Creator Search Insights on desktop: tiktok.com/csi, and how to get the data out

Yes, Creator Search Insights works on desktop. Since mid-2025 TikTok has served it at tiktok.com/csi to logged-in accounts, and it shows the same topics, search popularity figures and 7-day charts as the app. Before that it was phone-only, which is why half the internet still says there is no desktop version.

What the desktop version still does not give you is a way to get the numbers out. No export, no history, no API, and every topic is one more click. So this page covers three routes: the web version, the phone, and an AI agent on your laptop that returns the topics as a table you can paste into a brief. It also flags the "Creator Search Insights app" downloads, which are not TikTok's.

Creator Search Insights on desktop: tiktok.com/csi

1. Log in to tiktok.com in your browser with the account that has the tool in the app.
2. Go to tiktok.com/csi. The older address, tiktok.com/inspiration, redirects there.
3. You land on the same home screen as the app: Suggested, Trending and Featured channels, category chips, and a search bar. Type your niche and open a topic to see its search popularity and chart.

Two things to know. If the address bounces you to the login page after you have logged in, or shows a blank page, the tool is not enabled for that account or region yet; the not-showing guide covers the causes. And the desktop version has no download button anywhere. Ten topics with their numbers is still ten topic pages and ten screenshots, only on a bigger screen.

TikTok Studio on the web, at studio.tiktok.com, is a different thing: analytics, uploads and comments for your own account. The search tool is not in its menu. Open tiktok.com/csi directly.

The "Creator Search Insights app" downloads are not TikTok's

Search for the tool and you will hit download pages offering a Creator Search Insights app or APK for Android and PC. TikTok does not publish one. The tool ships inside the TikTok app and nowhere else.

The Android listing that ranks highest is published by Mavin Tech Ltd, an unrelated developer. Its own description says it explores trending topics across Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, X and Google Search from public data. That is a different product with a confusing name. It cannot show you TikTok's search popularity figures, because those come from inside TikTok's account-authenticated surface.

The phone route, if the web version is not there yet

Some accounts get the tool in the app before the web address works for them. The routine is the same on either screen.

1. Open the TikTok app, search creator search insights, tap View. Or open tiktok.com/csi on the desktop.
2. Use the search bar inside the tool and type your niche, not a trend.
3. Screenshot each topic page you care about. The screenshot is your record: the tool has no export and no history, so a number you didn't capture is gone next week.
4. Type the topic text and the search popularity figure into your brief by hand.

The cost is time. Ten topics with their numbers, categories and video counts is roughly twenty minutes of clicking and typing, and you repeat it every time the data moves.

The agent route: the numbers as a table

The third route skips TikTok's interface altogether. TokConnect exposes the same Creator Search Insights fields over the Model Context Protocol, so any agent that speaks MCP can query them: Claude, ChatGPT and Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI. You ask in chat on your laptop and get the topics back as text you can sort, paste and keep.

Connect it once

Every client needs the same three things:

Where you put them differs. Claude Code takes a single claude mcp add command. Cursor takes a URL and a headers block in mcp.json. Codex and Gemini CLI each have a config file entry. Claude Desktop's connector screen expects OAuth, so a bearer key needs a local bridge there. The setup pages have the exact lines per client, and the TikTok MCP guide explains what is happening underneath.

Once it is connected, your agent lists the tools on its own. You do not call them by name.

Ask a real question

Here is what came back when we ran it on 19 September 2026. This is the whole answer, not a sample of it.

Data: TikTok Creator Search Insights via TokConnect, pulled 19 September 2026. Open the snapshot.

Search popularity is a 7-day global count, so 4.6M means roughly 4.6 million searches in the week to 19 September. The search volume guide covers how that compares to a Google monthly average, which is the mistake most briefs make.

Six of these ten topics have zero matched videos. "car detailing before and after results" pulls 3.85M searches a week and TikTok has nothing filed under it. That is a content gap, and it is the kind of thing you spot in two seconds in a sorted table and almost never spot scrolling a phone.

The categories are worth a second look too. TikTok files "car detailing business" under Finance and Economics and "detailed cleaning and car detailing" under Household, not Vehicles. If you were browsing the Vehicles category chip in the app, you would never see either one.

Which route to pick

Use both. The app is still the only place to see the Suggested and Content gap tabs that TikTok personalises to your account, and the only place with the built-in video outline. Everything that ends up in a document is faster from the desktop.

If you write code rather than prompts, the API guide has a Python example that returns the same records as JSON.