auto-tiktok

A lean Python CLI that publishes videos to TikTok by driving a real Chrome browser with your exported session cookies. No official API, no OAuth dance — just paste your cookies and post.

Inspired by xtea/auto-instagram. Built on top of the excellent tiktok-uploader package.

Why

TikTok's official Content Posting API requires business verification, app review, and a hoop-jumping approval process. If you just want to automate publishing to your own account from your own machine, browser automation with session cookies is dramatically simpler.

Install

Requires Python 3.11+.

Quick install (recommended)

# via uv (installs globally, isolated)
uv tool install auto-tiktok
auto-tiktok install-browser

# or via pipx
pipx install auto-tiktok
auto-tiktok install-browser

# or plain pip
pip install auto-tiktok
auto-tiktok install-browser

The install-browser step downloads the Chromium binary Playwright needs (~150 MB). You only run it once.

One-shot run without installing

uvx auto-tiktok publish --video my.mp4 --caption "..."

From source

git clone https://github.com/xtea/auto-tiktok
cd auto-tiktok
uv sync
uv run auto-tiktok install-browser

Export your TikTok cookies

1. Install a cookie-export browser extension. Recommended:
   • Get cookies.txt LOCALLY (Chrome) — exports Netscape .txt
   • Cookie-Editor (all browsers) — exports JSON
2. Log into tiktok.com in your browser.
3. Open the extension on the TikTok tab and export cookies. Either Netscape .txt or JSON format works — auto-tiktok auto-detects.
4. Import them into auto-tiktok:

auto-tiktok import-cookies ~/Downloads/cookies.txt

This filters the file down to TikTok-only entries and saves it to ~/.config/auto-tiktok/cookies.txt (or the equivalent on your platform) with chmod 600.

Usage

Publish a video

auto-tiktok publish \
  --video ./my-video.mp4 \
  --caption "behind the scenes #tutorial #indiehacker"

The caption can include hashtags directly. Compose it however you want — auto-tiktok passes it through verbatim.

For long captions, read from a file instead:

auto-tiktok publish --video ./my-video.mp4 --caption-file ./caption.txt

Dry run

Preview what will be posted without launching Chromium:

auto-tiktok publish --video ./my-video.mp4 --caption "test" --dry-run

Schedule a post

TikTok supports scheduling 20 minutes to 10 days in the future:

auto-tiktok publish --video ./my-video.mp4 --caption "drop at noon" --schedule 60

Use a custom cookies file

auto-tiktok publish --video ./my-video.mp4 --caption "..." --cookies /path/to/cookies.txt

Run headless

auto-tiktok publish --video ./my-video.mp4 --caption "..." --headless

Note: headful (default) tends to trip fewer anti-bot heuristics.

Health check

auto-tiktok doctor

Reports whether tiktok-uploader is installed, Playwright Chromium is available, and your cookies file is present and non-empty.

Troubleshooting

• "No TikTok cookies found" — your export doesn't include the .tiktok.com domain. Make sure you're on a tiktok.com tab when exporting.
• Upload hangs at the caption box — TikTok is showing a modal. auto-tiktok tries to dismiss them automatically on macOS, but new variants appear; run without --headless so you can see and click through.
• 2FA / login challenges — cookies expire. Re-export them from your browser and re-run import-cookies.
• Chromium not found — run playwright install chromium.
• Published URL not shown — tiktok-uploader doesn't reliably return the final TikTok URL. Check your profile.

Security

• Your sessionid cookie is a full account credential. Treat it like a password.
• Never commit cookies.txt to source control (the bundled .gitignore blocks it).
• If you suspect a leak, go to Settings → Security & permissions → Manage sessions on TikTok and log out all sessions to invalidate the cookie.
• This tool makes no network calls outside Playwright's browser automation.

How it works

1. Filters your cookies.txt to TikTok-only entries and writes a temp file.
2. Applies two macOS-compat monkey patches to tiktok-uploader:
   • Swaps Ctrl+A → Cmd+A in the caption clear step.
   • Wraps internal _set_description / _set_interactivity with a modal-dismissal pass.
3. Calls tiktok_uploader.upload.upload_video() which launches Chromium via Playwright, injects cookies, navigates to the upload page, fills the caption, and clicks Post.

Development

uv sync --extra dev
uv run pytest
uv run ruff check src/ tests/

Status

Alpha. Works for the author's use case on macOS with Chromium. Windows and Linux should work but are less tested. TikTok breaks selectors periodically — if you hit issues, open an issue or PR.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

Credits

• xtea/auto-instagram for the architectural blueprint.
• tiktok-uploader for the underlying browser automation.