Facebook now has an official API for chat bots here. This API is still the only way to automate chat functionalities on a user account. We do this by emulating the browser. This means doing the exact same GET/POST requests and tricking Facebook into thinking we're accessing the website normally. Because we're doing it this way, this API won't work with an auth token but requires the credentials of a Facebook account.
Disclaimer: We are not responsible if your account gets banned for spammy activities such as sending lots of messages to people you don't know, sending messages very quickly, sending spammy looking URLs, logging in and out very quickly... Be responsible Facebook citizens.
See below for projects using this API.
See the full changelog for release details.
If you just want to use facebook-chat-api, you should use this command:
npm install facebook-chat-api
It will download facebook-chat-api from NPM repositories
If you want to use bleeding edge (directly from github) to test new features or submit bug report, this is the command for you:
npm install Schmavery/facebook-chat-api
const login = require("facebook-chat-api");
// Create simple echo bot
login({email: "FB_EMAIL", password: "FB_PASSWORD"}, (err, api) => {
if(err) return console.error(err);
api.listen((err, message) => {
api.sendMessage(message.body, message.threadID);
});
});
Result:
login
api.addUserToGroup
api.changeArchivedStatus
api.changeBlockedStatus
api.changeGroupImage
api.changeNickname
api.changeThreadColor
api.changeThreadEmoji
api.createPoll
api.deleteMessage
api.deleteThread
api.forwardAttachment
api.getAppState
api.getCurrentUserID
api.getFriendsList
api.getThreadHistory
api.getThreadInfo
api.getThreadList
api.getThreadPictures
api.getUserID
api.getUserInfo
api.handleMessageRequest
api.listen
api.logout
api.markAsRead
api.muteThread
api.removeUserFromGroup
api.resolvePhotoUrl
api.searchForThread
api.sendMessage
api.sendTypingIndicator
api.setMessageReaction
api.setOptions
api.setTitle
Various types of message can be sent:
- Regular: set field
body
to the desired message as a string. - Sticker: set a field
sticker
to the desired sticker ID. - File or image: Set field
attachment
to a readable stream or an array of readable streams. - URL: set a field
url
to the desired URL. - Emoji: set field
emoji
to the desired emoji as a string and set fieldemojiSize
with size of the emoji (small
,medium
,large
)
Note that a message can only be a regular message (which can be empty) and optionally one of the following: a sticker, an attachment or a url.
Tip: to find your own ID, you can look inside the cookies. The userID
is under the name c_user
.
Example (Basic Message)
const login = require("facebook-chat-api");
login({email: "FB_EMAIL", password: "FB_PASSWORD"}, (err, api) => {
if(err) return console.error(err);
var yourID = "000000000000000";
var msg = "Hey!";
api.sendMessage(msg, yourID);
});
Example (File upload)
const login = require("facebook-chat-api");
login({email: "FB_EMAIL", password: "FB_PASSWORD"}, (err, api) => {
if(err) return console.error(err);
// Note this example uploads an image called image.jpg
var yourID = "000000000000000";
var msg = {
body: "Hey!",
attachment: fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/image.jpg')
}
api.sendMessage(msg, yourID);
});
To avoid logging in every time you should save AppState (cookies etc.) to a file, then you can use it without having password in your scripts.
Example
const fs = require("fs");
const login = require("facebook-chat-api");
var credentials = {email: "FB_EMAIL", password: "FB_PASSWORD"};
login(credentials, (err, api) => {
if(err) return console.error(err);
fs.writeFileSync('appstate.json', JSON.stringify(api.getAppState()));
});
Listen watches for messages sent in a chat. By default this won't receive events (joining/leaving a chat, title change etc…) but it can be activated with api.setOptions({listenEvents: true})
. This will by default ignore messages sent by the current account, you can enable listening to your own messages with api.setOptions({selfListen: true})
.
Example
const fs = require("fs");
const login = require("facebook-chat-api");
// Simple echo bot. It will repeat everything that you say.
// Will stop when you say '/stop'
login({appState: JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync('appstate.json', 'utf8'))}, (err, api) => {
if(err) return console.error(err);
api.setOptions({listenEvents: true});
var stopListening = api.listen((err, event) => {
if(err) return console.error(err);
api.markAsRead(event.threadID, (err) => {
if(err) console.error(err);
});
switch(event.type) {
case "message":
if(event.body === '/stop') {
api.sendMessage("Goodbye…", event.threadID);
return stopListening();
}
api.sendMessage("TEST BOT: " + event.body, event.threadID);
break;
case "event":
console.log(event);
break;
}
});
});
- How do I run tests?
For tests, create a
test-config.json
file that resemblesexample-config.json
and put it in thetest
directory. From the root >directory, runnpm test
.
- Why doesn't
sendMessage
always work when I'm logged in as a page?
Pages can't start conversations with users directly; this is to prevent pages from spamming users.
- What do I do when
login
doesn't work?
First check that you can login to Facebook using the website. If login approvals are enabled, you might be logging in incorrectly. For how to handle login approvals, read our docs on
login
.
- How can I avoid logging in every time? Can I log into a previous session?
We support caching everything relevant for you to bypass login.
api.getAppState()
returns an object that you can save and pass into login as{appState: mySavedAppState}
instead of the credentials object. If this fails, your session has expired.
- Do you support sending messages as a page?
Yes, set the pageID option on login (this doesn't work if you set it using api.setOptions, it affects the login process).
login(credentials, {pageID: "000000000000000"}, (err, api) => { … }
- I'm getting some crazy weird syntax error like
SyntaxError: Unexpected token [
!!!
Please try to update your version of node.js before submitting an issue of this nature. We like to use new language features.
- I don't want all of these logging messages!
You can use
api.setOptions
to silence the logging. You get theapi
object fromlogin
(see example above). Doapi.setOptions({ logLevel: "silent" });
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