Why do some Douyin links say /note/ instead of /video/?

Douyin has two kinds of posts. A video post opens at douyin.com/video/<id>. A photo post, which Douyin calls 图文, is a swipeable set of images with a caption and usually a soundtrack, and it opens at douyin.com/note/<id>. The number after /note/ is an ordinary aweme_id from the same 19-digit sequence as videos (see aweme_id and modal_id), so a photo post can be fetched, searched and commented on like a video. What breaks is code that assumes every post has a playable video: link parsers that only match /video/, downloaders that look for a video URL and find a list of images, spreadsheets that expect a duration. Share links (v.douyin.com/...) hide the difference until they redirect.

How to tell them apart

	Video post	Photo post (图文)
Web link	/video/<id>	/note/<id>
type in okdata data	video	image
images	null	every image URL, in order
Likes, comments, shares, saves	yes	yes, same fields
metrics.views	null (Douyin hides plays)	null

Some photo posts are live photos (实况): each picture also has a short clip behind it. okdata returns the still image for each; the clips are not included.

How the API handles both

Douyin video detail takes either link, a short link that redirects to either, or the bare ID. You do not need to know the type in advance; read type in the answer. Douyin video search returns both kinds mixed in one list, so filter on type if you only want one. Video comments work the same for a photo post's ID.

Task	Calls	Cost
One /note/ link to images, caption and counts	1	$0.002
200 mixed links	200	$0.40
First comment page of a photo post	1	$0.002

Example

import os, requests

r = requests.get(
    "https://api.okdata.online/v1/douyin/videos/get",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['OKDATA_API_KEY']}"},
    params={"url": "https://www.douyin.com/note/7431266008815910153"},
    timeout=60,
)
post = r.json()["data"]["item"]
if post["type"] == "image":
    print(len(post["images"]), "images:", post["images"][:2])
else:
    print("video post", post["url"])
print(post["text"], post["metrics"]["likes"])

With view=full, ext.music holds the soundtrack title, which photo posts usually have.

Limits

• Image URLs are signed Douyin CDN links with an x-expires time. Download what you need soon after the call.
• No video file URL is returned for either kind of post.
• Douyin does not publish play counts for other people's posts, photo or video; see Douyin play counts.
• A deleted post returns not_found and is not charged.