Reddit Archive Scraper — Historical Posts & Comments (Years of Data)

Pull MONTHS or YEARS of historical Reddit posts and comments from one or many subreddits — by date range and keyword.

This Actor uses the PullPush archive (the public Pushshift successor) to reach data that Reddit's own API simply won't return.

Why this exists

Reddit's official API hard-caps any subreddit listing at ~1000 posts — for an active subreddit that's only a few weeks of history. There is no way around that cap with the official API, in any tool.

This Actor solves that: it reads from the historical archive, so you can backfill a full year (or several) across multiple subreddits in one job.

Need live, up-to-the-minute posts and full threaded comment trees instead? Use the companion Reddit Scraper (official API) for fresh data, and this Archive Scraper for deep history. They pair well: archive for backfill, live scraper for ongoing updates.

What you get

Posts: title, selftext (body), author, subreddit, score, upvote_ratio, num_comments, created date (epoch + ISO), permalink, url, domain, flair, is_self/is_video/over_18/locked/stickied/spoiler, awards.

Comments (optional): body, author, subreddit, score, parent_id, link_id, post_id, created date, permalink, is_submitter.

Each row has a type field (post or comment) so you can split them easily.

Input

Field	Type	Description
subreddits	array	Subreddits to archive (without r/)
searchQuery	string	Optional keyword filter (or search all of Reddit)
afterDate	string	Earliest date YYYY-MM-DD (lower bound)
beforeDate	string	Latest date YYYY-MM-DD (start point)
maxPosts	integer	Max posts across all subreddits
includeComments	boolean	Also fetch archived comments per post
maxCommentsPerPost	integer	Cap comments per post

Example: one year of a subreddit

{
  "subreddits": ["FragranceClones"],
  "afterDate": "2024-01-01",
  "beforeDate": "2025-01-01",
  "maxPosts": 10000,
  "includeComments": false
}

Example: keyword across all of Reddit, posts + comments

{
  "searchQuery": "dupe",
  "afterDate": "2024-06-01",
  "maxPosts": 1000,
  "includeComments": true,
  "maxCommentsPerPost": 50
}

Sample output (post)

{
  "type": "post",
  "id": "1d8bw4c",
  "title": "Best clone of Cool Water?",
  "selftext": "Looking for an affordable alternative...",
  "author": "someuser",
  "subreddit": "fragranceclones",
  "score": 14,
  "num_comments": 8,
  "created_iso": "2024-06-02T10:14:00+00:00",
  "permalink": "https://www.reddit.com/r/fragranceclones/comments/1d8bw4c/..."
}

Use cases

• Historical backfill — seed a database with years of a subreddit's content
• Research & sentiment datasets — analyse trends over long time spans
• AI / RAG training data — large historical corpora by topic
• Brand / product monitoring — see what was said about a topic over time

Cost tips

• Pay-per-result: you're charged per post/comment returned.
• Comments are the bulk of the count — keep includeComments off if you only need posts, or cap maxCommentsPerPost.
• Use afterDate/beforeDate to scope exactly the window you need.

Notes & legal

• Data comes from the public PullPush archive; coverage and freshness depend on that service. For the most recent posts, pair with the live Reddit Scraper.
• Use data only for lawful purposes and in line with Reddit's and PullPush's terms.

Related actors

More scrapers from the same author:

• Reddit Scraper — live posts, comments & AI-ready markdown
• OpenAlex Scraper — academic papers & citations
• PubMed Scraper — biomedical literature & citations
• arXiv Scraper — 2M+ scientific papers, abstracts & PDFs