Public X/Twitter Post Screenshot Generator

What does Public X/Twitter Post Screenshot Generator do?

This Actor fetches public post markup from X's oEmbed endpoint, renders a deterministic light or dark post card in a headless browser, and stores a PNG or JPEG image in the default key-value store. Structured post metadata is written to the dataset. It does not log in, accept cookies, scrape timelines, solve CAPTCHAs, or render private content.

Why use it?

Use it for permitted public-post snapshots, documentation, moderation evidence, and small scheduled visual checks through Apify's API, scheduling, monitoring, and integrations. URLs are validated to official public X/Twitter /status/{id} pages and duplicate post IDs are removed.

Unavailable, deleted, blocked, or incomplete posts become minimal four-field diagnostics. A stored image is never claimed unless a non-empty PNG/JPEG artifact was written to the KVS.

How to run

1. Open the Actor's Input tab.
2. Add one to 100 public post URLs, such as https://x.com/jack/status/20.
3. Select light or dark, and choose PNG or JPEG. JPEG quality is bounded from 1 to 100.
4. Run the Actor and inspect dataset metadata, KVS image keys, and OUTPUT.

Input

Field	Required	Description
urls	Yes	One to 100 public x.com or twitter.com status URLs.
theme	No	light or dark; default light.
format	No	png or jpeg; default png.
quality	No	JPEG quality 1–100; default 90, ignored for PNG.
fixtureFile	No	Repository-relative JSON fixture for deterministic local QA.

Example input:

{
  "urls": [{ "url": "https://x.com/jack/status/20" }],
  "theme": "dark",
  "format": "png",
  "quality": 90
}

Output and artifacts

Normal dataset rows contain the public post URL, ID, author, username, text, rendering settings, stored screenshot key/URL, byte length, and capture time. Browser/HTTP transport is not repeated in dataset rows. Binary screenshots use keys beginning with tweet_ and have image/png or image/jpeg content types.

Example normal output:

{
  "recordType": "twitter-screenshot",
  "recordId": "twitter-screenshot:20",
  "source": "publish.twitter.com",
  "provenance": "public_x_oembed",
  "sourceUrl": "https://x.com/jack/status/20",
  "tweetId": "20",
  "tweetUrl": "https://x.com/jack/status/20",
  "authorName": "jack",
  "username": "jack",
  "tweetText": "just setting up my twttr",
  "theme": "dark",
  "format": "png",
  "screenshotKey": "tweet_20_dark_example.png",
  "screenshotBytes": 25402,
  "capturedAt": "2026-09-08T00:00:00.000Z"
}

Example diagnostic:

{
  "url": "https://x.com/jack/status/20",
  "error": "X oEmbed was unavailable; no screenshot was written.",
  "errorCode": "BLOCKED",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-08T00:00:00.000Z"
}

OUTPUT contains status, requested/stored counts, screenshot count, failed-post count, diagnostic count, duration, and generator provenance. You can download the dataset in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel. Retrieve the binary image from the default key-value store using screenshotKey.

Tips, FAQ, and responsible use

Start with one public URL. Use fixtureFile for renderer changes without live traffic. BLOCKED, HTTP_ERROR, REQUEST_FAILED, and NO_POSTS_FOUND describe the public response observed by this unauthenticated run. The rendered card is an oEmbed-based representation, not a capture of a private or logged-in X page.

This Actor is not affiliated with X Corp. Obtain permission for use and retention, follow X/Twitter terms, copyright requirements, privacy law, rate limits, and applicable access guidance. Do not use it to evade technical restrictions.