Reddit Scraper

Scrape Reddit posts, search results, and optional comments from subreddits, users, or URLs. Export public discussion data for monitoring, research, and AI summaries.

Data fields

FieldTypeDescription
typetextType exported in the dataset view.
idtextID exported in the dataset view.
thingIdtextThing ID exported in the dataset view.
subreddittextSubreddit exported in the dataset view.
titletextTitle exported in the dataset view.
texttextText exported in the dataset view.
bodytextComment body exported in the dataset view.
authortextAuthor exported in the dataset view.

Input preview

urlsReddit URLs
searchQuerySearch query
searchSubredditSearch subreddit
sortSort order
timeFilterTime filter
maxPostsPerSourceMaximum posts per source

API and agents

This actor can be run through Apify API, datasets, webhooks, schedules, and the official Apify MCP server.

How this actor works

See example inputs, outputs, API usage, and practical limits before running this actor on Apify.

Open Apify page

Scrape public Reddit posts, subreddit feeds, keyword search results, user feeds, URLs, and optional comments.

Use this Actor to export public Reddit discussion data for social listening, market research, community monitoring, AI summaries, lead research, content analysis, and alerts. Results can be downloaded as CSV, JSON, Excel, XML, RSS, or used through the Apify Dataset API.

At a glance

  • Reddit source coverage: Scrape subreddit listings, user pages, search results, direct post URLs, and comment threads where publicly available.
  • Posts and comments: Save post rows and optionally collect public comments for each post.
  • Search workflows: Search all Reddit or search inside one subreddit with sort and time filters.
  • Monitoring ready: Schedule recurring subreddit, keyword, or URL checks for social listening and alerts.
  • API export: Send Reddit rows to spreadsheets, BI tools, databases, summaries, or AI agents.

What can it do?

Reddit Scraper extracts public Reddit listing, search, post, and comment data and saves structured dataset rows.

  • Scrape subreddits and URLs: Add subreddit pages, user pages, search pages, or direct post URLs.
  • Run keyword searches: Use searchQuery, searchSubreddit, sort, and timeFilter.
  • Collect comments: Enable comments and cap them with maxCommentsPerPost.
  • Control reliability: Use retry, pacing, and proxy settings for larger runs.
  • Export repeatable datasets: Use Apify downloads, API calls, schedules, webhooks, and integrations.

Common workflows

  • Social listening: Track mentions of brands, products, competitors, issues, and topics.
  • Market research: Export public discussions for pain-point analysis, category research, and trend reports.
  • Community monitoring: Watch subreddits and search terms on a recurring schedule.
  • AI summaries: Feed posts and comments into summarization, classification, or sentiment workflows.
  • Content research: Find questions, objections, stories, and language for content planning.
  • Support and alerting: Trigger downstream workflows when new posts match a query.

What data can you collect?

The Actor returns public Reddit post rows and, when enabled, comment rows.

Field Description
type Row type, such as post or comment
id Reddit item identifier
subreddit Subreddit name
author Public Reddit username when available
title Post title
text Post or comment text
url External URL or Reddit URL
permalink Reddit permalink
createdAt Public creation timestamp
score Public score when available
numComments Public comment count for posts
upvoteRatio Upvote ratio when available
flair Post flair when available
parentId Parent post or comment ID for comments
depth Comment depth when available
sourceUrl Input or resolved Reddit source URL
scrapedAt Timestamp when the row was saved

Example input

{
  "urls": ["https://www.reddit.com/r/apify/"],
  "searchQuery": "web scraping",
  "sort": "new",
  "timeFilter": "week",
  "maxPostsPerSource": 25,
  "includeComments": false
}

Example output

{
  "type": "post",
  "id": "abc123",
  "subreddit": "apify",
  "author": "example_user",
  "title": "Example Reddit post",
  "text": "Public Reddit post text...",
  "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/apify/comments/abc123/example/",
  "permalink": "https://www.reddit.com/r/apify/comments/abc123/example/",
  "createdAt": "2026-07-03T10:00:00.000Z",
  "score": 42,
  "numComments": 8,
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.reddit.com/r/apify/",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-07-03T12:00:00.000Z"
}

How to run it

  1. Open the Actor on Apify.
  2. Add Reddit URLs, a search query, or both.
  3. Choose sort, time filter, and limits.
  4. Decide whether to include comments.
  5. Start the run and export the dataset.

Search tips

  • Start with posts only: Add comments after you verify the post search is relevant.
  • Use focused subreddits: Subreddit-specific searches usually produce cleaner monitoring datasets.
  • Limit comments carefully: Comment extraction can create many rows and higher costs.
  • Use pacing for stability: Larger runs benefit from moderate request pacing and retries.
  • Schedule narrow queries: Monitoring works best with specific keywords, subreddits, and time filters.

Limits and caveats

  • The Actor extracts publicly visible Reddit data only.
  • It does not access private communities, removed content, mod-only data, logged-in feeds, or quarantined content that requires login.
  • Scores and counts can be null or change after scraping.
  • Reddit may return fewer items than requested for narrow queries, private sources, or unavailable content.

API usage

curl -X POST 'https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/fetch_cat~reddit-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"searchQuery":"web scraping","sort":"new","timeFilter":"week","maxPostsPerSource":25}'

MCP and AI agents

This Actor can be used through the official Apify MCP server at https://mcp.apify.com.

For a focused single-Actor tool setup, use:

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=fetch_cat/reddit-scraper

Use the same JSON keys shown in the input configuration table, such as urls, searchQuery, searchSubreddit, maxPostsPerSource, includeComments, and maxCommentsPerPost.

Support

If a run fails, returns no data, or a field looks wrong, open an issue from the Actor page.

Please include the Apify run ID or run URL, input JSON, one example public URL, query, or input item, what you expected, and what the dataset returned. Small reproducible inputs make parsing or site-layout issues much faster to fix.

Common questions

Questions and answers reused from the canonical actor README.

Does this Actor need Reddit API credentials?

No. It targets public Reddit pages and public discussion data.

Can it scrape private communities?

No. Private, restricted, quarantined, or login-gated content is outside this Actor's public-data scope.

Can it collect every comment in a large thread?

Not always. Use maxCommentsPerPost and depth settings to control scope, cost, and reliability.

Can I export to CSV or Excel?

Yes. Apify datasets can be downloaded as CSV, JSON, Excel, XML, RSS, HTML, or accessed through the API.