Meta Content Library

Meta Content Library is a controlled-access tool that lets approved academic and non-profit researchers search the full public archive of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads posts, in near-real-time.

URL

https://transparency.meta.com/researchtools/meta-content-library/\

While this is a free tool, access is strictly limited. However, any researcher affiliated with an academic institution or another not‑for‑profit organisation whose core activity is scientific or public‑interest research can apply. Individuals can apply for access to these tools at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan. If you intend to use it for research purposes, make sure to keep in mind the application time: The review process typically takes between 2-4 weeks, but can take up to 3-6 months for multi-agency data access requests or if additional reviews are needed.

(as of the most recent update from July 31st, 2025)

Description

The Meta Content Library is a research tool that provides vetted academic and non-profit researchers with access to public posts from Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. It enables near real-time and historical analysis of social media content, facilitating studies on political discourse, public health trends, misinformation, and other topics. (Replaces deprecated CrowdTangle for research at scale; the only Meta-sanctioned source that exposes view-count (“exposure”) data.)

The platform features:

User Interface (UI): A web-based dashboard for content search and filtering.
API Access: Programmatic access for large-scale queries (Python or R via ICPSR's secure Virtual Data Enclave).
- Asynchronous search: the API supports background queries, letting users run large queries and monitor progress separately
, the Library includes all public Threads posts that meet the 1 k-follower rule; engagement metrics and OCR text-in-image search work for Threads too. Meta’s update shows the library now covers more surfaces, including Facebook Marketplace listings, Facebook and Instagram fundraisers, story highlights and gaming videos.
– the web UI lets users build dashboards based on keywords and producer lists and allows team collaboration and auto‑refresh
Search‐in‑images: text‑in‑image search covers approximately the last 180 days (previously ~90) and supports story highlights
Advanced Filtering: Keyword searches, engagement metrics, date ranges, and language filters.
- A verified‑filter allows users to restrict searches to verified, unverified or all accounts across Facebook, Instagram and Threads
- Comment‑text search and sorting – researchers can search within the comments of a Facebook/Instagram post or Threads reply and filter by date
Engagement Insights: View counts, reactions, shares, and comments with hashed user IDs.
Historical Data: Access dating back to Facebook's launch (2004), with updates in near real-time.
Downloads: Available for accounts meeting the "widely known" criteria (e.g., Facebook Pages with ≥15,000 followers, Instagram accounts with a verified badge or ≥1,000 followers, Threads public profiles ≥ 1 000 followers). CSV export is only for Facebook & Instagram posts that meet the “widely-known” criteria; Threads is UI-only for now.
Privacy Protection: Content is subject to deletion/privacy settings, ensuring ethical use.

Details on Features and Limits

Features and Functionality

Search Capabilities: The Meta Content Library allows researchers to search across public Facebook and Instagram content with advanced filters. This includes keyword queries with support for exact phrase matching. Notably, the platform can even search for text contained within images, thanks to Meta’s OCR integration – searches now include text found in images posted on Facebook or Instagram.
UI and API Access: The tool is accessible via a as well as a , both backed by the same near-real-time database of public content. This dual access means researchers can either interact with the data through a visual interface or query it using code, according to their needs.
Content Coverage: Meta Content Library provides comprehensive access to public posts from plus public content from . As of , it was expanded to include Threads posts as well, further broadening the cross-platform scope of publicly accessible content. All data is updated in near real-time, ensuring timely analysis.

Engagement Metrics Available

Post Engagement Details: For each post in the library, Meta provides engagement metrics. Researchers can see the number of reactions (including likes and other reactions), comments, and shares each post received.
View Counts: Importantly, the Content Library also surfaces post view counts – the number of times people viewed the post. This “exposure” data helps researchers understand reach, not just interaction. (For example, Meta notes that giving insight into how many people potentially saw a piece of content.)
Comments Data: In addition to posts, public comments on Facebook (and recently Instagram comments via the API) are accessible, allowing analysis of discussion threads in public forums. All these metrics and content types are available both through the UI and via API output in the data.

Eligible Content and CSV Download Criteria

“Widely Known” Accounts: The Content Library focuses on posts from high-profile public sources. According to Meta’s documentation, it includes: (This covers prominent individuals and organizations on Facebook, as well as Instagram/Threads accounts meeting that follower threshold or verification status.) In other words, only content from these widely-followed or verified accounts is available for search and CSV export – aligning with Meta’s definition of “widely-known figures and organizations” ().
Cross-Platform Inclusion: This criterion applies across Facebook and Instagram. For example, Instagram business and creator accounts that are public and have at least 25k followers (or a verification badge) are included in the library (). The same goes for Threads profiles (which are tied to Instagram accounts) meeting the 25k-follower mark. On Facebook, public profiles (personal accounts) with a This ensures that CSV downloads are limited to content from Pages and users with significant public followings.

Query Limits and Data Usage Quotas

Weekly Query Budget: Meta imposes a rate limit on how much data can be retrieved to ensure manageable use. Official documentation specifies a maximum of 500,000 content items (posts, etc.) that each researcher can retrieve . In other words, the Content Library caps results at 500,000 per week per user. This limit is in line with Meta’s data access policies to prevent abuse while still allowing large-scale research queries.
CSV Download Limits: Crucially, any results downloaded as CSV count toward that weekly quota. Meta notes that ”. There is no separate higher limit for CSV exports – the same 500k/week cap applies. If a researcher exports 100k rows today, it consumes part of the 500k allotment for the current 7-day window.

Cost

Free
Partially Free
Paid

Level of difficulty

Moderate difficulty: The UI is user-friendly, but API access requires coding knowledge and data analysis skills.

Requirements

Researchers must be affiliated with an academic or non-profit institution.
Applications are vetted by the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR).
No IRB approval required, but applicants must submit a research agenda.
User interface access is available upon approval; API access requires a separate credential, which requires additional documentation (research proposal approved by your IRB) and access via Amazon WorkSpaces Secure Browser. No raw-file download from the API; analysis must stay inside the VDE.

Limitations

Restricted Access: Only available to approved researchers (not the general public).
Data Privacy: Deleted/private posts become unavailable; raw data cannot be exported from the API.
Query Limits: API access has a weekly cap of 500,000 retrieved content items.
Replication Challenges: Due to content deletion or privacy changes, perfect replication of results can be difficult.
No Personal Identifiers: User data is unless the account is a public entity.
: Researchers must delete data older than 180 days that is no longer in the library.

Ethical Considerations

Privacy Compliance: Researchers must respect data privacy and ethical standards.
No User Tracking: The platform does not allow longitudinal tracking of individuals.
Use Limitations: Data cannot be used for surveillance or commercial purposes.

Guide

Official Documentation: Meta Transparency Center
ICPSR Social Media Archive: https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/
"Public Data Access Programs: A First Look" is a comprehensive evaluation by Hickey, Dowling, Navia, and Pershan (2024, Mozilla Foundation). The study assesses how major platforms, including Meta, provide researchers access to public data under the Digital Services Act, with a focus on usability, transparency, and technical limitations. It highlights the platform's dual-access approach via a user-friendly dashboard and API while also noting challenges such as data consistency and limited documentation that can affect replicability and broader research applications.
In this two-part webinar series, led by under the , researchers at the University of Glasgow and specialists from Meta discuss the Meta Content Library’s evolving capabilities. The focuses on core concepts such as keyword-based searches and privacy safeguards for analyzing public Facebook and Instagram data. The highlights newly added features, including comment-level data, text-in-image matching, and Threads integration, to support more advanced social media research.

Tool provider

Meta Platforms, Inc. Menlo Park, California, U.S

Advertising Trackers

This tool has not been checked for advertising trackers yet.
This tool uses tracking cookies. Use with caution.
This tool does not appear to use tracking cookies.

Page maintainer

Martin Sona

Last updated 11 days ago

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(as of the most recent update from July 31st, 2025)

Description

The platform features:

User Interface (UI): A web-based dashboard for content search and filtering.

API Access: Programmatic access for large-scale queries (Python or R via ICPSR's secure Virtual Data Enclave).

Asynchronous search: the API supports background queries, letting users run large queries and monitor progress separately

, the Library includes all public Threads posts that meet the 1 k-follower rule; engagement metrics and OCR text-in-image search work for Threads too. Meta’s update shows the library now covers more surfaces, including Facebook Marketplace listings, Facebook and Instagram fundraisers, story highlights and gaming videos.

– the web UI lets users build dashboards based on keywords and producer lists and allows team collaboration and auto‑refresh

Search‐in‑images: text‑in‑image search covers approximately the last 180 days (previously ~90) and supports story highlights

Advanced Filtering: Keyword searches, engagement metrics, date ranges, and language filters.

A verified‑filter allows users to restrict searches to verified, unverified or all accounts across Facebook, Instagram and Threads
Comment‑text search and sorting – researchers can search within the comments of a Facebook/Instagram post or Threads reply and filter by date

Engagement Insights: View counts, reactions, shares, and comments with hashed user IDs.

Historical Data: Access dating back to Facebook's launch (2004), with updates in near real-time.

Downloads: Available for accounts meeting the "widely known" criteria (e.g., Facebook Pages with ≥15,000 followers, Instagram accounts with a verified badge or ≥1,000 followers, Threads public profiles ≥ 1 000 followers). CSV export is only for Facebook & Instagram posts that meet the “widely-known” criteria; Threads is UI-only for now.

Privacy Protection: Content is subject to deletion/privacy settings, ensuring ethical use.

Details on Features and Limits

Features and Functionality

Search Capabilities: The Meta Content Library allows researchers to search across public Facebook and Instagram content with advanced filters. This includes keyword queries with support for exact phrase matching. Notably, the platform can even search for text contained within images, thanks to Meta’s OCR integration – searches now include text found in images posted on Facebook or Instagram.
UI and API Access: The tool is accessible via a as well as a , both backed by the same near-real-time database of public content. This dual access means researchers can either interact with the data through a visual interface or query it using code, according to their needs.
Content Coverage: Meta Content Library provides comprehensive access to public posts from plus public content from . As of , it was expanded to include Threads posts as well, further broadening the cross-platform scope of publicly accessible content. All data is updated in near real-time, ensuring timely analysis.

Engagement Metrics Available

Post Engagement Details: For each post in the library, Meta provides engagement metrics. Researchers can see the number of reactions (including likes and other reactions), comments, and shares each post received.
View Counts: Importantly, the Content Library also surfaces post view counts – the number of times people viewed the post. This “exposure” data helps researchers understand reach, not just interaction. (For example, Meta notes that giving insight into how many people potentially saw a piece of content.)
Comments Data: In addition to posts, public comments on Facebook (and recently Instagram comments via the API) are accessible, allowing analysis of discussion threads in public forums. All these metrics and content types are available both through the UI and via API output in the data.

Eligible Content and CSV Download Criteria

“Widely Known” Accounts: The Content Library focuses on posts from high-profile public sources. According to Meta’s documentation, it includes: (This covers prominent individuals and organizations on Facebook, as well as Instagram/Threads accounts meeting that follower threshold or verification status.) In other words, only content from these widely-followed or verified accounts is available for search and CSV export – aligning with Meta’s definition of “widely-known figures and organizations” ().
Cross-Platform Inclusion: This criterion applies across Facebook and Instagram. For example, Instagram business and creator accounts that are public and have at least 25k followers (or a verification badge) are included in the library (). The same goes for Threads profiles (which are tied to Instagram accounts) meeting the 25k-follower mark. On Facebook, public profiles (personal accounts) with a This ensures that CSV downloads are limited to content from Pages and users with significant public followings.

Query Limits and Data Usage Quotas

Weekly Query Budget: Meta imposes a rate limit on how much data can be retrieved to ensure manageable use. Official documentation specifies a maximum of 500,000 content items (posts, etc.) that each researcher can retrieve . In other words, the Content Library caps results at 500,000 per week per user. This limit is in line with Meta’s data access policies to prevent abuse while still allowing large-scale research queries.
CSV Download Limits: Crucially, any results downloaded as CSV count toward that weekly quota. Meta notes that ”. There is no separate higher limit for CSV exports – the same 500k/week cap applies. If a researcher exports 100k rows today, it consumes part of the 500k allotment for the current 7-day window.

Requirements

Researchers must be affiliated with an academic or non-profit institution.

Applications are vetted by the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR).

No IRB approval required, but applicants must submit a research agenda.

User interface access is available upon approval; API access requires a separate credential, which requires additional documentation (research proposal approved by your IRB) and access via Amazon WorkSpaces Secure Browser. No raw-file download from the API; analysis must stay inside the VDE.

Limitations

Restricted Access: Only available to approved researchers (not the general public).

Data Privacy: Deleted/private posts become unavailable; raw data cannot be exported from the API.

Query Limits: API access has a weekly cap of 500,000 retrieved content items.

Replication Challenges: Due to content deletion or privacy changes, perfect replication of results can be difficult.

No Personal Identifiers: User data is unless the account is a public entity.

: Researchers must delete data older than 180 days that is no longer in the library.

Guide

Official Documentation: Meta Transparency Center

ICPSR Social Media Archive: https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/

"Public Data Access Programs: A First Look" is a comprehensive evaluation by Hickey, Dowling, Navia, and Pershan (2024, Mozilla Foundation). The study assesses how major platforms, including Meta, provide researchers access to public data under the Digital Services Act, with a focus on usability, transparency, and technical limitations. It highlights the platform's dual-access approach via a user-friendly dashboard and API while also noting challenges such as data consistency and limited documentation that can affect replicability and broader research applications.

In this two-part webinar series, led by under the , researchers at the University of Glasgow and specialists from Meta discuss the Meta Content Library’s evolving capabilities. The focuses on core concepts such as keyword-based searches and privacy safeguards for analyzing public Facebook and Instagram data. The highlights newly added features, including comment-level data, text-in-image matching, and Threads integration, to support more advanced social media research.