Snapchat Topic Spotlight Feed & Content Tag Extractor

Reads a Snapchat topic's public Spotlight feed and returns each video with creator, engagement counts, AI-generated title/keywords, and related content-classification tags.

Open on Apify GitHub source

Input schema

Input fields, types, required flags, descriptions, defaults, and prefills come from the published definition. Prefill examples are distinct from defaults.

Field	Type	Required	Description
`mode`	string	optional	Choose what to collect: videos for topics/tags, topics for search keywords, or the current Spotlight feed.
`topics`	array	optional	Topic names, hashtags, or Snapchat URLs. Examples: food, #travel, https://www.snapchat.com/tag/food, https://www.snapchat.com/topic/cappuccino-foam-technique.
`maxResultsPerTopic`	integer	optional	Maximum videos to keep for each topic after combining its topic/tag page with Explore results. Snapchat serves 19-32 videos per page and the combined pool is usually 40-54.

Show all input fields

Field	Type	Required	Description
`mode`	string	optional	Choose what to collect: videos for topics/tags, topics for search keywords, or the current Spotlight feed.
`topics`	array	optional	Topic names, hashtags, or Snapchat URLs. Examples: food, #travel, https://www.snapchat.com/tag/food, https://www.snapchat.com/topic/cappuccino-foam-technique.
`maxResultsPerTopic`	integer	optional	Maximum videos to keep for each topic after combining its topic/tag page with Explore results. Snapchat serves 19-32 videos per page and the combined pool is usually 40-54.
`includeRelatedTags`	boolean	optional	Include Snapchat's scene-to-interest (S2I) tags for each video when the page provides them. Coverage is partial, so the field is omitted when unavailable.
`searchQueries`	array	optional	Keywords or phrases used to discover topics, such as coffee, new york, or taylor swift.
`maxTopicsPerQuery`	integer	optional	Maximum topic rows to keep for each search query, including related topics when expansion is enabled.
`includeRelatedTopics`	boolean	optional	Add one hop of related topics found on each discovered topic's topic, tag, or Explore page. This follows public page links; it does not recurse further.
`enrichVideos`	boolean	optional	Visit each video's Spotlight page to fill missing AI title, comment/recommend counts, language, S2I tags and sound, and each creator's profile once for subscriberCount. Cached and bounded; failures keep the original row.
`maxItems`	integer	optional	Maximum rows to save across the whole run.

Download the published input schema

View complete JSON

{
  "description": "Collect public Snapchat Spotlight videos from topic pages, hashtag feeds and the anonymous Spotlight feed, with creator, engagement, AI keywords, hashtags and S2I content tags. Discover related topics from keyword search.",
  "properties": {
    "enrichVideos": {
      "default": false,
      "description": "Visit each video's Spotlight page to fill missing AI title, comment/recommend counts, language, S2I tags and sound, and each creator's profile once for subscriberCount. Cached and bounded; failures keep the original row.",
      "prefill": false,
      "title": "Enrich videos with detail pages",
      "type": "boolean"
    },
    "includeRelatedTags": {
      "default": true,
      "description": "Include Snapchat's scene-to-interest (S2I) tags for each video when the page provides them. Coverage is partial, so the field is omitted when unavailable.",
      "prefill": false,
      "title": "Include S2I content tags",
      "type": "boolean"
    },
    "includeRelatedTopics": {
      "default": false,
      "description": "Add one hop of related topics found on each discovered topic's topic, tag, or Explore page. This follows public page links; it does not recurse further.",
      "prefill": false,
      "title": "Expand related topics",
      "type": "boolean"
    },
    "maxItems": {
      "default": 1000,
      "description": "Maximum rows to save across the whole run.",
      "maximum": 10000,
      "minimum": 1,
      "prefill": 3,
      "title": "Max items",
      "type": "integer"
    },
    "maxResultsPerTopic": {
      "default": 50,
      "description": "Maximum videos to keep for each topic after combining its topic/tag page with Explore results. Snapchat serves 19-32 videos per page and the combined pool is usually 40-54.",
      "maximum": 100,
      "minimum": 1,
      "prefill": 3,
      "title": "Max videos per topic",
      "type": "integer"
    },
    "maxTopicsPerQuery": {
      "default": 50,
      "description": "Maximum topic rows to keep for each search query, including related topics when expansion is enabled.",
      "maximum": 500,
      "minimum": 1,
      "prefill": 50,
      "title": "Max topics per query",
      "type": "integer"
    },
    "mode": {
      "default": "topicFeed",
      "description": "Choose what to collect: videos for topics/tags, topics for search keywords, or the current Spotlight feed.",
      "editor": "select",
      "enum": [
        "topicFeed",
        "topicSearch",
        "spotlightFeed"
      ],
      "enumTitles": [
        "Topic or tag videos",
        "Find topics by keyword",
        "Spotlight trending feed"
      ],
      "prefill": "topicFeed",
      "title": "Mode",
      "type": "string"
    },
    "searchQueries": {
      "default": [],
      "description": "Keywords or phrases used to discover topics, such as coffee, new york, or taylor swift.",
      "editor": "stringList",
      "items": {
        "type": "string"
      },
      "prefill": [],
      "sectionCaption": "Topic discovery",
      "sectionDescription": "Used in Find topics by keyword mode.",
      "title": "Search keywords",
      "type": "array"
    },
    "topics": {
      "default": [],
      "description": "Topic names, hashtags, or Snapchat URLs. Examples: food, #travel, https://www.snapchat.com/tag/food, https://www.snapchat.com/topic/cappuccino-foam-technique.",
      "editor": "stringList",
      "items": {
        "type": "string"
      },
      "prefill": [
        "food"
      ],
      "sectionCaption": "Topic videos",
      "sectionDescription": "Used in Topic or tag videos mode. Each topic is checked on its topic and tag pages, then combined with Explore Spotlight results.",
      "title": "Topics or tags",
      "type": "array"
    }
  },
  "required": [],
  "schemaVersion": 1,
  "title": "Snapchat Topic Scraper",
  "type": "object"
}

Output schema

Published result links and storage locations. This schema is not an exhaustive contract for every field in a dataset record.

Field	Type	Required	Description
`results`	string	optional	Dataset containing Spotlight videos and discovered topic rows.
`topics`	string	optional	Topic rows found by keyword search and one-hop related-topic expansion.

Download the published output schema

View complete JSON

{
  "actorOutputSchemaVersion": 1,
  "description": "Videos from Snapchat topic and hashtag pages plus the anonymous Spotlight feed, with creator, engagement, AI keywords, hashtags and S2I content tags; plus topic-discovery rows from keyword search.",
  "properties": {
    "results": {
      "description": "Dataset containing Spotlight videos and discovered topic rows.",
      "template": "{{links.apiDefaultDatasetUrl}}/items",
      "title": "Snapchat videos and topics",
      "type": "string"
    },
    "topics": {
      "description": "Topic rows found by keyword search and one-hop related-topic expansion.",
      "template": "{{links.apiDefaultDatasetUrl}}/items?view=topics",
      "title": "Discovered topics",
      "type": "string"
    }
  },
  "title": "Snapchat Topic Spotlight Feed & Content Tag Extractor Output"
}

Dataset schema

Published dataset views and any declared field definitions. A view can select only a subset of the returned record fields.

Download the published dataset schema

View complete JSON

{
  "actorSpecification": 1,
  "fields": {
    "properties": {
      "caption": {
        "description": "On-screen caption or secondary caption, when provided",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "commentCount": {
        "description": "Live public comment/reply count",
        "type": "integer"
      },
      "compositeStoryId": {
        "description": "Composite story ID with corpus, id and version",
        "type": "object"
      },
      "creatorDisplayName": {
        "description": "Creator display name",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "creatorFollowerCount": {
        "description": "Legacy field; Snapchat reports 0 on these public surfaces",
        "type": "integer"
      },
      "creatorProfileUrl": {
        "description": "Creator profile URL",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "creatorSubscriberCount": {
        "description": "Creator subscriber count from the public profile page; only with enrichVideos, cached once per creator, and distinct from followerCount",
        "type": "integer"
      },
      "creatorUsername": {
        "description": "Creator Snapchat username",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "description": {
        "description": "Original Snapchat caption or description",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "detectedLanguage": {
        "description": "Highest-scoring detected language code",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "durationSeconds": {
        "description": "Video duration in seconds",
        "type": "number"
      },
      "embedUrl": {
        "description": "Embeddable Spotlight URL",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "hashtags": {
        "description": "Hashtags found on the video",
        "items": {
          "type": "string"
        },
        "type": "array"
      },
      "height": {
        "description": "Video height in pixels",
        "type": "integer"
      },
      "iconUrl": {
        "description": "Topic icon URL",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "isFeatured": {
        "description": "Legacy field; true when Snapchat marks the video featured",
        "type": "boolean"
      },
      "latestUpdateAt": {
        "description": "Legacy field; latest story update in ISO 8601 UTC",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "likeCount": {
        "description": "Boost/like count",
        "type": "integer"
      },
      "llmDescription": {
        "description": "Snapchat-generated AI scene description",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "llmKeywords": {
        "description": "Snapchat-generated AI keywords",
        "items": {
          "type": "string"
        },
        "type": "array"
      },
      "llmTitle": {
        "description": "Snapchat-generated AI title",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "numSnaps": {
        "description": "Snapchat's reported number of snaps for a topic",
        "type": "integer"
      },
      "pendingCommentCount": {
        "description": "Pending comment count, when greater than zero",
        "type": "integer"
      },
      "rank": {
        "description": "1-based position on the source surface",
        "type": "integer"
      },
      "recommendCount": {
        "description": "Recommend count",
        "type": "integer"
      },
      "recordType": {
        "description": "Row shape: video or topic",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "relatedTags": {
        "description": "S2I content tags with tagName and optional score",
        "items": {
          "type": "object"
        },
        "type": "array"
      },
      "relatedTo": {
        "description": "Seed topic ID for a one-hop related topic row",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "remainingSpotlightCount": {
        "description": "Legacy field; no longer served by Snapchat",
        "type": "integer"
      },
      "remixCount": {
        "description": "Remix count, when greater than zero",
        "type": "integer"
      },
      "scrapedAt": {
        "description": "Collection timestamp in ISO 8601 UTC",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "searchQuery": {
        "description": "Search keyword that produced a topic row",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "shareCount": {
        "description": "Share count",
        "type": "integer"
      },
      "snapId": {
        "description": "Spotlight snap ID",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "snapUrl": {
        "description": "Public Snapchat Spotlight URL",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "soundArtist": {
        "description": "Sound artist from a Spotlight context card",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "soundTitle": {
        "description": "Sound title from a Spotlight context card",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "storyId": {
        "description": "Snapchat story ID",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "storySubtype": {
        "description": "Legacy field; Snapchat story subtype code",
        "type": "integer"
      },
      "thumbnailUrl": {
        "description": "Thumbnail image URL",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "topicDescription": {
        "description": "Snapchat's topic summary, when the topic hub provides one",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "topicDisplayName": {
        "description": "Human-readable topic or hashtag label",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "topicId": {
        "description": "Topic or hashtag slug",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "topicSource": {
        "description": "Surface that supplied the row: tagPage, topicPage, exploreSearch, exploreFallback, relatedTopic or spotlightFeed",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "topicType": {
        "description": "Snapchat topic type code",
        "type": "integer"
      },
      "topicUrl": {
        "description": "Canonical Snapchat topic, tag or Explore URL",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "uploadedAt": {
        "description": "Upload timestamp in ISO 8601 UTC",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "videoFormat": {
        "description": "Video MIME type from topic JSON-LD",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "videoUrl": {
        "description": "Direct Snapchat CDN video URL (signed)",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "videoUrlUnwatermarked": {
        "description": "Unwatermarked CDN video URL, when Explore provides it",
        "type": "string"
      },
      "viewCount": {
        "description": "Public view count",
        "type": "integer"
      },
      "width": {
        "description": "Video width in pixels",
        "type": "integer"
      }
    },
    "type": "object"
  },
  "title": "Snapchat Topic & Spotlight videos",
  "views": {
    "overview": {
      "display": {
        "component": "table",
        "properties": {
          "creatorUsername": {
            "format": "text",
            "label": "Creator"
          },
          "snapId": {
            "format": "text",
            "label": "Snap"
          },
          "snapUrl": {
            "format": "link",
            "label": "Spotlight"
          },
          "topicId": {
            "format": "text",
            "label": "Topic"
          },
          "uploadedAt": {
            "format": "date",
            "label": "Uploaded"
          },
          "viewCount": {
            "format": "number",
            "label": "Views"
          }
        }
      },
      "title": "Overview",
      "transformation": {
        "fields": [
          "topicId",
          "snapId",
          "creatorUsername",
          "viewCount",
          "uploadedAt",
          "snapUrl"
        ]
      }
    },
    "topics": {
      "display": {
        "component": "table",
        "properties": {
          "numSnaps": {
            "format": "number",
            "label": "Snaps"
          },
          "relatedTo": {
            "format": "text",
            "label": "Related to"
          },
          "searchQuery": {
            "format": "text",
            "label": "Query"
          },
          "topicDisplayName": {
            "format": "text",
            "label": "Label"
          },
          "topicId": {
            "format": "text",
            "label": "Topic"
          },
          "topicUrl": {
            "format": "link",
            "label": "Topic page"
          }
        }
      },
      "title": "Topics",
      "transformation": {
        "fields": [
          "topicId",
          "topicDisplayName",
          "numSnaps",
          "topicUrl",
          "relatedTo",
          "searchQuery"
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

Key-value schema

Published key-value store definitions, when provided by this build.

This definition is not present in the default published build. See the published README for available documentation.

Published README

Read the full published documentation

Snapchat Topic Spotlight Feed & Content Tag Extractor

Collect public Snapchat Spotlight videos from topic pages, hashtag feeds, keyword search and the anonymous Spotlight feed. Every video row carries its creator, engagement counts, duration, captions, Snapchat's AI title/description/keywords, hashtags, detected language and, when Snapchat provides them, S2I content tags.

Snapchat spreads its public data across several server-rendered pages. This actor reads the surfaces that are actually live today and combines them:

Topic pages — long-tail topic hubs such as snapchat.com/topic/cappuccino-foam-technique, with 19-30 videos and a ranked list of related topics.
Hashtag pages — snapchat.com/tag/food, with up to 32 Spotlight cards.
Explore search — snapchat.com/explore/<query>, with 1-10 topic entities and 11-24 Spotlight cards (including unwatermarked video URLs).
Spotlight feed — snapchat.com/spotlight, with the current anonymous feed of about 25 videos.

There is no public pagination on these surfaces. The actor combines a topic's topic/tag page with its Explore results and de-duplicates by snap ID, which usually produces 40-54 unique videos per topic instead of 19-32.

Modes

Topic or tag videos

Paste topic names, hashtags or Snapchat URLs. The actor tries the topic page and the hashtag page, fetches the matching Explore page, and merges the results. Examples:

food
#travel
https://www.snapchat.com/tag/food
https://www.snapchat.com/topic/cappuccino-foam-technique
https://www.snapchat.com/explore/viral

Old /topic/food URLs and bare short names keep working: Snapchat retired the generic /topic/<short> pages, so the actor automatically falls back to /tag/food and Explore.

Find topics by keyword

Give one or more keywords and get topic rows with the topic slug, display name, Snapchat's reported snap count, thumbnail, icon and rank. Enable Expand related topics to add one hop of related topics from each discovered topic's page links.

Fetch the current anonymous Spotlight feed. Snapchat serves about 24-26 videos per request and the order can change between requests; there is no cursor to page further.

Output

One row per video, or one row per topic in topic-search mode.

Video fields:

topicId, topicDisplayName, topicUrl, topicSource, rank — where the video came from and its position on that surface
snapId, storyId, compositeStoryId, snapUrl, embedUrl — Snapchat identifiers and links
videoUrl, videoUrlUnwatermarked, videoFormat, thumbnailUrl — direct CDN media URLs
creatorUsername, creatorDisplayName, creatorProfileUrl — creator identity
creatorSubscriberCount — profile subscriber count, only with enrichVideos; cached once per creator and omitted when the profile does not expose it (distinct from creatorFollowerCount)
viewCount, likeCount, shareCount, commentCount, recommendCount, pendingCommentCount, remixCount — public engagement counts
durationSeconds, width, height — media properties
description, caption — original Snapchat text
llmTitle, llmDescription, llmKeywords — Snapchat's own AI metadata
hashtags, detectedLanguage, relatedTags — hashtags, language and S2I content tags
soundTitle, soundArtist — sound information when the feed/detail surface provides it
uploadedAt, scrapedAt — ISO 8601 UTC timestamps

Topic fields:

topicId, topicDisplayName, topicUrl, topicSource, rank
numSnaps, topicType, thumbnailUrl, iconUrl
searchQuery, relatedTo
scrapedAt

Fields a surface does not provide are omitted from that row, never written as null. creatorFollowerCount and remainingSpotlightCount remain in the dataset schema for backward compatibility but are not populated because Snapchat no longer exposes them on these pages.

Input

Field	Default	Description
`mode`	`topicFeed`	`topicFeed`, `topicSearch` or `spotlightFeed`.
`topics`	`[]`	Topic names, hashtags or URLs for topic-feed mode.
`maxResultsPerTopic`	`50`	Maximum videos per topic after merging surfaces.
`includeRelatedTags`	`true`	Include S2I content tags when the page provides them.
`searchQueries`	`[]`	Keywords for topic-search mode.
`maxTopicsPerQuery`	`50`	Maximum topic rows per query, including related topics.
`includeRelatedTopics`	`false`	Add one hop of related topics.
`enrichVideos`	`false`	Visit each video page for missing AI title, counts, language, S2I tags and sound, plus each creator profile once for `creatorSubscriberCount`. Cached, bounded, and distinct from followers.
`maxItems`	`1000`	Maximum rows across the whole run.

Example: three topics

{
  "mode": "topicFeed",
  "topics": ["food", "travel", "#gaming"],
  "maxResultsPerTopic": 50,
  "includeRelatedTags": true
}

Example: discover coffee topics

{
  "mode": "topicSearch",
  "searchQueries": ["coffee", "latte art"],
  "maxTopicsPerQuery": 50,
  "includeRelatedTopics": true
}

Example: current Spotlight feed

{
  "mode": "spotlightFeed",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Example: enrich a few videos

{
  "mode": "topicFeed",
  "topics": ["cappuccino-foam-technique"],
  "maxResultsPerTopic": 5,
  "enrichVideos": true
}

Use cases

Trend research — see which Spotlight videos Snapchat surfaces for a topic today and how they perform.
Content tagging — collect Snapchat's AI keywords, hashtags, detected language and S2I tags for a niche.
Creator discovery — find creators with strong engagement inside a topic.
Topic mapping — start from a keyword, discover topic entities, then expand one hop through related topics.
Performance tracking — schedule repeated runs and compare view, like, share, comment and recommend counts over time.

FAQ

Do I need a Snapchat account or cookies? No. Every surface used here is public and works without a login, cookie or proxy.

Why do some tags return no results? Snapchat serves 19-32 videos on a topic or tag page and 11-24 on its Explore page, and the actor merges both. Some slugs in Snapchat's tag sitemap are stale and return 404 on /tag/; the actor retries once, checks the topic page, then uses Explore only when its cards are relevant (an exact topic entity or at least 15% text match). Otherwise the run reports an honest zero-row status. Long non-Latin queries (roughly over 50 percent-encoded bytes) can also return 403 from Snapchat's edge; use a shorter keyword.

Why is there no next-page option? The public web pages do not expose working pagination. page, cursor, offset and limit parameters are ignored by Snapchat, so a run reports honestly when a source is exhausted. For more coverage, add related topics or run topic search.

What are S2I content tags? Snapchat's scene-to-interest tags classify what is in a video. They are available on only part of the catalogue, so the relatedTags field is omitted when the page does not include them. AI keywords (llmKeywords) have much better coverage.

Why do creatorFollowerCount and remainingSpotlightCount not appear? Snapchat reports follower count as 0 on these public surfaces and no longer serves remainingSpotlightIds on topic pages. The fields stay in the schema for old integrations but are not fabricated. With enrichVideos, creatorSubscriberCount adds the real profile subscriber count when available (up to 200 unique creators per run); it is not the same metric as follower count.

Why do the video URLs contain long parameters? mo and uc are optional CDN media/context parameters, not signatures or expiry tokens. The bare CDN path also returns the same file: in a 30-URL sample, both the full URL and the URL with the query removed returned 200 video/mp4. The actor therefore does not re-host media. Snapchat can still remove or rotate content, so archive the files if you need permanent copies.

Can I get the trending feed for a specific country? No. Snapchat's web feed has no working country parameter; country, geo, region, countryCode, locale and country headers all leave the same randomized 24-26 video slice. Use a topic or keyword for targeting instead.

Can I browse all 643,000 topics from the sitemap? No. The topic sitemap is about 97 MB across 65 unordered shards with no popularity ranking. Keyword search plus one-hop related topics is the useful discovery path.

What does enrichVideos add? Each video's Spotlight page is read separately, filling missing AI title/description, comment and recommend counts, language, S2I tags and sound. It also fetches each unique creator's profile once (cached, up to 200 per run) for creatorSubscriberCount. That number is a profile metric, not a follower count. Failed detail or profile requests keep the original row unchanged.

Is this affiliated with Snapchat? No. This actor reads public Snapchat pages and is not affiliated with Snap Inc.

Data source and limitations

The actor reads snapchat.com server-rendered pages with plain HTTP requests. No browser is required. It does not log in, solve CAPTCHAs, or bypass access controls. Snapchat changes its pages from time to time; the actor falls back between topic, tag and Explore surfaces and reports source exhaustion in the run status.

Known limits: no surface exposes working pagination, so one topic yields 40-56 unique videos from the merged surfaces; stale tag sitemap slugs return 404; long non-Latin Explore queries can return 403; S2I tags are present on only part of the catalogue; follower counts are always reported as zero on public video pages; and the anonymous Spotlight feed cannot be pinned to a country. Comment text and transcripts are out of scope here; they are covered by the Snapchat comments and video-downloader actors.

Python quickstart

Use a schema-derived input and the Python standard library to start a run. An Apify account and token are required for execution.

Open the step-by-step Python guide →

Source build 0B1WSna9PhB5LeHFe. Documentation is regenerated from the default published build; private drafts are not included.