Social URL parser
Paste a TikTok, Instagram or YouTube link and get the id, the handle, the canonical URL and — for TikTok — the upload time, decoded from the id itself.
- Platform
- TikTok
- Type
- Video
- ID
- 7137423965982686469
- Username
- khaby.lame
- Uploaded
- 2022-08-29T22:10:16.000Z
The upload time above is read out of the id itself: the top 32 bits of a TikTok snowflake are the Unix second it was created.
Fetch this creator from the Virlo API
curl "https://api.virlo.ai/v1/satellite/creator/tiktok/khaby.lame" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $VIRLO_API_KEY"
What this does
Every short-form platform hides a different identifier in a different place in its URLs, and every integration starts by digging it out. TikTok puts a 19-digit snowflake after /video/. Instagram puts a base64 shortcode after /reel/. YouTube puts an 11-character id in a query parameter, a path segment, or a short domain, depending on where the link was copied from. This tool normalises all of them.
Two of the results are derived rather than looked up. TikTok ids are snowflakes, so the upload time is in the id. Instagram shortcodes are base64-encoded media ids, so the numeric id is in the shortcode. Both are computed in your browser, which means they work on a deleted post, a private account, or an id you found in a log file.
What it recognises
- TikTok videos, photo posts, profiles, sounds and hashtags, plus
vm.tiktok.comand/t/short links (flagged, because they only resolve server-side). - Instagram reels, posts, IGTV and profiles.
- YouTube Shorts, watch URLs, youtu.be links, @handles and channel ids.
Where it fits in a pipeline
Parsing is the cheap half. The expensive half is turning an id into data the platform does not hand out: the creator behind it, how the video performed against that creator's own baseline, which sound it used, and whether any of it is still accelerating. That is what the Virlo API answers, by the call, from the same handle this tool extracts.
FAQ
- How do I get the video id out of a TikTok URL?
- It is the number after /video/ in a URL of the form tiktok.com/@username/video/<id>. A short vm.tiktok.com link does not contain it: follow the redirect first (an HTTP HEAD request is enough), then read the id out of the URL you land on.
- Can you get the upload date from a TikTok id?
- Yes. TikTok ids are snowflakes, and the top 32 bits are the Unix second the video was created, so Number(BigInt(id) >> 32n) * 1000 is the upload time in milliseconds. No API call is needed, which is why this tool can show it offline.
- What is an Instagram shortcode?
- The code in instagram.com/reel/<shortcode>/ is the media id written in a URL-safe base64 alphabet. Decoding it back to the numeric id is pure arithmetic, so this page does it in your browser. The reverse also holds: a numeric media id encodes to the same shortcode.
- Do Shorts and regular YouTube videos share an id?
- Yes. youtube.com/shorts/<id> and youtube.com/watch?v=<id> address the same video with the same 11-character id. Treat the Shorts path as a presentation format, not a separate resource.
- Is anything sent to your servers?
- No. The parser is a pure function running in the page. Nothing you paste leaves the tab, and there is no signup, no email and no API key.
- Can I use this parsing logic in my own code?
- Yes — it is a few regular expressions over the URL path, shown in the answers above. If you need the data behind the id rather than the id itself, the Virlo API takes the platform and the handle directly.
Get the data behind the tool
The Virlo API returns TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts data by the call — hashtags, videos, sounds, creators and trends. Pay per call, no scrapers to maintain.
Create your API key