The Meta Ad Library is Meta’s free, public list of the ads running on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads and its other apps. It started as the Facebook Ad Library, and many people still call it that. Marketers use it to see what competitors are running, researchers to study political ads, and anyone can use it to check who is behind an ad they saw.
What is in the Meta Ad Library?
Every ad that is running now, anywhere in the world, plus some ads that have stopped. Which stopped ads you can still see depends on what the ad was about and where it was shown.
Meta’s help page sets it out (About the Meta Ad Library, checked October 2026):
| Kind of ad | Kept after it stops | Spend shown | Reach and targeting shown |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ordinary ads, outside the EU and UK | No, only while running | No | No |
| Shown in the EU | 1 year after its last impression | No | Total reach, reach by country, age and gender, and the advertiser’s targeting choices |
| Shown in the UK | 1 year after its last impression | No | The same as the EU, for the UK |
| About social issues, elections or politics | 7 years | Yes, as a range | Impressions as a range, and who saw it by age, gender and location |
The library’s own front page adds that UK ads are those run in the past year and after 1 July 2025. It also holds branded content: posts with a paid partnership label on Facebook and Instagram, from 17 August 2023, under the Branded content tab.
How do I open the Meta Ad Library?
Go straight to facebook.com/ads/library. You don’t need to log in.
You can also get there from a brand’s Facebook Page. Open the Page, go to About, then Page transparency. It says whether the Page is currently running ads, and See all leads on to the Ad Library. Facebook may ask you to log in for that step, so the direct address is quicker.
How do I search the Meta Ad Library?
Pick a country and an ad category, then type a brand’s name or a keyword. Choosing the brand from the suggestions shows only its ads; pressing Enter on a word shows every ad that mentions it.
- Open facebook.com/ads/library.
- Choose a country, or All. Ads are listed for the countries they were shown in.
- Under Ad category, choose All ads. The others are Issues, elections or politics, and, in some countries, housing (shown as Properties in the UK), Employment and Financial products and services.
- Type a brand or a word in the search box.
- To see one advertiser, pick it from the list of advertisers that appears as you type. To search ad text, press Enter instead.
A keyword search returns every advertiser using that word, so searching “Gymshark” shows Gymshark’s ads and other people’s ads that mention it. The count at the top (“~880 results”) is Meta’s estimate.
What do the filters do?
Click Filters above the results. As of October 2026 there are six:
| Filter | What it narrows |
|---|---|
| Language | The language of the ad |
| Advertiser | One or more of the advertisers in your results |
| Platform | Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Audience Network, Threads and Meta’s other placements |
| Media type | Images, memes (images with text), videos, or ads with no image or video |
| Active status | Active ads, inactive ads, or both |
| Impressions by date | Ads shown between two dates |
Sort by orders the results by impressions, high to low, or most recent first.
What does each ad show?
Each ad card shows:
- Active or Inactive, and the Library ID, the ad’s number in the library.
- Started running on: the date it began. Ordinary ads outside Europe show only this date.
- Platforms: the icons for where it runs.
- This ad has multiple versions, with a line such as “4 ads use this creative and text” when the brand runs copies of it.
- The ad itself: the text, the image or video, the headline and the button, which links to the page it sends people to.
See ad details (or See summary details for ads with several versions) opens the ad on its own, with information about the advertiser. For ads shown in Europe, it adds Transparency by location (reach and targeting) and Advertiser and payer. The … menu has Copy Ad Link, a link to that one ad.
What can’t the Meta Ad Library show?
- Spend on ordinary ads. Only political and issue ads show what was spent.
- Results. No clicks, sales, likes or comments.
- Targeting outside Europe. You only see an ad’s age, gender and location targeting if it was shown in the EU or UK.
- Old ads, for most of the world. Ordinary ads outside the EU and UK disappear from the library once they stop.
- New political ads in the EU. Meta stopped political, electoral and social issue ads in the EU on 6 October 2025, citing new EU rules (Meta’s announcement).
- A download button for ordinary ads. See how to download ads from the Meta Ad Library.
For political and issue ads, the Ad Library report adds up spend by advertiser and place since October 2019, and you can download it.
How do I see a whole brand’s ads at once, with the ones that work marked?
The library shows one ad at a time and has no download. Parsly is a free Chrome extension that collects them all and marks the ones that look like they’re working.
- In the Ad Library, open a brand’s ads (pick it as the advertiser) or run a keyword search.
- Open Parsly from Chrome’s toolbar. The first time, allow it on facebook.com.
- Click Collect. Parsly scrolls the page like a person would and reads every ad: the text, the dates, how many versions, the format and where it links to.
- See the likely winners: ads that have run longest, with the most versions. Brands keep paying for ads that work, and make more copies of them.
- Copy the list, or download it as a spreadsheet (CSV).
Parsly only reads what the Ad Library shows anyone, so it can’t show spend or results either.
Which way should I use?
| Way | Free | Whole brand at once | Marks what’s working | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ad Library, by hand | Yes | Scroll and look | No | No |
| Ad Library API | Yes | Yes | No | Yes, as data, but ordinary ads only if shown in the EU or UK |
| Parsly | Yes | Yes | Yes, likely winners | Yes, a spreadsheet |
To use it to study a competitor, see how to see a competitor’s Facebook ads.
Questions people ask
Is the Meta Ad Library free?
Yes. Anyone can search it, and you don't need a Facebook account to look. Some ads for age-restricted things, such as alcohol or gambling, only show their pictures to people logged in as adults.
Is the Facebook Ad Library the same as the Meta Ad Library?
Yes. It was called the Facebook Ad Library, and Meta renamed it. The address is still facebook.com/ads/library, and it covers Instagram, Messenger, Threads and Meta's other apps as well as Facebook.
Can I see how much a brand spends on Facebook ads?
Only for ads about social issues, elections or politics, which show spend as a range. For every other ad, the library shows no spend at all, anywhere in the world.
How quickly does a new ad appear in the library?
Meta says within 24 hours of the ad's first impression, and the same for changes to an ad.
Why can't I see a brand's old ads?
Ordinary ads are only listed while they're running, unless they were shown in the EU or UK. Pick a European country or the United Kingdom and set the status to Active and inactive to see ads shown there in the past year.
Sources
Checked against the real sites on 22 October 2026. Platforms change their buttons often; if something has moved, tell us at [email protected].