facebook-scraper

A set of python modules to help scrape data from Facebook using the Graph API and store it in different formats

Requirements

This project has been developed on OSX using Python's Anaconda 4.3.1 (Python 3.6) which comes pre-packaged with all the necessary libraries for running this project. I do not provide support for Windows or Linux, nor to users who are not using the Anaconda distribution.

Anaconda: https://www.continuum.io/downloads

Usage

Please refer to the Jupyter notebook for step-by-step illustrations of how it works: Scraping Basics

Sample Script

One quick way to get started would be to create a python script that scrapes a page given the proper credentials, for instance:

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import fb_scraper.prodcons

APP_ID = ''
APP_ID_SECRET = ''
ACCESS_TOKEN = ''

def main():
    mgr = fb_scraper.prodcons.Manager(
        access_token=ACCESS_TOKEN,
        api_key=APP_ID,
        api_secret=APP_ID_SECRET
        )
    mgr.start()

    mgr.scrape_group('group_id')  # Add group_id
    mgr.scrape_post('post_id')  # Add full form post_id (i.e. groupid_postid)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

And run the script to fully scrape the Public Page/Group PAGE_ID

Limitations

Apart from the non-implemented aspects, this scraper is subjected to the limitations/possibilities provided by the Graph API (i.e. cannot scrape closed groups unless it is the admin doing it or inability to scrape a profile page). Please refer to the Graph API Documentation for an understanding of those limitations