Python Tweepy – Getting the number of times a tweet has been retweeted

In this article we will see how we can get the number of times a tweet/status has been retweeted. The retweet_count attribute of the Status object provides us with the number of times a tweet has been retweeted .

Identifying the number of times a tweet has been retweeted in the GUI :

The above mentioned status has been retweeted 4 times.

In order to get the number of times a status has been retweeted, we have to do the following :

1. Identify the status ID of the status from the GUI.
2. Get the Status object of the status using the get_status() method with the status ID.
3. From this object, fetch the retweet_count attribute present in it.

Example 1 : Consider the following status :

We will use the status ID to fetch the status. The status ID of the above mentioned status is 1272771459249844224.

# import the module
import tweepy

# assign the values accordingly
consumer_key = ""
consumer_secret = ""
access_token = ""
access_token_secret = ""

# authorization of consumer key and consumer secret
auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(consumer_key, consumer_secret)

# set access to user's access key and access secret
auth.set_access_token(access_token, access_token_secret)

# calling the api
api = tweepy.API(auth)

# the ID of the status
id = 1272771459249844224

# fetching the status
status = api.get_status(id)

# fetching the retweet_count attribute
retweet_count = status.retweet_count

print("The number of time the status has been retweeted is : " + str(retweet_count))

Output :

The number of time the status has been retweeted is : 0

Example 2 : Consider the following status :

We will use the status ID to fetch the status. The status ID of the above mentioned status is 1272479136133627905.

# the ID of the status
id = 1272479136133627905

# fetching the status with extended tweet_mode
status = api.get_status(id, tweet_mode = "extended")

# fetching the retweet_count attribute
retweet_count = status.retweet_count

print("The number of time the status has been retweeted is : " + str(retweet_count))

Output :

The number of time the status has been retweeted is : 22