Twitter Scraper

# Twitter/X Profile Scraper

A browser-based Twitter/X profile discovery and scraping tool.

> Part of ScrapeClaw — a suite of production-ready, agentic social media scrapers for Instagram, YouTube, X/Twitter, and Facebook built with Python & Playwright, no API keys required.

```yaml --- name: twitter-scraper description: Discover and scrape Twitter/X public profiles from your browser. emoji: 🐦 version: 1.0.2 author: influenza tags: - twitter - x - scraping - social-media - profile-discovery - influencer-discovery metadata: clawdbot: requires: bins: - python3 - chromium

config: stateDirs: - data/output - data/queue - thumbnails outputFormats: - json - csv --- ```

Overview

This skill provides a two-phase Twitter/X scraping system:

1. Profile Discovery — Find Twitter accounts via Google Custom Search API or DuckDuckGo
2. Browser Scraping — Scrape public profiles using Playwright with anti-detection (no login required)

Features

• 🔍 - Discover Twitter/X profiles by location and category
• 🌐 - Full browser simulation for accurate scraping
• 🛡️ - Browser fingerprinting, human behavior simulation, and stealth scripts
• 📊 - Profile info, followers, tweets, engagement data, and media
• 💾 - JSON/CSV export with downloaded thumbnails
• 🔄 - Resume interrupted scraping sessions
• ⚡ - Auto-skip private accounts, low-follower profiles, suspended users
• 🌍 - Built-in residential proxy support with 4 providers

#### Getting Google API Credentials (Optional)

1. Go to Google Cloud Console
2. Create a new project or select existing
3. Enable "Custom Search API"
4. Create API credentials → API Key
5. Go to Programmable Search Engine
6. Create a search engine with `x.com` and `twitter.com` as the sites to search
7. Copy the Search Engine ID

If not configured, discovery falls back to DuckDuckGo (no API key needed).

Usage

Agent Tool Interface

For OpenClaw agent integration, the skill provides JSON output:

```bash # Discover Twitter profiles (returns JSON) discover --location "Miami" --category "tech" --output json

# Discover profiles in a specific category (returns JSON) discover --location "New York" --category "crypto" --output json

# Scrape single profile (returns JSON) scrape --username elonmusk --output json

# Scrape from a queue file scrape data/queue/Miami_tech_20260220_120000.json ```

Output Data

Profile Data Structure

```json { "username": "elonmusk", "display_name": "Elon Musk", "bio": "...", "followers": 180000000, "following": 800, "tweets_count": 45000, "is_verified": true, "profile_pic_url": "https://...", "profile_pic_local": "thumbnails/elonmusk/profile_abc123.jpg", "user_location": "Mars & Earth", "join_date": "June 2009", "website": "https://x.ai", "influencer_tier": "mega", "category": "tech", "scrape_location": "New York", "scraped_at": "2026-02-17T12:00:00", "recent_tweets": [ { "id": "1234567890", "text": "Tweet content...", "timestamp": "2026-02-17T10:30:00.000Z", "likes": 50000, "retweets": 12000, "replies": 3000, "views": "5.2M", "media_urls": ["https://..."], "media_local": ["thumbnails/elonmusk/tweet_media_0_def456.jpg"], "is_retweet": false, "is_reply": false, "url": "https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1234567890" } ] } ```

Queue File Structure

```json { "location": "New York", "category": "tech", "total": 15, "usernames": ["user1", "user2", "..."], "completed": ["user1"], "failed": {"user3": "not_found"}, "current_index": 2, "created_at": "2026-02-17T12:00:00", "source": "google_api" } ```

Influencer Tiers

| Tier | Followers Range | |-------|---------------------| | nano | < 1,000 | | micro | 1,000 - 10,000 | | mid | 10,000 - 100,000 | | macro | 100,000 - 1M | | mega | > 1,000,000 |

File Outputs

• Queue files: `data/queue/{location}_{category}_{timestamp}.json`
• Scraped data: `data/output/{username}.json`
• Thumbnails: `thumbnails/{username}/profile_*.jpg`, `thumbnails/{username}/tweet_media_*.jpg`
• Export files: `data/export_{timestamp}.json`, `data/export_{timestamp}.csv`

Configuration

Edit `config/scraper_config.json`:

```json { "proxy": { "enabled": false, "provider": "brightdata", "country": "", "sticky": true, "sticky_ttl_minutes": 10 }, "google_search": { "enabled": true, "api_key": "", "search_engine_id": "", "queries_per_location": 3 }, "scraper": { "headless": false, "min_followers": 500, "max_tweets": 20, "download_thumbnails": true, "max_thumbnails": 6, "delay_between_profiles": [4, 8], "timeout": 60000 }, "cities": ["New York", "Los Angeles", "Miami", "Chicago"], "categories": ["tech", "politics", "sports", "entertainment", "news", "crypto"] } ```

Filters Applied

The scraper automatically filters out:

• ❌ Suspended or deactivated accounts
• ❌ Protected (private) accounts
• ❌ Profiles with < 500 followers (configurable)
• ❌ Non-existent usernames
• ❌ Already scraped entries (deduplication)

Anti-Detection

The scraper uses multiple anti-detection techniques:

• Browser fingerprinting — 4 rotating fingerprint profiles (viewport, user agent, timezone, WebGL, etc.)
• Stealth JavaScript — Hides `navigator.webdriver`, spoofs plugins/languages/hardware, canvas noise, fake `chrome` object
• Human behavior simulation — Random delays, mouse movements, scrolling patterns
• Network randomization — Variable timing between requests
• Login wall handling — Automatically dismisses Twitter's login prompts and overlays

Troubleshooting

No Profiles Discovered

• Check Google API key and quota
• Verify Search Engine ID is configured for x.com and twitter.com
• Try different location/category combinations
• If Google fails, DuckDuckGo fallback is used automatically

Rate Limiting

• Reduce scraping speed (increase delays in config)
• Run during off-peak hours
• Use a residential proxy (see below)

Login Wall Issues

• The scraper automatically dismisses login prompts
• If content is blocked, try running with `--headless` disabled to debug visually

---

🌐 Residential Proxy Support

Why Use a Residential Proxy?

Running a scraper at scale without a residential proxy will get your IP blocked fast. Here's why proxies are essential for long-running scrapes:

| Advantage | Description | |-----------|-------------| | Avoid IP Bans | Residential IPs look like real household users, not data-center bots. Twitter/X is far less likely to flag them. | | Automatic IP Rotation | Each request (or session) gets a fresh IP, so rate-limits never stack up on one address. | | Geo-Targeting | Route traffic through a specific country/city so scraped content matches the target audience's locale. | | Sticky Sessions | Keep the same IP for a configurable window (e.g. 10 min) — critical for maintaining a consistent browsing session. | | Higher Success Rate | Rotating residential IPs deliver 95%+ success rates compared to ~30% with data-center proxies on Twitter/X. | | Long-Running Scrapes | Scrape thousands of profiles over hours or days without interruption. | | Concurrent Scraping | Run multiple browser instances across different IPs simultaneously. |

Recommended Proxy Providers

We have affiliate partnerships with top residential proxy providers. Using these links supports continued development of this skill:

| Provider | Best For | Sign Up | |----------|----------|---------| | Bright Data | World's largest network, 72M+ IPs, enterprise-grade | 👉 Get Bright Data | | IProyal | Pay-as-you-go, 195+ countries, no traffic expiry | 👉 Get IProyal | | Storm Proxies | Fast & reliable, developer-friendly API, competitive pricing | 👉 Get Storm Proxies | | NetNut | ISP-grade network, 52M+ IPs, direct connectivity | 👉 Get NetNut |

Setup Steps

#### 1. Get Your Proxy Credentials

• Sign up with any provider above, then grab:
• Username (from your provider dashboard)
• Password (from your provider dashboard)
• Host and Port are pre-configured per provider (or use custom)

#### 2. Configure via Environment Variables

```bash export PROXY_ENABLED=true export PROXY_PROVIDER=brightdata # brightdata | iproyal | stormproxies | netnut | custom export PROXY_USERNAME=your_user export PROXY_PASSWORD=your_pass export PROXY_COUNTRY=us # optional: two-letter country code export PROXY_STICKY=true # optional: keep same IP per session ```

#### 3. Provider-Specific Host/Port Defaults

These are auto-configured when you set the `provider` name:

| Provider | Host | Port | |----------|------|------| | Bright Data | `brd.superproxy.io` | `22225` | | IProyal | `proxy.iproyal.com` | `12321` | | Storm Proxies | `rotating.stormproxies.com` | `9999` | | NetNut | `gw-resi.netnut.io` | `5959` |

Override with `PROXY_HOST` / `PROXY_PORT` env vars if your plan uses a different gateway.

#### 4. Custom Proxy Provider

For any other proxy service, set provider to `custom` and supply host/port manually:

```json { "proxy": { "enabled": true, "provider": "custom", "host": "your.proxy.host", "port": 8080, "username": "user", "password": "pass" } } ```

Running the Scraper with Proxy

Once configured, the scraper picks up the proxy automatically — no extra flags needed:

```bash # Discover and scrape as usual — proxy is applied automatically python main.py discover --location "Miami" --category "tech" python main.py scrape --username elonmusk

# The log will confirm proxy is active: # INFO - Proxy enabled: <ProxyManager provider=brightdata enabled host=brd.superproxy.io:22225> # INFO - Browser using proxy: brightdata → brd.superproxy.io:22225 ```

Using the Proxy Manager Programmatically

```python from proxy_manager import ProxyManager

# From config (auto-reads config/scraper_config.json) pm = ProxyManager.from_config()

# From environment variables pm = ProxyManager.from_env()

# Manual construction pm = ProxyManager( provider="brightdata", username="your_user", password="your_pass", country="us", sticky=True )

# For Playwright browser context proxy = pm.get_playwright_proxy() # → {"server": "http://brd.superproxy.io:22225", "username": "user-country-us-session-abc123", "password": "pass"}

# For requests / aiohttp proxies = pm.get_requests_proxy() # → {"http": "http://user:pass@host:port", "https": "http://user:pass@host:port"}

# Force new IP (rotates session ID) pm.rotate_session()

# Debug info print(pm.info()) ```

Best Practices for Long-Running Scrapes

1. Use sticky sessions — Twitter requires consistent IPs during a browsing session. Set `"sticky": true`.
2. Target the right country — Set `"country": "us"` (or your target region) so Twitter serves content in the expected locale.
3. Combine with existing anti-detection — This scraper already has fingerprinting, stealth scripts, and human behavior simulation. The proxy is the final layer.
4. Rotate sessions between batches — Call `pm.rotate_session()` between large batches of profiles to get a fresh IP.
5. Use delays — Even with proxies, respect `delay_between_profiles` in config (default 4-8s) to avoid aggressive patterns.
6. Monitor your proxy dashboard — All providers have dashboards showing bandwidth usage and success rates.

Notes

• No login required — Only scrapes publicly visible content
• Checkpoint/resume — Queue files track progress; interrupted scrapes can be resumed with `--resume`
• Rate limiting — Waits 60s on rate limit, stops on daily limit detection
• Twitter selectors — Uses `data-testid` attributes (stable across UI changes) with fallbacks to `aria-label` and structural selectors