ParseForge Scrapers

Wikimedia Commons Category Files Scraper

parseforge/wikimedia-commons-category-files-scraper

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Run this scraper See the API call
Total users
2
Monthly active
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Total runs
5
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Last modified
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Overview

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๐Ÿ–ผ๏ธ Wikimedia Commons Category Files Scraper

๐Ÿš€ Export every file in a Wikimedia Commons category, with image URLs and license, in seconds.

This Actor reads the official MediaWiki API and returns every file in a Wikimedia Commons category with its direct image URL, license, author, dimensions, MIME type, uploader, and dates. No login, no API key, no HTML scraping.

Wikimedia Commons holds over 100 million freely licensed media files. Point this Actor at any category and get a clean, structured dataset you can filter, join, and reuse (with attribution).

For Use it to
Researchers & educators Collect openly licensed images by topic
Designers & media teams Source public-domain and CC media with author + license
Data teams Build image datasets with rich metadata

๐Ÿ“‹ What it does

  • Lists all files in a Wikimedia Commons category via the MediaWiki API.
  • Returns each file with its direct download URL and metadata.
  • Paginates automatically up to your maxItems.

๐Ÿ’ก Why it matters: every row carries the license and author, so you can reuse the media correctly.

๐Ÿ“Š Output

Field Description
๐Ÿ–ผ๏ธ imageUrl Direct file URL on upload.wikimedia.org
๐Ÿ“• title File title
๐Ÿ†” pageId Commons page id
๐Ÿ”— descriptionUrl File description page
๐Ÿ—‚๏ธ mime MIME type (image/jpeg, etc.)
๐Ÿ“ width / height Pixel dimensions
๐Ÿ’พ sizeBytes File size in bytes
๐Ÿ‘ค uploader Uploading user
๐Ÿ•’ uploadTimestamp Upload time
๐Ÿ“„ license License short name (e.g. CC BY-SA 4.0)
โœ๏ธ artist Author / creator
๐Ÿท๏ธ credit Credit line
๐Ÿ“… dateOriginal Original date of the work

Sample record:

{
  "imageUrl": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/example.jpg",
  "title": "File:Example.jpg",
  "mime": "image/jpeg",
  "width": 4342,
  "height": 1995,
  "uploader": "Podzemnik",
  "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
  "artist": "Michal Klajban"
}

๐Ÿš€ How to use

  1. Create a free account w/ $5 credit.
  2. Enter a category (without the Category: prefix) and maxItems.
  3. Run it and download the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, or XML.

โ“ FAQ

Do I need an API key? No. The Actor uses the public MediaWiki API.

Where is the category name from? Any category page on commons.wikimedia.org, e.g. "Featured pictures on Wikimedia Commons".

Can I reuse the images? Yes, subject to each file's license (see the license and artist fields). Always attribute per the license.

How fresh is the data? Every run reads the MediaWiki API live.

๐Ÿ”— Recommended Actors

๐Ÿ’ก Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection for more data Actors.


This Actor is not affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation. It reads publicly available data from the MediaWiki API. Respect each file's license and Wikimedia's terms.

Input

FieldTypeWhat it doesDefault
category string Wikimedia Commons category name (without the 'Category:' prefix). Every file in the category is returned with its metadata. Featured pictures on Wikimedia Commons
maxItems integer Free users: Limited to 10 items (preview). Paid users: Optional, max 1,000,000 10

Pricing

from $3.62 per 1,000 results

Charged forWhat it isPrice each
result Single result in the default dataset. $0.00362 to $0.004

Tiered: the lower figure is the price on a higher Apify plan. Billing and the free credit live on Apify.

API

One POST returns the dataset directly. Same shape for every scraper in the library, so swapping the slug is the only change.

POST ยท run and get results
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/parseforge~wikimedia-commons-category-files-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "helloWorld": 123
  }'

Examples

Input that runs as-is.

input.json
{
  "helloWorld": 123
}

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Issues

We build and maintain this scraper, so a problem with it comes to us. Report it on the Apify listing and the thread stays attached to the scraper where the next person can find it: open an issue.

Broken and urgent, or you would rather not post in public? Write to parseforge@protonmail.com and it reaches the people who wrote it.

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