What is the TikTok Hashtag Scraper?
The InsightSocial TikTok hashtag scraper is a free Chrome extension that exports the videos under any TikTok hashtag to CSV, Excel, JSON, or Google Sheets. One row per video: the link, the creator, the caption, when it was posted, views, likes, comments, shares and bookmarks, every hashtag on the video, the sound it uses, and the creator's bio, follower count and total likes. No API key, no Research API application, no code.
It works by reading what your own browser already loads. When you open tiktok.com/tag/anything, TikTok's page requests the hashtag's videos in batches as you scroll. The extension scrolls for you, captures each batch as it arrives, and streams the videos into the sidebar so you can watch the count climb and stop whenever you have enough.
A hashtag page is the closest thing TikTok has to a topic index. A trend chart can tell you a tag is rising; a hashtag export tells you which videos are carrying it, who made them, which sounds they used, and which other tags travel with it. That is the dataset you actually build a content brief, a creator shortlist or a campaign report from.
What you get for each video
Every row is a full video record, not just a URL:
| Group | Columns |
|---|---|
| The video | Video URL, caption, posted date (UTC), duration in seconds, cover image URL, video ID, ad flag |
| Engagement | Views, likes, comments, shares, bookmarks |
| Discovery signals | All hashtags on the video, @mentions, links and emails written in the caption |
| Sound | Music name, music author, music ID |
| The creator | Name, @handle, profile URL, bio, follower count, total likes, verified badge, creator ID |
The hashtags column is worth singling out. It lists every tag on each video, not only the one you scraped, so a simple count across the export shows you the neighbouring hashtags for a topic. Pair it with the music columns and you can see which sounds dominate a tag in a given week.
The creator columns turn the same file into a sourcing list. Each video already carries its creator's bio and follower count, so you can filter to creators between, say, 10,000 and 200,000 followers who posted under your tag, without a second tool.
Who is it for?
- Content researchers sorting a niche tag by views to see which hooks, formats and lengths actually travel
- Brand and campaign teams measuring participation and engagement under a branded or campaign hashtag
- Influencer agencies finding the creators who post about a topic, with follower counts and bios already attached
- Trend analysts mapping which sounds and co-occurring hashtags ride along with a tag
- Academic researchers building hashtag datasets of captions, timestamps and engagement
- Creators studying what the top videos in their niche have in common
Key Benefits
- Complete engagement per video: views, likes, comments, shares and bookmarks, all five, on every row
- Creator context in the same file: handle, bio, follower count, total likes and verified badge, no second pass
- Sounds and co-hashtags: the raw material for trend and sound research, already split into columns
- Background-tab friendly: the run keeps collecting while you work in another tab
- Live preview: videos appear in the sidebar as they are captured, so you can stop the moment the sample is enough
- Private by design: collection runs in your own browser session and results are visible only to your account
How to Use the TikTok Hashtag Scraper
Step 1: Install the Extension
Add InsightSocial from the Chrome Web Store. The icon appears in your browser toolbar.
Step 2: Open the Hashtag Page
Go to tiktok.com/tag/yourhashtag, or click any hashtag in a caption to land on its page. The extension works on whatever hashtag page TikTok shows your browser, and it never asks for your TikTok password.
Step 3: Open the Sidebar
Click the InsightSocial icon. The sidebar recognises the hashtag page and shows the tag back to you (for example #ultralight), so you can confirm the target before anything runs.
Step 4: Choose How Many Videos
Pick 50, 100 or 250, or type a custom number. The run ends when it reaches that number or when TikTok stops sending new videos, whichever comes first. Read the limits section below before you set a large target.
Step 5: Start Scraping
Click Start. The page reloads once so the extension catches TikTok's very first batch, then it scrolls the grid and videos stream into the live preview. You can switch to another tab while it runs.
Step 6: Export
Click Export and choose CSV, Excel or JSON, or sync the rows to Google Sheets. Every run is also saved to your private InsightSocial portal, where you can search, sort and export it again later.
Hashtag Scraping Approaches Compared
There are four common ways to get TikTok hashtag data. They suit different people, so here is a feature comparison rather than a verdict.
| InsightSocial extension | Cloud scraping platforms | Open-source scripts | Official research access | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | Install, open a tag, press Start | Create an account, configure a job | Install Python or Node, maintain the code | Apply and wait for approval |
| Coding needed | None | Little to none | Yes | Yes |
| Where it runs | Your own browser | The vendor's servers | Your machine or server | TikTok's API |
| Who can use it | Anyone with Chrome | Anyone with an account | Developers | Approved researchers |
| Breaks when TikTok changes | We fix it and ship an update | The vendor fixes it | You fix it | Stable, versioned |
| Best for | Ad hoc research, a few tags at a time | Scheduled, large-scale pipelines | Custom pipelines you control | Formal academic studies |
If you need thousands of hashtags on a server schedule, a cloud platform or your own pipeline is the better fit. If you need the videos behind a handful of tags this afternoon, in a spreadsheet, without writing anything, that is what this extension is for. Developers who want TikTok data as JSON from code can also use the InsightSocial TikTok API.
Limits Worth Knowing
TikTok decides when a hashtag feed ends. You set a target, but the hashtag page only serves as many videos as TikTok is willing to page through, and that varies by tag and by day. In our own production runs, a 100-video target usually comes back with 80 to 100 videos. Targets of 250 or more have typically ended between 100 and 160 videos, and the largest single hashtag run we have recorded returned 272. When TikTok stops paging, the run finishes and keeps everything it collected rather than spinning.
It is a sample, not the whole tag. A hashtag with millions of posts cannot be exported in full through its page. Treat a run as the top of the feed TikTok shows you, and run the same tag again on another day if you want to see how it moves.
Hidden tabs. Hashtag runs keep going in a background tab. If the page loaded while hidden and TikTok never sent the first batch, or the grid stalls while hidden, the run pauses and resumes when you return to the tab instead of ending with a short list.
No hashtag-level totals. The export is per video. The headline view count on the hashtag page is not recorded.
One hashtag per run. Each run covers one tag; the Source Name column records which, so several runs combine cleanly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the TikTok hashtag scraper free?
Yes. Installing the extension and scraping are free on every plan. Credits are spent only on the rows you export, one per row, and re-exporting a row you have already paid for is free:
- Free plan: 500 export credits per month
- Pro Monthly: 10,000 export credits per month for $9.99/mo
- Pro Yearly: 10,000 export credits per month for $95.88/year ($7.99/mo)
One-time credit packs are also available for a single larger export.
Do I need a TikTok API key?
No. There is no developer account, no Research API application and no token to refresh. The extension reads the hashtag feed tiktok.com already sends to your browser.
How many hashtag videos can I export?
As many as your credits cover: 500 rows a month on the free plan and 10,000 on Pro. How many videos a single run collects is set by TikTok's feed, as described in the limits section above.
Can I export the hashtag's total view count?
No. Each row carries that video's own views, likes, comments, shares and bookmarks. The total shown at the top of the hashtag page is not recorded, so summing the Views column gives the reach of the videos you collected, not of the whole tag.
In what order do the videos come?
In the order TikTok shows them on the hashtag page. Hashtag pages have no sort control, so sort the export by views, likes or posted date afterwards.
Can I find creators to work with from a hashtag?
Yes, and it is one of the most common uses. Every row carries the creator's handle, bio, follower count, total likes and verified badge. Filter by follower range, then open the shortlisted handles with the TikTok Profile Scraper to pull their recent videos. Many creators publish a business email in their bio; it is in the Creator Bio column, and any email written in a caption lands in the Emails column. Use it for research and sourcing rather than unsolicited bulk outreach.
Can I get the comments on the videos I found?
Not in the same run. Take the video URLs with the most comments and open each one with the TikTok Comments Scraper, which exports the full comment thread with replies.
Is scraping TikTok hashtags legal?
Collecting publicly visible data for research, trend analysis and competitive analysis is long-established practice. Respect TikTok's Terms of Service and privacy law such as GDPR and CCPA, anonymise creators in anything you publish, and never use the data to target or harass individuals.
Searching by keyword instead of by tag? The TikTok Search Scraper exports keyword search results as videos or as creator accounts. For one creator's catalogue, use the TikTok Profile Scraper, and for a deeper look at performance across videos, the TikTok Analytics Scraper. Everything TikTok we support is on the TikTok scraper hub, and the TikTok competitor analysis guide shows how to put hashtag data to work.