# Videos

> How videos are discovered and tracked across platforms, tracking status states, stats history, and manual video management.

## How videos are discovered

Videos enter trackagoat in two ways:

**Step 1: Automatic discovery**

The scraper periodically checks each tracked account's recent videos and adds any new ones. Discovery frequency is set per org (subject to your plan's `min_discover_videos_hours` floor).

**Step 2: Manual add**

You can add a specific video by its URL: a TikTok video/photo, or an Instagram Reel or post. Go to **Project → Videos → Add video** and paste the URL; the platform is detected automatically. Manually added videos are shown with the **Added Manually** status (stored as `direct_add`) and are always included in stats.

## Platforms

Every video belongs to an account and carries a **platform**: `tiktok` or `instagram`. In the videos list and the Tracking Inbox, each video shows a small **platform icon** so mixed-platform projects are easy to scan, and the videos list can be filtered by platform. See [Instagram tracking](https://www.trackagoat.com/docs/guides/instagram.md) for what's captured on Instagram.

## Tracking statuses

Every video has a `tracking_status` that controls whether it's included in project and campaign analytics.

| Status | How it's set | Included in stats? |
|--------|-------------|-------------------|
| `auto_tracked` | Discovered automatically while its account is in **Auto** mode | ✓ Yes |
| `pending_review` | Discovered while its account is in **Selective** mode | ✗ No: awaiting review |
| `included` | Manually approved via Tracking Inbox | ✓ Yes |
| `excluded` | Manually excluded via Tracking Inbox | ✗ No |
| `direct_add` (shown as **Added Manually**) | Added by URL | ✓ Yes |

> **Warning:**
>
> The API's `/api/v2/videos` endpoint never returns `excluded` videos. If a video is excluded, it won't appear in API responses or campaign stats.

## Reviewing videos (Tracking Inbox)

When an account is in **Selective** mode, new videos land in the **Tracking Inbox** with `pending_review` status. See [Inbox: approving posts](https://www.trackagoat.com/docs/guides/inbox.md) for bulk-review workflows.

> **Note: Photo posts & carousels**
>
> TikTok photo carousels (`/photo/` posts) and Instagram image posts/carousels are tracked too. They're discovered and shown alongside videos with a link to the post. TikTok carousel stats are updated on the same age-based schedule as videos, and monthly once a carousel is over 90 days old (see [Scraping](https://www.trackagoat.com/docs/guides/scraping.md#automatic-schedule)).

## Video detail

Click any video in the videos list to open the detail view:

- **Stats**: current view, like, comment, and share counts
- **Stats history**: chart of view/engagement counts over time
- **Thumbnail**: preview
- **Notes**: markdown notes for your team or agents
- **Comments** (paid plans): up to 100 collected comments, most liked first, with sentiment, signal filters and when they were last collected. See [Comment Insights](https://www.trackagoat.com/docs/guides/comment-insights.md)

> **Note:**
>
> Stats history shows all snapshots captured since the video was added to trackagoat. It does not backfill historical data from before the video was tracked.

## Stats update frequency

Video stats are refreshed on an age-based schedule (newer posts more often), and never more often than your plan's `min_video_stats_hours` floor allows: once a day on Free. See [How scraping works](https://www.trackagoat.com/docs/guides/scraping.md#automatic-schedule). To see when a video's stats were last updated, check the data-freshness badge on the video header (or `last_scraped_at` in the API response).

You can trigger a manual stats refresh with **Update Now** from the video detail view (subject to your plan's `max_manual_scrape_triggers_per_day` limit).

## Video notes

Like creators, every video has a **notes** field, the README on the video's Info tab. In the API it's the `readme` field. Use it to annotate videos with content classification, context, or agent instructions. If the notes change while you're editing them, saving stops and asks you to reload, and your draft is kept. The post's own text from the platform is the **Caption**, shown on the Info tab and returned as `caption`; it can't be edited.

- [Tracking Inbox](https://www.trackagoat.com/docs/guides/inbox.md): Review pending videos and use bulk approve/exclude actions.
- [Analytics](https://www.trackagoat.com/docs/guides/analytics.md): Analyze video performance trends over time.
- [API reference: Videos](https://www.trackagoat.com/docs/api-reference/videos.md): Access video data programmatically via the API.

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Source: https://www.trackagoat.com/docs/guides/videos