Buttondown Newsletter Scraper

Scrape posts and info from any public Buttondown newsletter — buttondown.com/{newsletter} — via its public archive pages. Works globally against any Buttondown-hosted newsletter. No login, no API key, no proxy required.

What this actor does

• Three modes: posts, byPostUrls, newsletterInfo
• Full archive pagination: walks a newsletter's entire public archive, newest first
• Optional full-body enrichment: fetch each post's individual page for exact timestamps, author info, and complete HTML body
• Filters: publish-date range, keyword (title/excerpt substring)
• Empty fields are omitted — every record only contains fields that actually have data

Output fields

Posts (recordType: "post")

Field	Description
postId	{newsletterSlug}/{postSlug} composite ID
newsletterSlug, postSlug	Post identity
title, excerpt	Title and short description (always present, from the archive listing)
publishedDate	Publish date, YYYY-MM-DD (from the archive listing, day precision)
featureImage	Cover image URL, if the post has one
postUrl	Canonical archive URL
html	Full HTML body (only with includeFullBody: true or mode=byPostUrls)
publishedAt, updatedAt	Exact ISO timestamps (only with full-body enrichment)
isAccessibleForFree	Whether the post is publicly free vs. paid-subscriber-gated (only with full-body enrichment; not present for Buttondown's own cross-posted /blog/ articles, which are always free)
articleSection	Category/section label, when the post has one (only with full-body enrichment)
authorName, authorUrl, authorImage	Author info (only with full-body enrichment)
ogTitle, ogDescription, ogImage	Social card fields (only with full-body enrichment)
language	Newsletter's declared page language (e.g. en, fr, pt-br), from the newsletter owner's account language setting

Newsletter info (recordType: "newsletter")

newsletterSlug, newsletterName, newsletterDescription, icon, language, newsletterUrl, archiveUrl, socialLinks (the author's own configured identity links — GitHub, X/Twitter, Bluesky, Mastodon, personal site, etc. — as {platform, url} pairs; only present when the newsletter owner has configured them)

Every record also includes recordType and scrapedAt (UTC ISO timestamp).

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	posts	posts / byPostUrls / newsletterInfo
newsletterSlug	string	buttondown	The newsletter's Buttondown slug, or a full URL
postUrls	array	–	mode=byPostUrls: exact archive post URLs
includeFullBody	boolean	false	mode=posts: fetch each post's page for full body/timestamps/author (slower)
dateFrom	string	–	ISO date, published on/after
dateTo	string	–	ISO date, published on/before
keyword	string	–	Case-insensitive substring match on title/excerpt
maxItems	integer	50	Hard cap (1–1000)

Example: a newsletter's full archive

{
  "mode": "posts",
  "newsletterSlug": "buttondown",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: with full post bodies

{
  "mode": "posts",
  "newsletterSlug": "thesephist",
  "includeFullBody": true,
  "maxItems": 20
}

Example: posts in a date range

{
  "mode": "posts",
  "newsletterSlug": "buttondown",
  "dateFrom": "2026-01-01",
  "dateTo": "2026-12-31",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: single post lookup

{
  "mode": "byPostUrls",
  "newsletterSlug": "buttondown",
  "postUrls": ["https://buttondown.com/buttondown/archive/updates-from-july-4795/"]
}

Use cases

• Content research — pull a newsletter's full public archive with metadata
• Migration / backup — export a Buttondown newsletter's post history
• Content monitoring — track a newsletter's publishing cadence and topics
• Curation — filter posts by date range or keyword across a newsletter's history

FAQs

Does this require a Buttondown account or API key? No. This actor reads the same public archive pages any visitor sees at buttondown.com/{newsletter}/archive — no login required.

Will this work on any Buttondown newsletter? Yes, as long as the newsletter owner has public archives enabled (Buttondown lets writers mark individual emails as public, subscriber-only, or paid-only — this actor only sees what's publicly visible, same as a logged-out visitor).

Why is publishedDate day-precision but publishedAt has exact time? publishedDate comes from the archive listing page (which only shows a date, e.g. "August 6, 2026"). Set includeFullBody: true to also fetch each post's individual page, which includes an exact ISO timestamp.

What if a newsletter slug doesn't exist? The actor fails soft with a clear status message and emits zero records — it never crashes on a bad or private newsletter slug.

Is this actor global? Yes — Buttondown hosts newsletters worldwide with no regional restrictions. Any public newsletter's slug works as input.