Get a Free Twitter Video API Key (No Signup)

Most "free API key" flows aren't free of anything except money. You still hand over an email, confirm it, click through a dashboard, name a project, and copy a token out of a settings page. For a tool whose entire job is to hand you the MP4 behind a tweet, that's a lot of ceremony.

This API skips it. You can call every endpoint anonymously right now — 30 requests an hour, 100 a day, counted per IP. When you need more headroom, one POST mints a key that raises you to 300 an hour and 2,000 a day. No signup, no email required, no dashboard. The key is returned once in the response body; you store it yourself.

Short answer: curl -X POST https://download-twitter-video.drummerduck.com/api/keys and read data.apiKey out of the JSON.

Mint a key

Send a POST to /api/keys. A body is optional — include a label so you can tell your keys apart later, and an email if you'd like one on file for recovery.

curl -X POST "https://download-twitter-video.drummerduck.com/api/keys" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"label":"my-bot"}'

The response carries the key and its limits:

{
  "ok": true,
  "data": {
    "apiKey": "dtv_live_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
    "keyPrefix": "dtv_live_xxxx",
    "label": "my-bot",
    "tier": "free",
    "limits": { "perHour": 300, "perDay": 2000 },
    "notice": "Store this key now — it will not be shown again."
  }
}

Only a SHA-256 hash of the key is stored on the server, so the raw string in data.apiKey is the one and only time you'll see it. Put it in your environment or a secrets manager before you close the terminal.

Use it

Send the key on any request as a bearer token or an X-API-Key header. Both the REST API and the MCP server accept it.

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer dtv_live_xxxxxxxx" \
  "https://download-twitter-video.drummerduck.com/api/extract?url=https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1919172303709184350"

To check what a key is and its limits, send it back to the same endpoint with a GET:

curl "https://download-twitter-video.drummerduck.com/api/keys" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer dtv_live_xxxxxxxx"

The limits, and how they're enforced

| Tier | Per hour | Per day | | --- | --- | --- | | Anonymous (per IP) | 30 | 100 | | Free key | 300 | 2,000 |

Every response includes X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining, and X-RateLimit-Reset, so a well-behaved client can slow down before it hits the wall rather than retrying into a 429. Go over and you get an HTTP 429 with a Retry-After header.

Key creation is itself rate-limited per IP, so you can't farm a fresh key every time you hit a limit — that's the point of the limit. Mint one, store it, reuse it.

Frequently asked questions

Do I actually need a key?

No. The API and MCP server work anonymously within the per-IP limits. Get a key only when 30 requests an hour isn't enough.

Is it really free?

Yes — the free tier costs nothing and needs no card. The email field is optional.

Can an AI agent get its own key?

Yes, and that's the point. An agent can POST /api/keys itself, or call the get_free_api_key MCP tool, then use the returned key on later calls. See Download Twitter Videos with an AI Agent.

What if I lose the key?

Mint a new one. Keys can't be re-displayed because only their hash is stored. If you gave an email, keep it for future recovery features.

Only download public content you have the right to use, and respect copyright.