	Largest observed count of rendered media elements.
visitedUrls	Public Snapchat URLs visited.
limits	Input bounds and proxy settings used for the run.
directHttp	Whether direct HTTP transport was used; always false.
sourceTransport	Browser transport used, chromium-rendered-public-page.
proxyUsed	Whether Apify Proxy was used.
customUserAgentUsed	Whether a custom user agent was used; always false.
stealthPatchesUsed	Whether stealth patches were used; always false.
source	Human-readable public source description.
provenance	Stable extraction-implementation label.
accessPolicy	Public-data and access-policy disclosure.
datasetWriteFailureCount	Dataset writes that failed after collection.
optionalOutputFailureCount	Optional artifact writes that failed after the dataset was saved.
startedAt	Run start time in ISO UTC.
completedAt	Run completion time in ISO UTC.
scrapedAt	Time the summary was written, in ISO UTC.

Status	Data status	Meaning
SUCCEEDED	COMPLETE	Cards were saved without an extraction problem.
SUCCEEDED	PARTIAL	Some cards were saved, but a request or extraction problem occurred. Saved rows remain available.
SUCCEEDED	NO_RESULTS	The page completed cleanly and returned no eligible cards.
FAILED	FAILED	A fatal error occurred before any usable card was saved.

Example OUTPUT_SUMMARY from the saved run. One browser request failed, so the two saved lens rows are reported as PARTIAL rather than COMPLETE.

{
  "actor": "snapchat-search-scraper",
  "recordType": "runSummary",
  "status": "SUCCEEDED",
  "runStatus": "SUCCEEDED",
  "dataStatus": "PARTIAL",
  "query": "coffee",
  "itemCount": 2,
  "publicRecords": 2,
  "diagnosticCount": 0,
  "attemptCount": 2,
  "pageCount": 1,
  "candidateCount": 175,
  "deduplicated": 2,
  "uniqueIdentities": 2,
  "duplicateCount": 0,
  "incompleteRecordCount": 0,
  "requestErrorCount": 1,
  "failedRequestCount": 1,
  "publicJsonResponseCount": 0,
  "renderedMediaElementCount": 164,
  "visitedUrls": [
    "https://www.snapchat.com/explore/coffee"
  ],
  "limits": {
    "maxItems": 2,
    "maxPages": 1,
    "pageScrollDelayMs": 200,
    "requestDelayMs": 0,
    "locale": "en-US",
    "headless": true,
    "maxResponseBytes": 5000000,
    "timeoutSecs": 45,
    "includeDiagnostics": false,
    "maxRequestRetries": 1,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
      "useApifyProxy": true,
      "apifyProxyGroups": [
        "RESIDENTIAL"
      ],
      "apifyProxyCountry": "US"
    }
  },
  "directHttp": false,
  "sourceTransport": "chromium-rendered-public-page",
  "proxyUsed": true,
  "customUserAgentUsed": false,
  "stealthPatchesUsed": false,
  "source": "Snapchat public Explore search pages",
  "provenance": "snapchat_explore_search_v2",
  "accessPolicy": "Visible public Snapchat Explore results only; no login, private API, CAPTCHA solving, or access-control bypass. Apify Proxy is supported only as a transparent browser transport.",
  "startedAt": "2026-10-25T21:41:57.032Z",
  "completedAt": "2026-10-25T21:42:05.117Z",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-25T21:42:05.117Z"
}

Coverage and limitations

The Actor reads the public web Explore page for one query. It does not call the Snapchat app search API, sign in, access viewer-private data, solve CAPTCHAs, or bypass access controls. Explore is a rendered, lazy-loaded page, so the saved cards depend on what Chromium can see after navigation and up to 10 scroll passes. maxPages does not paginate through separate result URLs; it repeats extraction on the same page after scrolling.

contentTypes filters parsed cards locally. An empty array accepts all supported types, and requesting a type that the page does not render simply produces fewer or no rows. Cards that lack a title, target URL, or other required public fields are skipped rather than guessed. maxItems caps the saved rows after deduplication.

In the saved run, 175 candidates produced two lens rows with maxItems set to 2, and one browser request failed, which is why the run reports dataStatus: "PARTIAL". Public Explore layouts, card ordering, and available result types can change between runs; blocked, empty, or partial responses are reported in OUTPUT_SUMMARY and logs rather than written as fabricated rows. Apify Proxy is supported only as a transparent browser transport.

Usage and support

Run cost depends on Apify browser compute, scroll passes, retries, and optional proxy usage. Start with maxItems around 10 and maxPages: 1, inspect the dataset and OUTPUT_SUMMARY, then increase the scroll passes if you need more cards. A larger pageScrollDelayMs gives lazy-loaded sections more time but increases run duration. See the Actor's Pricing tab for current account rates.

Use the Actor Issues page to report a problem. Include the run ID, the input used, and the OUTPUT_SUMMARY; do not include tokens, cookies, or private data. This Actor is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Snapchat. Use it only for public data and in accordance with Snapchat's terms, robots guidance, and applicable law. Public results can contain personal information; do not use the output for unauthorized profiling or contact.