What is social-auto-upload?
social-auto-upload, run as the sau command, publishes your files to 16 platforms: Douyin, Bilibili, Xiaohongshu, Kuaishou, WeChat Channels, Baijiahao, Dayu, Alipay, Weibo, Hupu, TikTok, Xueqiu, YouTube, Zhihu, Facebook (profiles and Pages) and Instagram. It handles videos on most of them, image posts and carousels on six, long articles on three, and scheduled publishing on several. Skills for Codex, Claude Code and OpenClaw let an agent call the same commands.
It does not use the platforms' official upload APIs, apart from Bilibili, where it wraps the open-source biliup tool. It opens a Chromium browser through Playwright, you log in by hand or scan a QR code once per account, and the logged-in session is saved as a cookie file such as cookies/instagram_creator.json in the project folder. Later uploads reuse that file, headless by default, with a stealth script injected to hide the automation. Several accounts can run at once.
The documentation is in Chinese. The project is MIT licensed, began in December 2023 and tagged v1.0.0-skills.2 on 22 October 2026.
Is social-auto-upload worth it?
Know how it posts before you install it. social-auto-upload does not ask the platforms for permission; it logs in as you. You sign in once in a browser it opens, it saves that session as a plain cookie file in the project's cookies folder, and from then on a headless browser loaded with a stealth script, meant to hide that it is automated, clicks through each site's upload page. Anyone who copies that folder can post as you. On Douyin, if an SMS code is demanded, it reads the code from a text file in the project root.
The breadth is real. The repository has 16,541 stars and 2,807 forks, and covers 16 platforms with 18 skills, including the Chinese sites Western tools ignore: Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Kuaishou, WeChat Channels, Bilibili, Zhihu. Recent work is careful about duplicates: results are written to JSON, an uncertain submission is marked submission_unknown, and the docs tell you to check the platform before re-uploading rather than post twice.
The catch: the risk sits with your accounts. YouTube's terms forbid accessing the service by automated means without permission, and Instagram's forbid automated access or collection without permission; the README says it chose browser automation for YouTube precisely because uploads from API projects that have not passed Google's audit are locked to private. Running several accounts in parallel, which it supports, is the pattern platform anti-spam systems are built to catch, and a flagged account can lose reach or be suspended. The Bilibili path downloads biliup on first run and updates it automatically from upstream releases, so code you did not review changes under you.
Our take: for a creator posting their own work to two or three Chinese platforms with no official API for individuals, it saves real time. Treat the cookie files like passwords, post at human volumes, and keep a channel you cannot afford to lose on the official tools.
Where it earns its place
A Shanghai food vlogger posting the same clip to four sites
Upload one video to Douyin, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu and Bilibili without four browser sessions
Log in once per platform with sau <platform> login, then run upload-video four times with the same file, title and tags. Free; each site's session lives in its own cookie file.
A small cross-border brand team
Schedule Facebook Page and Instagram posts alongside Chinese platforms
Use facebook-page upload-note with --schedule for Page posts and instagram upload-note for carousels; results land in JSON files you can check with the verify command before re-posting.
A developer building an agent that publishes finished videos
Let Claude Code post a rendered video to Douyin at the end of a pipeline
Install the douyin-upload skill with npx skills add; the agent calls the sau CLI with your saved account. Keep the account and cookie file separate from your main channel.
Before you commit
- Setup
- Python 3.10 to 3.12 with uv; install the project, then run sau <platform> login for each account and sau <platform> check to confirm the session. An agent bootstrap prompt in the docs walks Codex or Claude Code through the install.
- Integrations
- Playwright-driven Chromium or a local Chrome; biliup for Bilibili; skills for Codex, Claude Code and OpenClaw; optional per-platform proxies.
- Data and privacy
- Login sessions are saved as cookie JSON files under cookies/ in the project folder, unencrypted; upload results go to .local/. Nothing is sent to the project's authors.
- Limits
- TikTok has no sau CLI command; YouTube scheduling is still in development and Zhihu scheduling experimental; sites change their pages, which breaks uploaders until fixed.
What’s good
- 16 platforms, including Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Kuaishou and WeChat Channels
- Videos, image posts, articles and scheduling from one CLI
- Agent skills for Codex, Claude Code and OpenClaw
- Result files and submission_unknown status guard against double posting
- Multiple accounts per platform
What’s not
- Automated browser posting breaches several platforms' terms and risks account suspension
- Sessions stored as unencrypted cookie files in the project folder
- Stealth script hides automation from the platforms
- Bilibili helper auto-updates from upstream without review
- Documentation in Chinese only
Best for
Individual creators and small studios cross-posting their own videos to Chinese platforms who accept the account risk of browser automation.
social-auto-upload alternatives
social-auto-upload: common questions
- Is social-auto-upload worth it?
- social-auto-upload reaches more Chinese and Western platforms than any open tool we know, by doing exactly the kind of automated posting those platforms ban accounts for. We rate it 3.2 out of 5.
- How much does social-auto-upload cost?
- Free under MIT. No platform fees; you need your own accounts on each site and, where a site is blocked in your region, a proxy.
- What are the downsides of social-auto-upload?
- Automated browser posting breaches several platforms' terms and risks account suspension; sessions stored as unencrypted cookie files in the project folder; stealth script hides automation from the platforms; bilibili helper auto-updates from upstream without review; documentation in Chinese only.
- Who is social-auto-upload best for?
- Individual creators and small studios cross-posting their own videos to Chinese platforms who accept the account risk of browser automation.
- Is social-auto-upload safe for company data?
- Login sessions are saved as cookie JSON files under cookies/ in the project folder, unencrypted; upload results go to .local/. Nothing is sent to the project's authors.
- What are the best social-auto-upload alternatives?
- The closest alternatives we have reviewed are social-media-skills and MoneyPrinterTurbo.
Answers checked Nov 14, 2026.