Send your first Facebook API request

Send synchronous requests to the Bright Data Facebook Scraper API across 9 endpoints with examples for profiles, page posts, marketplace and comments.

This tutorial walks you through sending a synchronous request to each Bright Data Facebook Scraper API endpoint. By the end, you’ll have working examples for profiles, page posts, posts, marketplace listings, and comments.

Prerequisites

• A Bright Data account with an active API key
• Completed the Quickstart

Request structure

Every synchronous request follows the same pattern:

POST https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id={DATASET_ID}&format=json
Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY
Content-Type: application/json

[{"url": "https://www.facebook.com/..."}]

The only thing that changes between endpoints is the dataset_id and the input URL format.

Synchronous requests support up to 20 URLs and have a 1-minute timeout. If the request takes longer, the API automatically returns a snapshot_id instead. See async requests.

How to scrape Facebook profiles

Dataset ID: gd_mf0urb782734ik94dz

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id=gd_mf0urb782734ik94dz&format=json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '[{"url": "https://www.facebook.com/zuck"}]'

You should see a 200 response. This takes 10-30 seconds.

Example response

[
  {
    "name": "Mark Zuckerberg",
    "url": "https://www.facebook.com/zuck",
    "followers": 120000000,
    "bio": "Building the future...",
    "profile_type": "public_figure",
    "is_verified": true
  }
]

Full Profiles response schema

How to scrape Facebook page posts

Dataset ID: gd_lkaxegm826bjpoo9m5

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id=gd_lkaxegm826bjpoo9m5&format=json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '[{"url": "https://www.facebook.com/NASA"}]'

Example response

[
  {
    "url": "https://www.facebook.com/NASA",
    "post_text": "Exploring the cosmos...",
    "num_comments": 450,
    "date_posted": "2024-04-10T14:30:00.000Z",
    "reactions": 12500,
    "content_type": "Photo"
  }
]

Full Page Posts response schema

Posts by post URL

Dataset ID: gd_lyclm1571iy3mv57zw

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id=gd_lyclm1571iy3mv57zw&format=json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '[{"url": "https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/example123"}]'

Example response

[
  {
    "url": "https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/example123",
    "post_text": "Excited to share...",
    "num_comments": 320,
    "date_posted": "2024-05-01T09:00:00.000Z",
    "reactions": 8500,
    "shares": 1200
  }
]

Full Posts response schema

How to scrape Facebook Marketplace

Dataset ID: gd_lvt9iwuh6fbcwmx1a

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id=gd_lvt9iwuh6fbcwmx1a&format=json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '[{"url": "https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/123456789"}]'

Example response

[
  {
    "url": "https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/123456789",
    "title": "Vintage Coffee Table",
    "price": "$150",
    "location": "San Francisco, CA",
    "seller_name": "John Doe",
    "description": "Beautiful mid-century modern coffee table..."
  }
]

Full Marketplace response schema

How to scrape Facebook comments

Dataset ID: gd_lkay758p1eanlolqw8

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id=gd_lkay758p1eanlolqw8&format=json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '[{"url": "https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/example123"}]'

Example response

[
  {
    "url": "https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/example123",
    "comment_user": "Jane Smith",
    "comment_date": "2024-05-02T10:15:00.000Z",
    "comment_text": "Great update!",
    "reactions": 12,
    "replies_count": 3
  }
]

Full Comments response schema

Quick reference: dataset IDs

Endpoint	Dataset ID	URL pattern
Pages Posts by Profile URL	gd_lkaxegm826bjpoo9m5	facebook.com/{page_name}
Comments	gd_lkay758p1eanlolqw8	facebook.com/{user}/posts/{post_id}
Posts by group URL	gd_lz11l67o2cb3r0lkj3	facebook.com/groups/{group_id}
Posts by post URL	gd_lyclm1571iy3mv57zw	facebook.com/{user}/posts/{post_id}
Marketplace	gd_lvt9iwuh6fbcwmx1a	facebook.com/marketplace/item/{item_id}
Profiles	gd_mf0urb782734ik94dz	facebook.com/{username}
Pages and Profiles	gd_mf124a0511bauquyow	facebook.com/{page_or_profile}
Events	gd_m14sd0to1jz48ppm51	facebook.com/events/{event_id}
Reels by profile URL	gd_lyclm3ey2q6rww027t	facebook.com/{username}
Company Reviews	gd_m0dtqpiu1mbcyc2g86	facebook.com/{company_page}

Output formats

Control the response format with the format query parameter:

Value	Description
json	JSON array (default)
ndjson	Newline-delimited JSON, one record per line
csv	Comma-separated values

Next steps

Async batch requests

Scrape hundreds of URLs in a single batch job.

API reference

Full parameter and response field reference.