Question 1

Do I need a TikTok account, cookies, or an official API key?

Accepted Answer

No. Every endpoint reads public data — you just send a plain REST request and get JSON back. Sessions, proxies and signing are handled server-side.

Question 2

Are the numbers exact or TikTok-rounded?

Accepted Answer

TikTok rounds play/like counts on all web surfaces (11,381 shows as 11,400). Profile follower/like counts are always exact, and /video/{id}?exact=true reads the app surface for unrounded counts. Every response tells you which you got in the statsPrecision field.

Question 3

The playAddr URL from a video response returns 403 — how do I play the video?

Accepted Answer

That's TikTok, not us: media URLs only work with the session that produced them. Use GET /video/{id}/stream — it returns the playable MP4, supports Range (seeking) and ?download=true for the download variant.

Question 4

How does pagination work?

Accepted Answer

Every response carries cursor and hasMore in the same envelope. Pass the cursor back unchanged to get the next page; when it returns null, you've reached the end.

Question 5

What content can I query?

Accepted Answer

Profiles (with posts and reposts), single videos and photo posts, comments and replies, hashtags, music, effects, live status, keyword search with suggestions, and trending videos/hashtags — plus a batch endpoint that returns up to 20 videos in one request.

TikTok

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a TikTok account, cookies, or an official API key?

Are the numbers exact or TikTok-rounded?

The playAddr URL from a video response returns 403 — how do I play the video?

How does pagination work?

What content can I query?