Search videos
To search for videos, you can use either tt_search or
tt_search_hidden, which do the same, as long as you do not
have a token for the Research API. The function opens a browser in the
background (or you can see what is happening with
headless = TRUE) and scrolls down. Below, we let it scroll
for up to one minute and solve captchas if they appear:
rstats_df <- tt_search_hidden("#rstats", solve_captchas = TRUE, scroll = "1m")
rstats_df
#> # A tibble: 111 × 25
#> video_id video_url video_timestamp video_length video_title
#> <chr> <chr> <dttm> <int> <chr>
#> 1 72522261… https://… 2023-07-05 07:01:45 36 "Wow!!! TH…
#> 2 72478540… https://… 2023-06-23 12:15:59 5 "#CapCut #…
#> 3 73029706… https://… 2023-11-19 00:56:09 163 "What is c…
#> 4 71670108… https://… 2022-11-17 15:42:56 58 "Here’s an…
#> 5 75284293… https://… 2025-07-18 14:43:31 27 "How to Co…
#> 6 71710339… https://… 2022-11-28 11:54:12 8 "please do…
#> 7 75631651… https://… 2025-10-20 05:05:18 36 "Quick R Q…
#> 8 72933174… https://… 2023-10-24 00:36:48 9 "#CapCut #…
#> 9 73024703… https://… 2023-11-17 16:34:44 31 "Did you k…
#> 10 68446099… https://… 2020-07-01 20:22:14 27 "Things in…
#> # ℹ 101 more rows
#> # ℹ 20 more variables: video_locationcreated <chr>,
#> # video_diggcount <int>, video_sharecount <int>,
#> # video_commentcount <int>, video_playcount <int>,
#> # author_id <chr>, author_secuid <chr>, author_username <chr>,
#> # author_nickname <chr>, author_bio <chr>, download_url <chr>,
#> # html_status <int>, music <list>, challenges <list>, …
This already gives you pretty much all information you could want
about the videos that were found.
Get metadata and download videos
If you already have URLs, you can obtain some more information,
including the video files, using tt_videos:
rstats_df2 <- tt_videos(rstats_df$video_url[1:2], save_video = TRUE)
rstats_df2
#> # A tibble: 2 × 26
#> video_id video_url video_timestamp video_length video_title
#> <chr> <chr> <dttm> <int> <chr>
#> 1 725222615… https://… 2023-07-05 07:01:45 36 "Wow!!! TH…
#> 2 724785406… https://… 2023-06-23 12:15:59 5 "#CapCut #…
#> # ℹ 21 more variables: video_locationcreated <chr>,
#> # video_diggcount <int>, video_sharecount <int>,
#> # video_commentcount <int>, video_playcount <int>,
#> # author_id <chr>, author_secuid <chr>, author_username <chr>,
#> # author_nickname <chr>, author_bio <chr>, download_url <chr>,
#> # html_status <int>, music <list>, challenges <list>,
#> # is_secret <lgl>, is_for_friend <lgl>, is_slides <lgl>, …
Per default, the function waits between one and ten seconds (chosen
at random) between making two calls, to not make it too obvious that
data is scraped from TikTok. You can speed up the process (at your own
risk), by changing the sleep_pool argument, which controls
the minimum and maximum number of seconds to wait:
rstats_df3 <- tt_videos(
rstats_df$video_url[3:4],
save_video = TRUE,
sleep_pool = 0.1
)
rstats_df3
#> # A tibble: 2 × 26
#> video_id video_url video_timestamp video_length video_title
#> <chr> <chr> <dttm> <int> <chr>
#> 1 730297066… https://… 2023-11-19 00:56:09 163 "What is c…
#> 2 716701086… https://… 2022-11-17 15:42:56 58 "Here’s an…
#> # ℹ 21 more variables: video_locationcreated <chr>,
#> # video_diggcount <int>, video_sharecount <int>,
#> # video_commentcount <int>, video_playcount <int>,
#> # author_id <chr>, author_secuid <chr>, author_username <chr>,
#> # author_nickname <chr>, author_bio <chr>, download_url <chr>,
#> # html_status <int>, music <list>, challenges <list>,
#> # is_secret <lgl>, is_for_friend <lgl>, is_slides <lgl>, …
When you are scraping a lot of URLs, the function might fail
eventually, due to a poor connection or because TikTok is blocking your
requests. It therefore usually makes sense to save your progress in a
cache directory:
rstats_df3 <- tt_videos(rstats_df$video_url[5:6], cache_dir = "rstats")
list.files("rstats")
#> [1] "7171033929175026949.json" "7528429314807696673.json"
Note that the video files are downloaded into the dir
directory (your working directory by default), independently from your
cache directory.
If there are information that you feel are missing from the
data.frame tt_videos returns, you can look at
the raw, unparsed json data using:
rstats_list1 <- tt_request_hidden(rstats_df$video_url[1]) |>
jsonlite::fromJSON()
Parsing the result into a list using fromJSON, results
in a rather complex nested list. You can look through this and see for
yourself if the data you are interested in is there
Get followers and who a user is following
To get followers and who a user is following, we need to first look
up their SecID, which is a special ID for users. We can do so using the
tt_user_info_hidden function:
user_info <- tt_user_info_hidden("tiktok")
user_info$secUid
#> [1] "MS4wLjABAAAAv7iSuuXDJGDvJkmH_vz1qkDZYo1apxgzaxdBSeIuPiM"
Once you have the secUid you can look up a maximum of
5,000 followers per account:
tt_get_follower_hidden(secuid = "MS4wLjABAAAAwiH32UMb5RenqEN7duyfLIeGQgSIx9WtgtOILt55q6ueUXgz4gHqZC5HFx4nabPi",
verbose = FALSE)
#>
#> # A tibble: 1,116 × 27
#> avatarLarger avatarMedium avatarThumb commentSetting
#> <chr> <chr> <chr> <int>
#> 1 https://p16-sign-sg.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> 2 https://p16-sign-va.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> 3 https://p16-sign-va.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> 4 https://p16-sign-va.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> 5 https://p16-sign-va.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> 6 https://p16-sign-va.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> 7 https://p16-sign-va.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> 8 https://p16-sign-va.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> 9 https://p16-sign-va.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> 10 https://p16-sign-va.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> # ℹ 1,106 more rows
#> # ℹ 23 more variables: downloadSetting <int>, duetSetting <int>,
#> # ftc <lgl>, id <chr>, isADVirtual <lgl>, nickname <chr>,
#> # openFavorite <lgl>, privateAccount <lgl>, relation <int>,
#> # secUid <chr>, secret <lgl>, signature <chr>,
#> # stitchSetting <int>, ttSeller <lgl>, uniqueId <chr>,
#> # verified <lgl>, diggCount <int>, followerCount <int>, …
Likewise, you can also check who this account follows:
tt_get_following_hidden(
secuid = "MS4wLjABAAAAwiH32UMb5RenqEN7duyfLIeGQgSIx9WtgtOILt55q6ueUXgz4gHqZC5HFx4nabPi",
verbose = FALSE
)
#>
#> # A tibble: 489 × 28
#> avatarLarger avatarMedium avatarThumb commentSetting
#> <chr> <chr> <chr> <int>
#> 1 https://p16-sign-va.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> 2 https://p16-sign-va.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> 3 https://p16-sign-va.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> 4 https://p16-sign-va.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> 5 https://p16-sign-va.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> 6 https://p16-sign-va.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> 7 https://p16-sign-va.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> 8 https://p16-sign-va.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> 9 https://p16-sign-va.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> 10 https://p16-sign-va.tik… https://p16… https://p1… 0
#> # ℹ 479 more rows
#> # ℹ 24 more variables: downloadSetting <int>, duetSetting <int>,
#> # ftc <lgl>, id <chr>, isADVirtual <lgl>, nickname <chr>,
#> # openFavorite <lgl>, privateAccount <lgl>, relation <int>,
#> # secUid <chr>, secret <lgl>, signature <chr>,
#> # stitchSetting <int>, ttSeller <lgl>, uniqueId <chr>,
#> # verified <lgl>, diggCount <int>, followerCount <int>, …
