search

imperatrona / twitter-scraper

Scrape the Twitter frontend API without authentication with Golang.
MIT License
118 stars 20 forks source link

readme

Twitter Scraper

Go Reference Go

Twitter’s API is pricey and has lots of limitations. But their frontend has its own API, which was reverse-engineered by @n0madic and maintained by @imperatrona. Some endpoints require authentication, but it is easy to scale by buying new accounts and proxies.

You can use this library to get tweets, profiles, and trends trivially.

Table of Contents

 - [Installation](#installation) - [Quick start](#quick-start) - [Rate limits](#rate-limits) - [Methods that returns channels](#methods-that-returns-channels) - [Authentication](#authentication) - [Using cookies](#using-cookies) - [Using AuthToken](#using-authtoken) - [OpenAccount](#openaccount) - [Login & Password](#login--password) - [Check if login](#check-if-login) - [Log out](#log-out) - [Methods](#methods) - [Get tweet](#get-tweet) - [Get tweet replies](#get-tweet-replies) - [Get tweet retweeters](#get-tweet-retweeters) - [Get user tweets](#get-user-tweets) - [Get user medias](#get-user-medias) - [Get bookmarks](#get-bookmarks) - [Get home tweets](#get-home-tweets) - [Get foryou tweets](#get-foryou-tweets) - [Search tweets](#search-tweets) - [Search params](#search-params) - [Get profile](#get-profile) - [Get profile by id](#get-profile-by-id) - [Search profile](#search-profile) - [Get trends](#get-trends) - [Get following](#get-following) - [Get followers](#get-followers) - [Get space](#get-space) - [Like tweet](#like-tweet) - [Unlike tweet](#unlike-tweet) - [Create tweet](#create-tweet) - [Delete tweet](#delete-tweet) - [Create retweet](#create-retweet) - [Delete retweet](#delete-retweet) - [Get scheduled tweets](#get-scheduled-tweets) - [Create scheduled tweet](#create-scheduled-tweet) - [Delete scheduled tweet](#delete-scheduled-tweet) - [Upload media](#upload-media) - [Account](#account) - [Connection](#connection) - [User-Agent](#user-agent) - [Proxy](#proxy) - [HTTP(s)](#https) - [SOCKS5](#socks5) - [Delay](#delay) - [Load timeline with tweet replies](#load-timeline-with-tweet-replies) - [Contributing](#contributing) - [Testing](#testing)

Installation

go get -u github.com/imperatrona/twitter-scraper

Quick start

package main

import (
    "context"
    "fmt"
    twitterscraper "github.com/imperatrona/twitter-scraper"
)

func main() {
    scraper := twitterscraper.New()
    scraper.SetAuthToken(twitterscraper.AuthToken{Token: "auth_token", CSRFToken: "ct0"})

    // After setting Cookies or AuthToken you have to execute IsLoggedIn method.
    // Without it, scraper wouldn't be able to make requests that requires authentication
    if !scraper.IsLoggedIn() {
      panic("Invalid AuthToken")
    }

    for tweet := range scraper.GetTweets(context.Background(), "x", 50) {
        if tweet.Error != nil {
            panic(tweet.Error)
        }
        fmt.Println(tweet.Text)
    }
}

Rate limits

Api has a global limit on how many requests per second are allowed, don’t make requests more than once per 1.5 seconds from one account. Also each endpoint has its own limits, most of them are 150 requests per 15 minutes.

Apparently twitter doesn’t limit the number of accounts that can be used per one IP address. This could change at any time. As of February 2024, I have been managing 20 accounts per IP address without receiving a ban for several months.

OpenAccount was great in the past, but now it’s nerfed by twitter. They allow 180 requests instead of 150, but you can only create one account per month with one IP address. If you use OpenAccount you should save your credentials and use them later with WithOpenAccount method.

Methods that returns channels

Some methods returns channels. They created to rid you from dealing with cursor, but under the hood they still using the same endpoints as they Fetch counterparts, they have the same rate limits. For example GetTweets using FetchTweets to get tweets. FetchTweets returns up to 20 tweets, so if you set GetTweets to fetch 150 tweets it will make 8 requests to FetchTweets (150/20=7.5 ~ 8 requests). If under-hood Fetch method got the error, it will be passed to object twitterscraper.TweetResult and will stop further scraping. In methods that return twitterscraper.TweetResult you should check if tweet.Error is not nil before accessing the tweet content.

Authentication

Most endpoints require authentication. The preferable way is to use SetCookies. You can also use SetAuthToken but POST endpoints will not work. Login with password may require confirmation with email and is often the reason of accounts ban.

Endpoints that work without authentication will not return sensitive content. To get sensitive content you need to authenticate with any available method including OpenAccount.

Using cookies

// Deserialize from JSON
var cookies []*http.Cookie
f, _ := os.Open("cookies.json")
json.NewDecoder(f).Decode(&cookies)

scraper.SetCookies(cookies)
if !scraper.IsLoggedIn() {
    panic("Invalid cookies")
}

To save cookies from an authorized client to a file, use GetCookies:

cookies := scraper.GetCookies()

data, _ := json.Marshal(cookies)
f, _ = os.Create("cookies.json")
f.Write(data)

Using AuthToken

SetAuthToken method simply set required cookies auth_token and ct0.

scraper.SetAuthToken(twitterscraper.AuthToken{Token: "auth_token", CSRFToken: "ct0"})
if !scraper.IsLoggedIn() {
    panic("Invalid AuthToken")
}

OpenAccount

[!WARNING] Deprecated. Nerfed by twitter, doesn't support new endpoints.

LoginOpenAccount is now limited to one new account per month for IP address.

account, err := scraper.LoginOpenAccount()

You should save OpenAccount returned by LoginOpenAccount to reuse it later.

scraper.WithOpenAccount(twitterscraper.OpenAccount{
    OAuthToken: "TOKEN",
    OAuthTokenSecret: "TOKEN_SECRET",
})

Login & Password

To log in, you have to use your username, not the email!

err := scraper.Login("username", "password")

If you have email confirmation, use your email address in addition:

err := scraper.Login("username", "password", "email")

If you have two-factor authentication, use the code:

err := scraper.Login("username", "password", "code")

Check if login

Status of login can be checked with method IsLoggedIn:

scraper.IsLoggedIn()

Log out

scraper.Logout()

Methods

Get tweet

150 requests / 15 minutes

TweetDetail endpoint requires auth, so TweetResultByRestId endpoint used instead when auth not provided. Which doesn't return InReplyToStatus and Thread tweets.

tweet, err := scraper.GetTweet("1328684389388185600")

Get tweet replies

150 requests / 15 minutes

Returns by ~5-10 tweets and multiple cursors – one for each thread.

var cursor string
tweets, cursors, err := scraper.GetTweetReplies("1328684389388185600", cursor)

To get all replies and replies of replies for tweet you can iterate for all cursors. To get only direct replies check if cursor.ThreadID is equal your tweet id.

tweets, cursors, err := scraper.GetTweetReplies("1328684389388185600", "")
if err != nil {
    panic(err)
}

for {
    if len(cursors) > 0 {
        var cursor *twitterscraper.ThreadCursor
        cursor, cursors = cursors[0], cursors[1:]
        moreTweets, moreCursors, err := scraper.GetTweetReplies(tweetId, cursor.Cursor)
        if err != nil {
            // you can check here if rate limited, await and repeat request
            panic(err)
        }
        tweets = append(tweets, moreTweets...)
        if len(moreCursors) > 0 {
            cursors = append(cursors, moreCursors...)
        }
    } else {
        break
    }
}

Get tweet retweeters

500 requests / 15 minutes

Returns a list of users who have retweeted the tweet.

var cursor string
retweeters, cursor, err := scraper.GetTweetRetweeters("1328684389388185600", 20, cursor)

Get user tweets

150 requests / 15 minutes

GetTweets returns a channel with the specified number of user tweets. It’s using the FetchTweets method under the hood. Read how this method works in Methods that returns channels.

for tweet := range scraper.GetTweets(context.Background(), "taylorswift13", 50) {
    if tweet.Error != nil {
        panic(tweet.Error)
    }
    fmt.Println(tweet.Text)
}

FetchTweets returns tweets and cursor for fetching the next page. Each request returns up to 20 tweets.

var cursor string
tweets, cursor, err := scraper.FetchTweets("taylorswift13", 20, cursor)

To get tweets and replies use GetTweetsAndReplies, FetchTweetsAndReplies and FetchTweetsAndRepliesByUserID methods.

Get user medias

500 requests / 15 minutes

GetMediaTweets returns a channel with the specified number of user tweets that contain media. It’s using the FetchMediaTweets method under the hood. Read how this method works in Methods that returns channels.

for tweet := range scraper.GetMediaTweets(context.Background(), "taylorswift13", 50) {
    if tweet.Error != nil {
        panic(tweet.Error)
    }
    fmt.Println(tweet.Text)
}

FetchMediaTweets returns tweets and cursor for fetching the next page. Each request returns up to 20 tweets.

var cursor string
tweets, cursor, err := scraper.FetchMediaTweets("taylorswift13", 20, cursor)

Get bookmarks

[!IMPORTANT] Requires authentication!

500 requests / 15 minutes

GetBookmarks returns a channel with the specified number of bookmarked tweets. It’s using the FetchBookmarks method under the hood. Read how this method works in Methods that returns channels.

for tweet := range scraper.GetBookmarks(context.Background(), 50) {
    if tweet.Error != nil {
        panic(tweet.Error)
    }
    fmt.Println(tweet.Text)
}

FetchBookmarks returns bookmarked tweets and cursor for fetching the next page. Each request returns up to 20 tweets.

var cursor string
tweets, cursor, err := scraper.FetchBookmarks(20, cursor)

Get home tweets

[!IMPORTANT] Requires authentication!

500 requests / 15 minutes

GetHomeTweets returns a channel with the specified number of latest home tweets. It’s using the FetchHomeTweets method under the hood. Read how this method works in Methods that returns channels.

for tweet := range scraper.GetHomeTweets(context.Background(), 50) {
    if tweet.Error != nil {
        panic(tweet.Error)
    }
    fmt.Println(tweet.Text)
}

FetchHomeTweets returns latest home tweets and cursor for fetching the next page. Each request returns up to 20 tweets.

var cursor string
tweets, cursor, err := scraper.FetchHomeTweets(20, cursor)

Get foryou tweets

[!IMPORTANT] Requires authentication!

500 requests / 15 minutes

GetForYouTweets returns a channel with the specified number of for you home tweets. It’s using the FetchForYouTweets method under the hood. Read how this method works in Methods that returns channels.

for tweet := range scraper.GetForYouTweets(context.Background(), 50) {
    if tweet.Error != nil {
        panic(tweet.Error)
    }
    fmt.Println(tweet.Text)
}

FetchForYouTweets returns for you home tweets and cursor for fetching the next page. Each request returns up to 20 tweets.

var cursor string
tweets, cursor, err := scraper.FetchForYouTweets(20, cursor)

Search tweets

[!IMPORTANT] Requires authentication!

150 requests / 15 minutes

SearchTweets returns a channel with the specified number of tweets that contain media. It’s using the FetchSearchTweets method under the hood. Read how this method works in Methods that returns channels.

for tweet := range scraper.SearchTweets(context.Background(),
    "twitter scraper data -filter:retweets", 50) {
    if tweet.Error != nil {
        panic(tweet.Error)
    }
    fmt.Println(tweet.Text)
}

FetchSearchTweets returns tweets and cursor for fetching the next page. Each request returns up to 20 tweets.

tweets, cursor, err := scraper.FetchSearchTweets("taylorswift13", 20, cursor)

By default, search returns top tweets. You can change it by specifying the search mode before making requests. Supported modes are SearchTop, SearchLatest, SearchPhotos, SearchVideos, and SearchUsers.

scraper.SetSearchMode(twitterscraper.SearchLatest)

Search params

See Rules and filtering for build standard queries.

Get profile

95 requests / 15 minutes

profile, err := scraper.GetProfile("taylorswift13")

Get profile by id

95 requests / 15 minutes

profile, err := scraper.GetProfileByID("17919972")

Search profile

[!IMPORTANT] Requires authentication!

150 requests / 15 minutes

SearchProfiles returns a channel with the specified number of tweets that contain media. It’s using the FetchSearchProfiles method under the hood. Read how this method works in Methods that returns channels.

for profile := range scraper.SearchProfiles(context.Background(), "Twitter", 50) {
    if profile.Error != nil {
        panic(profile.Error)
    }
    fmt.Println(profile.Name)
}

FetchSearchProfiles returns profiles and cursor for fetching the next page. Each request returns up to 20 tweets.

profiles, cursor, err := scraper.FetchSearchProfiles("taylorswift13", 20, cursor)

Get trends

trends, err := scraper.GetTrends()

Get following

[!IMPORTANT] Requires authentication!

500 requests / 15 minutes

var cursor string
users, cursor, err := scraper.FetchFollowing("Support", 20, cursor)

Get followers

[!IMPORTANT] Requires authentication!

50 requests / 15 minutes

var cursor string
users, cursor, err := scraper.FetchFollowers("Support", 20, cursor)

Get space

[!IMPORTANT] Requires authentication!

500 requests / 15 minutes

Use to retrvie data about space and it's participants. You can get up to 1000 participants of space. If method returns less, it's probably because listeners is anonymous.

space, err := scraper.GetSpace("space_id")

You can get space_id from space url which can be retrived from tweet. For example:

tweet, err := testScraper.GetTweet("1815884577040445599")
if err != nil {
    t.Fatal(err)
}

var spaceId string
spaceUrl := tweet.URLs[0] // https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1mnxeAMPEqqxX

if strings.HasPrefix(spaceUrl, "https://twitter.com/i/spaces/") {
    spaceId = strings.Replace(spaceUrl, "https://twitter.com/i/spaces/", "", 1) // 1mnxeAMPEqqxX
}

space, err := scraper.GetSpace(spaceId)

Like tweet

[!IMPORTANT] Requires authentication!

500 requests / 15 minutes (combined with UnlikeTweet method)

err := scraper.LikeTweet("tweet_id")

Unlike tweet

[!IMPORTANT] Requires authentication!

500 requests / 15 minutes (combined with LikeTweet method)

err := scraper.UnlikeTweet("tweet_id")

Create tweet

[!IMPORTANT] Requires authentication!

tweet, err = scraper.CreateTweet(twitterscraper.NewTweet{
    Text:   "new tweet text",
    Medias: nil,
})

To create tweet with medias, you need to upload media first. Up to 4 medias; jpg, mp4 and gif allowed.

var media *twitterscraper.Media
media, err = testScraper.UploadMedia("./photo.jpg")
if err != nil {
    t.Error(err)
}
tweet, err = scraper.CreateTweet(twitterscraper.NewTweet{
    Text:   "new tweet text",
    Medias: []*twitterscraper.Media{
        media,
    },
})

Delete tweet

[!IMPORTANT] Requires authentication!

err := testScraper.DeleteTweet("1810458885008105870");

Create retweet

[!IMPORTANT] Requires authentication!

Returns retweet id, which is not the same as source tweet id.

retweetId, err := testScraper.CreateRetweet("1792634158977568997");

Delete retweet

[!IMPORTANT] Requires authentication!

To delete retweet use source tweet id instead retweet id.

err := testScraper.DeleteRetweet("1792634158977568997");

Get scheduled tweets

[!IMPORTANT] Requires authentication!

500 requests / 15 minutes

tweets, err := scraper.FetchScheduledTweets()

Create scheduled tweet

[!IMPORTANT] Requires authentication!

500 requests / 15 minutes

tweets, err := scraper.CreateScheduledTweet(twitterscraper.TweetSchedule{
    Text:   "New scheduled tweet text",
    Date:   time.Now().Add(time.Hour * 24 * 31),
    Medias: nil,
})

Delete scheduled tweet

[!IMPORTANT] Requires authentication!

500 requests / 15 minutes

err := scraper.DeleteScheduledTweet("123")

Upload media

[!IMPORTANT] Requires authentication!

50 requests / 15 minutes

Uploads photo, video or gif for further posting or scheduling. Expires in 24 hours if not used.

media, err := scraper.UploadMedia("./files/movie.mp4")

Account

Requires authentication!

To get current account settings use GetAccountSettings method.

settings, err := scraper.GetAccountSettings()

If you use session with multiaccount you can use GetAccountList method to get slice of all accounts.

accounts, err := scraper.GetAccountList()

Connection

User-Agent

By default client uses user agent from mac google chrome v129.

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/129.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

You can set any client you want with method SetUserAgent.

scraper.SetUserAgent("user-agent")

To get current user agent use GetUserAgent.

agent := scraper.GetUserAgent()

Proxy

HTTP(s)

err := scraper.SetProxy("http://localhost:3128")

SOCKS5

err := scraper.SetProxy("socks5://localhost:1080")

Socks5 proxy support authentication.

err := scraper.SetProxy("socks5://user:pass@localhost:1080")

Delay

Add delay between API requests (in seconds)

scraper.WithDelay(5)

Load timeline with tweet replies

scraper.WithReplies(true)

Contributing

Testing

To run some tests, you need to set any form of authentication via environment variables. You can see all possible variables in .vscode/settings.json file. You can also set them in the file to use automatically in vscode, just make sure you don’t commit them in your contribution.