Facebook Groups Search Scraper

👥 Facebook Groups Search Scraper

🚀 Export Facebook groups by keyword in seconds. Type a topic and get every matching group with its ID, URL, public or private status, exact member count, posts today and in the last month, creation date, location, description, admin count and rules. 26 fields per group, no Facebook account needed.

Facebook Groups Search Scraper turns a keyword into a clean list of Facebook groups. It searches the public web index of facebook.com/groups for each term, across dozens of keyword variations, then opens every group's public About tab and reads what Facebook itself publishes there. Public and private groups are both covered, because Facebook shows the About tab of a private group to anyone.

Every row carries 26 fields. Member counts are exact (16,380, not "16K"), activity comes straight from Facebook's own counters (posts today and posts in the last 30 days), and the creation date is an exact timestamp. One search term usually returns a few hundred distinct groups, and filters for privacy, member range, activity and location keep only the communities you would actually join or contact. Groups you filter out are never billed.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Community marketers, growth teams, social media managers, local businesses, researchers, lead generation agencies, brand and product managers	Finding groups to join or partner with, community mapping by niche or city, competitor and brand community tracking, market research, activity benchmarking

📋 What the Facebook Groups Search Scraper does

• 🔎 Keyword to groups. Each search term runs across up to 35 keyword variations ("tesla club", "tesla owners", "tesla uk"...) so you get far more than one results page.
• 👥 Exact audience size. The precise member total from the group's About tab, plus the text Facebook shows.
• 📈 Real activity. Posts today, posts in the last month and the average posts per day, so you can tell a living community from a dead one.
• 🔒 Privacy and visibility. PUBLIC or PRIVATE, VISIBLE or HIDDEN, with Facebook's own explanation.
• 📍 Location, history and rules. Group locations, exact creation date, name-change history, every rule with its text, and the number of admins and moderators.
• 🔗 Group URLs too. Paste links you already have (a group home, About tab, post or permalink) to refresh their numbers.
• 🧹 Filters that save money. Privacy, minimum and maximum members, minimum posts per day, location text and strict keyword match. Filtered groups are not billed.

💡 Why it matters: the size of a Facebook group says little on its own. Plenty of 300,000-member groups get 3 posts a month, and plenty of 2,000-member groups are buzzing. This Actor gives you the member count and the real posting activity side by side, so you pick the communities that will actually see your message.

🎬 Full Demo (🚧 Coming soon)

📊 Output

Field	Description
🖼 imageUrl	Cover photo of the group (profile picture when there is no cover)
📌 name	Group name
🔗 url	Canonical group URL
🆔 groupId	Numeric Facebook group ID
🏷 vanity	Custom group handle, N/A when the group uses its numeric ID
🔒 privacy	PUBLIC or PRIVATE
📝 privacyDescription	Facebook's explanation of the privacy setting
👁 visibility	VISIBLE (anyone can find it) or HIDDEN
👥 members	Exact member count
👥 membersText	Member count as Facebook writes it
📝 postsToday	New posts today
📅 postsLastMonth	Posts in the last 30 days
📈 avgPostsPerDay	Average posts per day over the last month
🎂 createdAt	Exact creation date and time (ISO 8601)
📜 history	Creation and name-change history as Facebook states it
📍 location	First location set by the group
🗺 locations	Every location set by the group
📄 description	Group description
🛡 adminAndModeratorCount	Number of admins and moderators (Not Disclosed on private groups)
📏 rulesCount	Number of group rules
📋 rules	Each rule's title and text
🖼 profilePictureUrl	Small group picture
🔎 query	Search term that found the group
🏅 rank	Order in which the search found it
🕒 scrapedAt	When the row was collected
❌ error	Empty on success, a message on an unbilled error row

Three real rows from a run with the search term tesla (image URLs shortened and two rules shown):

[
  {
    "imageUrl": "https://scontent.fkhh1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/285161879_509404357631733_3339109745958488311_n.jpg",
    "name": "TESLA",
    "url": "https://www.facebook.com/groups/260505726202010/",
    "groupId": "260505726202010",
    "vanity": "N/A",
    "privacy": "PRIVATE",
    "privacyDescription": "Only members can see who's in the group and what they post.",
    "visibility": "VISIBLE",
    "members": 328102,
    "membersText": "328,102 total members",
    "postsToday": 0,
    "postsLastMonth": 3,
    "avgPostsPerDay": 0.1,
    "createdAt": "2022-04-10T05:11:28.000Z",
    "history": "Group created on April 10, 2022. Name last changed on September 9, 2022.",
    "location": "Los Angeles, California",
    "locations": ["Los Angeles, California", "Fremont, California", "Austin, Texas"],
    "description": "Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy...",
    "adminAndModeratorCount": "Not Disclosed",
    "rulesCount": 3,
    "rules": [
      { "title": "ZERO tolerance for promotions or spam", "description": "Give more to this group than you take. Self-promotion, Referral Links, spam and irrelevant links aren't allowed..." },
      { "title": "Posts should add value", "description": "If its not not relevant to this group do NOT post it..." }
    ],
    "profilePictureUrl": "https://scontent.fkhh1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/285161879_509404357631733_3339109745958488311_n.jpg",
    "query": "tesla",
    "rank": 6,
    "scrapedAt": "2026-09-29T01:06:23.258Z",
    "error": null
  },
  {
    "imageUrl": "https://scontent-lhr11-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/681407827_10175053292720179_5146749440355349459_n.jpg",
    "name": "Tesla Owners Australia",
    "url": "https://www.facebook.com/groups/teslaownersaustralia/",
    "groupId": "179046264217457",
    "vanity": "teslaownersaustralia",
    "privacy": "PUBLIC",
    "privacyDescription": "Anyone can see who's in the group and what they post.",
    "visibility": "VISIBLE",
    "members": 142431,
    "membersText": "142,431 total members",
    "postsToday": 28,
    "postsLastMonth": 1081,
    "avgPostsPerDay": 36,
    "createdAt": "2021-08-03T02:24:41.000Z",
    "history": "Group created on 3 August 2021. Name last changed on 3 August 2021.",
    "location": "Australia",
    "locations": ["Australia"],
    "description": "A Group for all those who are thinking of buying or already own a Tesla! \n\nFriendly community for those to share information 💕",
    "adminAndModeratorCount": 31,
    "rulesCount": 9,
    "rules": [
      { "title": "Australian Members Only", "description": "If you join this group and live outside Australia please look at alternative groups..." },
      { "title": "No promotions or spam*", "description": "Give more to this group than you take. Self-promotion, spam and irrelevant links aren't allowed..." }
    ],
    "profilePictureUrl": "https://scontent-lhr11-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/681407827_10175053292720179_5146749440355349459_n.jpg",
    "query": "tesla",
    "rank": 12,
    "scrapedAt": "2026-09-29T01:06:29.010Z",
    "error": null
  },
  {
    "imageUrl": "https://scontent.fmar1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/466630204_959597319528534_2355635411440743585_n.jpg",
    "name": "TESLA",
    "url": "https://www.facebook.com/groups/1144184091095064/",
    "groupId": "1144184091095064",
    "vanity": "N/A",
    "privacy": "PUBLIC",
    "privacyDescription": "Anyone can see who's in the group and what they post.",
    "visibility": "VISIBLE",
    "members": 78116,
    "membersText": "78,116 total members",
    "postsToday": 4,
    "postsLastMonth": 302,
    "avgPostsPerDay": 10.1,
    "createdAt": "2024-11-12T23:37:49.000Z",
    "history": "Group created on 12 November 2024. Name last changed on 12 November 2024.",
    "location": "Los Angeles, California",
    "locations": ["Los Angeles, California"],
    "description": "Dedicated community of #Tesla owners and fans",
    "adminAndModeratorCount": 1,
    "rulesCount": 0,
    "rules": [],
    "profilePictureUrl": "https://scontent.fmar1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/466630204_959597319528534_2355635411440743585_n.jpg",
    "query": "tesla",
    "rank": 1,
    "scrapedAt": "2026-09-29T01:06:20.981Z",
    "error": null
  }
]

✨ Why choose this Actor

• ✅ It returns data. Every run either delivers rows or fails with a clear reason. It never ends "successful" with an empty dataset because something broke, and unbilled error rows explain any group it could not read.
• 👥 Exact numbers. Member totals, posts today and posts in the last month are Facebook's own exact counters, not rounded "21K members" or "4 posts a day" text.
• 🔒 Private groups included. Their About tab is public, so they come with members, activity, location, history and rules.
• 🛡 Admin and moderator count. Know how well moderated a group is before you post there.
• 🧹 Filters before billing. Groups outside your privacy, size, activity or location filters are skipped for free.
• 🙅 No account, no cookies. Nothing to log in to, nothing to get banned.

📈 How it compares to alternatives

	This Actor	Typical group search scrapers
Needs a Facebook account or cookies	❌ No	Often yes
Member count	Exact number	Rounded text ("21K members")
Activity	Posts today + posts last month + average per day	"4 posts a day" text, when shown
Creation date and history	✅ Exact timestamp	❌
Location, description, rules	✅	Partial or none
Admin and moderator count	✅ (public groups)	❌
Filters (privacy, size, activity, location)	✅ Free for skipped groups	Rare
Empty run when something breaks	❌ Never, it fails with a reason	Common complaint

Honest ceiling: Facebook's own group search needs a login, so this Actor discovers groups through the public web index instead. That gives a few hundred groups per search term, which covers the groups people actually find, but it is not every group Facebook holds. Add more specific terms (a city, a model, a hobby) to go wider. Member lists and posts inside groups are not read, because they need a login.

🚀 How to use

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 credit: sign up here.
2. Open Facebook Groups Search Scraper and type one or more search terms, for example tesla, real estate investors or dog lovers london.
3. Optional: set filters (privacy, member range, posts per day, location) and Max Items.
4. Keep the default residential proxy and click Start.
5. Download the groups as CSV, Excel, JSON or XML from the dataset tab.

Example:

{ "searchQueries": ["tesla", "electric vehicles"], "maxItems": 200, "privacy": "any", "minMembers": 1000, "minPostsPerDay": 1 }

💼 Business use cases

📣 Community marketing

Build a shortlist of active groups in your niche, sorted by members and posts per day, and focus your time where people are actually talking.

🤝 Partnerships and outreach

Find the biggest groups in a city or industry, check how many admins and moderators run them, and read their rules on promotion before you reach out.

🕵️ Brand and competitor tracking

See which groups form around your brand or a competitor's, how fast they grow in activity, and where they are located.

📊 Market research

Size a niche by the number of groups, their combined members and their monthly activity, and compare it across countries or topics.

🔌 Automating Facebook Groups Search Scraper

Schedule it on Apify to refresh your group lists weekly, then send the results where you work:

• Make and Zapier: push new groups into a CRM or a spreadsheet.
• Slack: post a message when a new active group appears for your keyword.
• Airbyte: load the dataset into your warehouse.
• GitHub Actions: trigger a run from your pipeline through the Apify API.
• Google Drive: export each run as a spreadsheet automatically.

🌟 Beyond business use cases

• Research: study how online communities form around topics, places and products.
• Personal: find the best local, hobby or support groups to join.
• Non-profit: locate communities to share volunteering or awareness campaigns with.
• Experimentation: build datasets of community size versus activity.

🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Paste this page into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and ask things like "which filters should I use to find active local groups about gardening?" or "how do I send the results to Google Sheets?".

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🔑 Do I need a Facebook account or cookies?

No. The Actor reads only what Facebook shows to logged-out visitors. Nothing is logged in and no account can be banned.

🔎 Is this the same as the search box on facebook.com?

No. Facebook's own group search needs a login. This Actor finds groups through the public web index of Facebook groups and then reads each group's About tab directly from Facebook, so the numbers are Facebook's own.

📚 How many groups can one search term return?

Usually a few hundred. Each term is searched with up to 35 variations. For bigger lists, add more specific terms such as a city, a product or a hobby.

🔒 Does it work for private groups?

Yes. Facebook publishes the About tab of private groups to everyone: name, members, activity, location, history, description and rules. The admin and moderator count is hidden on private groups and shows as Not Disclosed.

📈 How is activity measured?

postsToday and postsLastMonth are Facebook's own counters from the About tab. avgPostsPerDay is posts in the last month divided by 30.

🧹 Are filtered groups billed?

No. Only groups that pass your filters become rows, and only rows are billed. Error rows are never billed.

📍 How does the location filter work?

It keeps groups whose Facebook location contains your text, for example "Florida" or "London". Groups that set no location are skipped when the filter is on.

📧 Does it return admin names or contact details?

No. Only the number of admins and moderators is returned. Email addresses, phone numbers and WhatsApp links inside descriptions and rules are replaced with [removed], because they belong to private individuals.

🛡 Do I need a proxy?

Yes, and it is set by default. Facebook shows a login wall to datacenter addresses, so group pages go through Apify's residential proxy. Search requests use the cheaper datacenter proxy automatically.

🚫 What happens when something goes wrong?

A group that Facebook removed or walls off becomes an unbilled error row with the reason. If every page is walled or the search engines refuse every request, the run fails with a clear message instead of finishing empty.

🔗 Can I use group URLs instead of keywords?

Yes. Put them in Group URLs. A group home, About tab, post or permalink link all work, and the Actor reads the group behind it.

🔁 Why can the same group appear under two names?

It cannot: rows are de-duplicated on the numeric group ID, even when the search finds the group under both its handle and its ID.

🔌 Integrate with any app

Use the Apify API, the JavaScript and Python clients, webhooks or any of the integrations above to plug the groups into your own tools.

➡️ Next step

Feed the url column into the next Actor:

• Facebook Groups Scraper: read each group in depth, including a preview of recent posts.
• Facebook Posts Scraper: posts from public pages and profiles.
• Facebook Comments Scraper: comments and replies on any public post.

🔗 Recommended Actors

• Facebook Search Scraper
• Facebook Groups Scraper
• Facebook Pages Scraper
• Facebook Posts Scraper
• Facebook Comments Scraper

💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection.

🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form

⚠️ Disclaimer: this is an independent tool, not affiliated with Facebook or Meta. It collects only publicly available data.