Bluesky Scraper

Scrape Bluesky (the AT Protocol social network) — full-text search by keyword or hashtag, fetch user timelines, look up profiles, search for accounts, and pull custom feeds. Pure HTTP, no login, no cookies, no proxy required.

Bluesky's public XRPC endpoints serve every read operation without authentication, so the actor runs straight from datacenter IPs.

What you get

Post records (recordType=post)

Field	Description
uri	Canonical AT URI (at://did:plc:.../app.bsky.feed.post/...)
cid	Content ID
url	Public bsky.app URL (derived from uri + author handle)
text	Post text
createdAt	ISO 8601 timestamp
indexedAt	When Bluesky indexed the post
language	ISO 639-1 language code
replyCount	Reply count
repostCount	Repost count
likeCount	Like count
quoteCount	Quote-post count
bookmarkCount	Bookmark count
inReplyToUri	AT URI of parent post (when reply)
inReplyToCid	CID of parent post (when reply)
isRepost	true if surfaced via repost reason
repostedBy	Handle that reposted (when isRepost=true)
mentions	Array of mentioned DIDs (extracted from facets)
tags	Array of hashtags used (lowercase, extracted from facets)
urls	Array of external URLs in the post (extracted from facets)
mediaAttachments	Array of {type, url, previewUrl, description} for images/videos/external
quotedPost	Embedded quoted post {uri, cid, text, authorHandle, authorDid}
author	Author summary {did, handle, displayName, avatar}
authorHandle	Author handle (top-level convenience field)
scrapedAt	ISO 8601 UTC timestamp of extraction

Account records (recordType=account)

Field	Description
did	DID (decentralised identifier)
handle	Bluesky handle (e.g. bsky.app)
displayName	Display name
description	Bio
avatar	Avatar URL
banner	Banner URL
followersCount, followsCount, postsCount	Stats
createdAt	Account creation timestamp
indexedAt	When Bluesky last reindexed the profile
url	Public profile URL

Empty fields are dropped from every record at every depth — the dataset never contains nulls.

Input

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
mode	Enum	search	search / profile / actorSearch / feed / postThread / urlFetch / getPosts / follows / followers / getLikes / getActorLikes / getList / getStarterPack / feedGeneratorsDiscovery
searchQuery	String	bluesky	Free-text query (used by search and actorSearch); also acts as a query keyword for feedGeneratorsDiscovery
searchSort	Enum	top	top (engagement) or latest (recency) — applies to mode=search
actor	String	bsky.app	Handle (bsky.app) or DID. Used by profile / follows / followers / getActorLikes
postUri	String	—	Full AT URI of a post — used by mode=postThread and mode=getLikes
postUris	Array	—	Up to 25 AT URIs to batch-hydrate — used by mode=getPosts
postUrls	Array	—	Public bsky.app post URLs to expand — used by mode=urlFetch
listUri	String	—	AT URI of a Bluesky list — used by mode=getList
starterPackUri	String	—	AT URI of a starter pack — used by mode=getStarterPack
feedPreset	Enum	—	Built-in feed preset — whats-hot, discover, mutuals, bsky-team, hot-classic, popular-with-friends, for-you, news, trending-videos, quiet-posters. Overrides feedUri when set.
feedUri	String	—	Custom AT feed URI for mode=feed (used when no preset is selected)
language	Enum	—	ISO 639-1 dropdown (top 30 codes) — drops posts not in this language
excludeReplies	Boolean	false	Drop reply posts
excludeReposts	Boolean	false	Drop reposts
mediaOnly	Boolean	false	Only emit posts with at least one media attachment
minLikes	Integer	—	Drop posts with fewer likes
minReposts	Integer	—	Drop posts with fewer reposts
since	String	—	YYYY-MM-DD — earliest post date (search mode)
until	String	—	YYYY-MM-DD — latest post date (search mode)
fromUser	String	—	Restrict search to a specific author handle / DID
maxItems	Integer	40	Hard cap on emitted records (1-5000)

Example input — keyword search

{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "AI",
  "language": "en",
  "minLikes": 50,
  "maxItems": 100
}

Example input — hashtag search

{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "#python",
  "since": "2026-01-01",
  "maxItems": 200
}

Example input — user profile

{
  "mode": "profile",
  "actor": "bsky.app",
  "maxItems": 50,
  "excludeReplies": true
}

Example input — account search

{
  "mode": "actorSearch",
  "searchQuery": "rust",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Example input — custom feed

{
  "mode": "feed",
  "feedPreset": "whats-hot",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Example input — post thread (post + replies)

{
  "mode": "postThread",
  "postUri": "at://did:plc:z72i7hdynmk6r22z27h6tvur/app.bsky.feed.post/3kxxxx",
  "maxItems": 200
}

Example input — expand post URLs

{
  "mode": "urlFetch",
  "postUrls": [
    "https://bsky.app/profile/bsky.app/post/3kxxxx",
    "https://bsky.app/profile/jay.bsky.team/post/3kyyyy"
  ]
}

Example input — followers / follows

{
  "mode": "followers",
  "actor": "bsky.app",
  "maxItems": 200
}

Example input — likes on a post

{
  "mode": "getLikes",
  "postUri": "at://did:plc:z72i7hdynmk6r22z27h6tvur/app.bsky.feed.post/3kxxxx",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Example input — discover popular feed generators

{
  "mode": "feedGeneratorsDiscovery",
  "searchQuery": "news",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example input — author + keyword

{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "release",
  "fromUser": "bsky.app",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example output

{
  "recordType": "post",
  "uri": "at://did:plc:z72i7hdynmk6r22z27h6tvur/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml54ry2iwc2x",
  "cid": "bafyreidwzz...",
  "url": "https://bsky.app/profile/bsky.app/post/3ml54ry2iwc2x",
  "text": "Keep it private! We're adding more ways to connect…",
  "createdAt": "2026-04-23T17:06:32.796Z",
  "language": "en",
  "replyCount": 123,
  "repostCount": 255,
  "likeCount": 1509,
  "quoteCount": 47,
  "tags": ["bluesky"],
  "mentions": [],
  "urls": [],
  "mediaAttachments": [
    { "type": "image", "url": "https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/.../photo.jpg", "previewUrl": "https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/.../photo.jpg", "description": "Demonstration of …" }
  ],
  "author": {
    "did": "did:plc:z72i7hdynmk6r22z27h6tvur",
    "handle": "bsky.app",
    "displayName": "Bluesky",
    "avatar": "https://cdn.bsky.app/img/avatar/plain/.../jpeg"
  },
  "authorHandle": "bsky.app",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-06T05:24:18Z"
}

Use cases

• Social listening / brand monitoring — Track mentions of your brand or product on Bluesky in real time.
• Trend research — Pull mode=feed "What's Hot" for a daily snapshot of viral content.
• Influencer discovery — Combine actorSearch + minLikes filters to surface high-impact accounts in any niche.
• Academic research — Snapshot public conversations on the AT Protocol, with full media + facet provenance.
• Cross-platform social monitoring — Pair with our Mastodon / Twitter / Reddit scrapers for full coverage of post-X social media.
• Content discovery — Surface high-engagement posts on a specific hashtag for content curation.
• Competitor tracking — Use fromUser + keyword to monitor what specific competitors post about specific topics.

FAQ

Do I need a Bluesky account or login? No. Every endpoint this actor uses (searchPosts, getProfile, getAuthorFeed, searchActors, getFeed) is part of Bluesky's public AppView and serves anonymous traffic.

How does Bluesky's search work? Bluesky supports its standard search operators in the searchQuery:

• from:handle — posts by a specific user
• since:YYYY-MM-DD / until:YYYY-MM-DD — date range
• lang:en — language filter
• #hashtag — exact hashtag match

The actor also exposes since, until, fromUser, and language as dedicated input fields that get folded into the query.

What's the difference between mode=search and mode=actorSearch?

• mode=search runs full-text search across posts.
• mode=actorSearch runs typeahead-style search across accounts (handles + display names + bios).

What's a "feed" and which shortnames are supported? A feed is a curated post stream produced by a feed-generator service. Built-in shortnames: whats-hot / discover (Bluesky's official trending feed), bsky-team, mutuals. Pass any AT URI directly via feedUri to scrape custom feeds.

How are reposts handled? A repost surfaced via getAuthorFeed is emitted as one record with isRepost=true and repostedBy=<handle>, with the underlying post's text/media/counts preserved. Use excludeReposts=true to drop these.

How are quoted posts handled? A quote-post is emitted as one record with the quoter's text in text and the quoted post's metadata in quotedPost: {uri, cid, text, authorHandle, authorDid}.

How current is the data? Live — every run hits Bluesky's AppView at request time. Schedule the actor for hourly / daily refreshes.

Do I need a proxy? No. The Bluesky AppView is happy to serve datacenter IPs. The actor sets a polite User-Agent and stays well under any rate limit.

Limitations

• mode=search is capped at ~100 posts per query. Bluesky's AppView blocks unauthenticated cursor pagination on searchPosts (HTTP 403 from page 2 onward). Each query returns one page of up to 100 posts. To get more results, run multiple queries with different keywords or use fromUser + date filters to narrow.
• mode=profile, mode=actorSearch, and mode=feed paginate normally and can return thousands of records.
• Bluesky search is recency-weighted and does not index every post — very old or low-engagement posts may not surface in searchPosts.
• Custom feeds depend on third-party feed-generator services; if a generator is offline, the feed returns empty.
• The actor only reads public data — it cannot access private follower lists or DMs.
• Bluesky's AT Protocol is still evolving; field names and embed types may shift between major releases.