Facebook Video Scraper with Duration Analysis

Extract structured metadata and direct video URLs from public Facebook videos. This Apify Actor outputs clean JSON data, including multiple formatted duration fields, without requiring code changes.

Overview

The actor processes Facebook video links (watch or post URLs) and returns detailed metadata. It's designed for production use, handling tasks like content monitoring, data pipeline ingestion, and bulk exports for analytics.

Key Features

• Structured Metadata: Extracts titles, descriptions, view/like/comment counts, upload dates, thumbnails, and direct video URLs.
• Comprehensive Duration Analysis: Provides duration in seconds, a formatted string (e.g., "1m 37s"), a display string, a detailed breakdown object, and decimal hours/minutes.
• Flexible Input: Accepts one or multiple video URLs.
• Configurable: Optional limits, proxy support, and cookie-based authentication for restricted content.
• Multiple Run Methods: Use via Apify Console, CLI, or API.

How to Use

Apify Console (Quickest)

1. Open the Actor in Apify Console.
2. Paste your input JSON (see Input Schema below) into the Input tab.
3. Click Run. Results are available in the Dataset upon completion.

CLI & API

Using the Apify CLI:

apify run --input input.example.json

Using the Apify Client for Python:

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient('<APIFY_TOKEN>')
run_input = {"facebookVideoUrls": ["https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1234567890"]}
run = client.actor('your-username/facebook-video-scraper').call(run_input=run_input)

Input Schema

Provide input as a JSON object. The only required field is facebookVideoUrls.

Minimal Input Example:

{
  "facebookVideoUrls": ["https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1234567890"]
}

Output

The actor saves results to the default Dataset. Each item is a JSON object containing:

• Core Metadata: id, title, description, upload_date, view_count, like_count, comment_count.
• Media URLs: videoUrl (direct link), thumbnail.
• Timestamps: timestamp (Unix), timestamp_iso (ISO 8601).
• Duration Fields: Multiple formats including duration_seconds, duration (e.g., "1m 37s"), duration_display, a detailed duration_full object, and decimal values.
• Raw Data: The raw_json field contains the full extracted data.

Example Output Snippet:

{
  "id": "1234567890",
  "title": "Funny Cat Compilation",
  "duration_seconds": 97.0,
  "duration": "1m 37s",
  "duration_display": "1 Minute 37 Seconds (0.0270 Hours)",
  "videoUrl": "https://video.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t42.9040-2/...",
  "view_count": "154.3K"
}

Configuration & Secrets

• APIFY_TOKEN: Required for API/CLI access. Manage in Apify Console.
• Proxy Credentials: Store custom proxy details (PROXY_USER:PASS@HOST:PORT) as a Secret in the Console. Never paste credentials directly into the input.
• FB_COOKIES: For private videos, upload a cookies file to the key-value store and reference its name via this environment variable or the cookiesFile input.