Facebook Post & Group Comment Thread Extractor

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

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.

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.