Mobbin CLI

Small Node.js CLI + SDK for calling Mobbin's JSON endpoints under https://mobbin.com/api/*.

Some endpoints are public, others require an authenticated mobbin.com session cookie.

Requirements

• Node.js >=18 (uses built-in fetch)

Quickstart (run from this repo)

./mobbin-cli.js --help
./mobbin-cli.js trending-apps --platform ios
./mobbin-cli.js trending-sites
./mobbin-cli.js searchable-apps --platform web

Install As mobbin (recommended)

This repo includes a package.json with a bin entry, so you can link it once and then use mobbin anywhere.

cd /path/to/tools/mobbin
npm link

mobbin --help
mobbin trending-apps --platform ios

If you do not want to use npm link, a simple shell alias also works:

alias mobbin="/path/to/tools/mobbin/mobbin-cli.js"
mobbin trending-sites

Authentication (cookies)

Auth-gated endpoints require a valid mobbin.com session cookie.

The CLI will try to find cookies automatically for auth-gated commands:

• MOBBIN_COOKIE / --cookie
• MOBBIN_COOKIE_FILE / --cookie-file
• Common local files like ~/.config/mobbin/cookie.txt
• macOS only: local browser cookie stores (Safari, Chrome, Edge, Brave, Chromium)
• If run in a TTY and no cookies are found for an auth-gated command, the CLI will open mobbin.com and prompt you to log in, then retry cookie discovery.

You can provide cookies explicitly in three ways (highest priority first):

1. --cookie "name=value; name2=value2"
2. --cookie-file <path> (either):
   • Netscape cookie file (common export format)
   • Playwright storage state JSON (the CLI extracts cookies for mobbin.com)
   • JSON array of cookie objects (common browser export format)
3. MOBBIN_COOKIE env var

Examples:

mobbin search --query "login" --platform ios --experience apps --cookie "session=..."

mobbin search --query "login" --cookie-file ./cookies.txt
mobbin search --query "login" --cookie-file ./storage-state.json

MOBBIN_COOKIE="session=..." mobbin recent-searches

Common auth errors

• 401 or { error: { message: "unauthenticated" } }: missing/expired cookie
• 400 from content-apps: often needs auth and/or server-side state (Mobbin seems to expect a non-null searchRequestId in some flows)

One-time setup: save cookies to a file

This opens mobbin.com in your browser (macOS) and then saves a cookie string to ~/.config/mobbin/cookie.txt:

mobbin auth save-cookie --out ~/.config/mobbin/cookie.txt

If your Mobbin login is in Safari, you can force Safari cookie reading:

mobbin auth save-cookie --cookie-from safari

If Mobbin is logged in under a non-default Chrome profile, pass the profile directory name:

mobbin auth save-cookie --cookie-from chrome --cookie-profile "Profile 1"

Security note: this file contains session cookies. Treat it like a password.

Commands

All commands output pretty JSON by default.

• Add --raw to print raw (non-JSON) output
• Add --compact to print compact JSON (1 line)

Public endpoints (work without cookies):

mobbin trending-apps --platform ios
mobbin trending-sites
mobbin searchable-sites
mobbin searchable-apps --platform ios
mobbin trending-keywords --platform ios
mobbin dictionary
mobbin trending-filter-tags --platform ios --experience apps

Auth-gated endpoints (require cookies):

mobbin search --query "login" --platform ios --experience apps
mobbin popular-apps --platform ios --limit 10
mobbin app-versions --app-id <uuid>
mobbin screen-info --screen-id <uuid>
mobbin recent-searches
mobbin content-apps --platform ios --tab latest --page-size 24

Download Screenshots

Mobbin API responses often include Supabase storage URLs (e.g. https://*.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/...). Those URLs may not be directly browsable, but Mobbin serves the same assets via bytescale.mobbin.com.

Use download to fetch screenshots to disk:

# Download all screenshots for an app (all versions)
mobbin download --app-id <uuid> --out-dir ./out

# Download a single screen
mobbin download --screen-id <uuid> --out-dir ./out

# Download all full-page screens for a site (latest version)
mobbin download --site-id <uuid> --out-dir ./out

# Download from a Mobbin site URL (any /sites/... URL works)
mobbin download "https://mobbin.com/sites/<anything>-<siteId>" --out-dir ./out

# Download one or many URLs (Supabase or Bytescale URLs)
mobbin download "https://ujasntkfphywizsdaapi.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/content/app_screens/<file>.png" --out-dir ./out

# Download from a Mobbin screen page URL
mobbin download "https://mobbin.com/screens/<uuid>" --out-dir ./out

extract is an alias of download (same flags).

Tip: download caches Mobbin's Bytescale mapping in ~/.config/mobbin/bytescale.json. Use --bytescale-refresh if downloads suddenly start failing.

Notes:

• download --app-id, --screen-id, and --site-id require auth cookies
• --app-id, --screen-id, and --site-id accept comma-separated lists
• download --site-id resolves the latest siteVersionId (Mobbin no longer reliably redirects) then fetches the site's /sections page HTML and extracts content/app_fullpage_screens/* URLs (if this breaks, pass the exact /sites/.../<siteVersionId>/sections URL)
• --platform is typically one of ios|android|web
• --experience defaults to apps (Mobbin also uses other values in the UI)
• content-apps --tab maps to sorting behavior:
  • latest (sort by publishedAt, also hides non-ideal apps)
  • popular (sort by popularity)
  • top (sort by rating)

Raw API Calls

Use call to hit any endpoint (useful for recon / experimenting).

mobbin call /api/search-bar/fetch-trending-sites --method POST --data "{}"
mobbin call /api/search-bar/fetch-trending-apps --method POST --data '{"platform":"ios"}'

Tip: --data must be valid JSON.

SDK

mobbin-sdk.js exports:

• MobbinClient (a small fetch wrapper)
• buildContentAppsPayload() (helper for /api/content/fetch-apps)

Example:

import { MobbinClient } from "./mobbin-sdk.js";

const client = new MobbinClient({ cookie: process.env.MOBBIN_COOKIE });
const apps = await client.fetchTrendingApps({ platform: "ios" });
console.log(apps);