🚀 Reddit User Data Scraper - Apify Actor

Extract comprehensive Reddit user data including posts, comments, scores, and engagement metrics. This powerful Apify actor automatically scrapes Reddit user profiles and delivers clean, structured data ready for analysis, research, and insights.

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📑 Table of Contents

• ✨ Key Features
• 🎯 Use Cases
• ⚙️ Input Parameters
• 📊 Output Data Structure
• 🔧 How to Use
• 💡 Usage Examples
• 📈 Output Examples
• ✅ Best Practices
• ❓ FAQ
• 🏷️ Keywords

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✨ Key Features

Feature	Description
🎯 User-Focused Scraping	Extract data from any public Reddit user profile
📄 Multi-Page Support	Automatically paginate through multiple pages of user content
🔄 Smart Pagination	Simple page number input - no complex cursor management needed
📊 Individual Post Records	Each post stored as a separate, easily accessible record
🚀 Fast & Reliable	Built-in retry logic and error handling for consistent results
🧹 Clean Data Output	Normalized JSON with all essential fields extracted
📦 Multiple Export Formats	Download as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, RSS, or HTML
⚡ Real-Time Processing	Get results as they're scraped in real-time
🔐 No Authentication Required	Scrape public data without Reddit API keys
💰 Cost-Effective	Pay only for what you use with Apify's pricing

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🎯 Use Cases

📊 Market Research & Analytics

• Analyze user posting patterns and behavior
• Track content trends and engagement metrics
• Monitor brand mentions and sentiment

🔍 Academic Research

• Study social media behavior and communities
• Analyze discourse and conversation patterns
• Collect data for research papers and studies

📈 Content Strategy

• Identify top-performing content types
• Understand audience engagement patterns
• Optimize posting schedules and strategies

🤖 Data Science & ML

• Build training datasets for NLP models
• Perform sentiment analysis on user content
• Create recommendation systems

👥 Community Management

• Monitor user activity and contributions
• Track community engagement metrics
• Identify influential community members

🎨 Competitive Analysis

• Analyze competitor social media presence
• Track industry thought leaders
• Monitor market conversations

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⚙️ Input Parameters

Configuration Options

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
username	string	✅ Yes	-	Reddit username or profile URL (e.g., popculturechat, u/popculturechat, or full URL)
sortType	string	❌ No	relevance	Sort order for posts: relevance, hot, top, new, comments
maxPages	integer	❌ No	1	Number of pages to scrape (1-50). Each page contains ~25 posts

Input Field Details

🎯 Username

• Accepts multiple formats:
  • Plain username: popculturechat
  • With prefix: u/popculturechat
  • Full URL: https://www.reddit.com/user/popculturechat/
• ⚠️ Note: Subreddit URLs (/r/...) are not supported

📊 Sort Type Options

Sort Type	Description	Best For
relevance	Most relevant posts	General overview
hot	Currently trending posts	Real-time trends
top	Highest scoring posts	Best content
new	Most recent posts	Latest activity
comments	Most commented posts	Engagement analysis

📄 Max Pages

• Range: 1 to 50 pages
• Each page typically contains 25 posts
• Automatically handles pagination internally
• Stops if no more content is available

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📊 Output Data Structure

Individual Post Records

Each Reddit post is stored as a separate record with the following structure:

Field	Type	Description
username	string	Target Reddit username
page	integer	Page number where post was found
post_index	integer	Position of post within the page
post_id	string	Unique Reddit post ID
post_title	string	Post title/headline
post_author	string	Post author username
post_subreddit	string	Subreddit where post was made
post_url	string	Direct URL to the post
post_permalink	string	Reddit permalink
post_score	integer	Post score (upvotes - downvotes)
post_upvote_ratio	float	Ratio of upvotes (0.0 - 1.0)
post_num_comments	integer	Number of comments
post_created_utc	integer	Unix timestamp of creation
post_selftext	string	Post text content (for text posts)
post_thumbnail	string	Thumbnail image URL
post_link_flair_text	string	Post flair/category
post_is_video	boolean	Whether post contains video
post_domain	string	Domain of linked content
fetched_at	string	ISO timestamp when data was scraped
cursor_used	string	Pagination cursor used
next_cursor	string	Next pagination cursor
full_post_data	object	Complete raw post data from Reddit

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🔧 How to Use

Method 1: Apify Console (Web Interface)

1. Open the Actor in Apify Console
2. Configure Input:
   • Enter Reddit username
   • Select sort type
   • Set number of pages
3. Click "Start" to run the actor
4. Download Results in your preferred format

Method 2: Apify API

const { ApifyClient } = require('apify-client');

const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN',
});

const input = {
    username: 'popculturechat',
    sortType: 'new',
    maxPages: 5
};

const run = await client.actor('YOUR_ACTOR_ID').call(input);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

console.log(items);

Method 3: Apify CLI

apify call YOUR_ACTOR_ID --input '{
  "username": "popculturechat",
  "sortType": "top",
  "maxPages": 3
}'

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💡 Usage Examples

Example 1: Basic Single Page Scrape

{
  "username": "popculturechat",
  "sortType": "new",
  "maxPages": 1
}

Result: Scrapes the most recent 25 posts from the user

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Example 2: Multi-Page Deep Scrape

{
  "username": "technology",
  "sortType": "top",
  "maxPages": 10
}

Result: Scrapes up to 250 top posts (10 pages × 25 posts)

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Example 3: Hot Trending Content

{
  "username": "news",
  "sortType": "hot",
  "maxPages": 5
}

Result: Scrapes 5 pages of currently trending posts

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Example 4: Using Full Profile URL

{
  "username": "https://www.reddit.com/user/popculturechat/",
  "sortType": "relevance",
  "maxPages": 3
}

Result: Automatically extracts username and scrapes 3 pages

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📈 Output Examples

Single Post Record Example

{
  "username": "popculturechat",
  "page": 1,
  "post_index": 1,
  "post_id": "1l6mc1c",
  "post_title": "ANNOUNCING THE POPCULTURECHAT DISCORD SERVER 👾✨",
  "post_author": "popculturechat",
  "post_subreddit": "popculturechat",
  "post_url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/popculturechat/comments/1l6mc1c/",
  "post_permalink": "https://reddit.com/r/popculturechat/comments/1l6mc1c/",
  "post_score": 83,
  "post_upvote_ratio": 0.79,
  "post_num_comments": 45,
  "post_created_utc": 1749616761,
  "post_selftext": "We are ELATED to announce our brand new discord server...",
  "post_thumbnail": "https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/...",
  "post_link_flair_text": "News & Announcements 🥳",
  "post_is_video": false,
  "post_domain": "self.popculturechat",
  "fetched_at": "2025-11-22T12:57:22.029Z",
  "cursor_used": null,
  "next_cursor": "t1_ne7bggm"
}

Dataset Summary

When you scrape 2 pages, you'll get:

• ✅ ~50 individual JSON files (one per post)
• ✅ Each file contains complete post data
• ✅ Easy to filter, sort, and analyze
• ✅ Export to CSV, Excel, or any format

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✅ Best Practices

🎯 Optimize Your Scraping

Practice	Recommendation	Why
Start Small	Begin with 1-2 pages	Test configuration before large runs
Use Appropriate Sort	Match sort type to your goal	Get the most relevant data
Monitor Costs	Check Apify usage dashboard	Stay within budget
Schedule Runs	Use Apify scheduler for regular updates	Automate data collection
Export Regularly	Download data after each run	Prevent data loss

🔒 Legal & Ethical Guidelines

• ✅ Only scrape public data
• ✅ Respect Reddit's Terms of Service
• ✅ Use data for legitimate purposes
• ✅ Don't overload Reddit servers
• ✅ Attribute data source when publishing
• ❌ Don't scrape private/restricted content
• ❌ Don't use for spam or harassment

💰 Cost Optimization

• Start with fewer pages to estimate costs
• Use filters to get only needed data
• Schedule runs during off-peak hours
• Clean up old datasets regularly
• Monitor Apify compute units usage

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❓ FAQ

🧩 General Questions

Q: What is this actor?
A: This actor automatically scrapes Reddit user profile data, including posts, scores, comments count, and engagement metrics. It returns clean, structured JSON so you can analyze it easily.

Q: Do I need a Reddit account or API key?
A: No. The actor works with public Reddit data and does not require any Reddit login or API key. You only need to provide a username in the input.

Q: How much does it cost to run?
A: Cost depends on your Apify plan and how many pages you scrape:

• Number of pages requested
• Compute units consumed You can see exact usage and cost in your Apify dashboard.

Q: Is scraping Reddit legal?
A: Scraping public Reddit data is generally allowed, but you must:

• Follow Reddit's Terms of Service
• Use data ethically and responsibly
• Avoid private/restricted content
• Respect privacy and applicable laws

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⚙️ Technical Questions

Q: How does pagination work?
A: You set maxPages (1–50). The actor:

1. Fetches page 1
2. Reads the returned cursor
3. Uses it to request the next page
4. Repeats until it reaches your maxPages or there is no more data

You never need to manually handle cursor values.

Q: How many posts are scraped per page?
A: Typically around 25 posts per page. For example:

• 1 page ≈ 25 posts
• 5 pages ≈ 125 posts
• 10 pages ≈ 250 posts

Q: In what formats can I export the data?
A: From the Apify dataset you can export to:

• JSON
• CSV
• Excel (XLSX)
• XML
• RSS
• HTML

Q: Can I scrape multiple users at once?
A: This actor takes one username per run. To scrape multiple users:

• Create multiple tasks with different usernames, or
• Run the actor programmatically in a loop from your code.

Q: How long does a run take?
A: Typical ranges:

• 1 page: ~5–10 seconds
• 5 pages: ~30–60 seconds
• 10 pages: ~1–2 minutes

Actual time depends on Reddit and network conditions.

Q: What happens if a user has no posts?
A: The actor finishes successfully but the dataset will be empty for that user. Check logs for the "No posts found" message.

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📊 Data Questions

Q: What data fields are included for each post?
A: Key fields include:

• post_title, post_author, post_subreddit
• post_score, post_upvote_ratio, post_num_comments
• post_url, post_permalink
• post_created_utc
• post_selftext (for text posts)
• post_thumbnail, post_link_flair_text, post_domain
• plus full_post_data with the complete raw object

See the Output Data Structure section above for a full list.

Q: Is the data real‑time?
A: Yes. Data reflects the state of Reddit at the time the actor runs. For ongoing monitoring, schedule the actor to run regularly.

Q: Can I get historical data?
A: The actor returns whatever Reddit currently exposes for that user. Very old posts may not always be available, depending on Reddit's backend/API behavior.

Q: Are deleted or removed posts included?
A: No. If a post is deleted or removed, it usually won't appear in the scraped data.

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🔌 Integration Questions

Q: Can I use this actor with Python?
A: Yes. Example:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN')

run_input = {
    "username": "popculturechat",
    "sortType": "new",
    "maxPages": 5,
}

run = client.actor('YOUR_ACTOR_ID').call(run_input=run_input)

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

Q: Can I send data to Google Sheets?
A: Yes. From the dataset in Apify Console choose Export → Google Sheets and connect your spreadsheet.

Q: Can I trigger webhooks when the run finishes?
A: Yes. Configure webhooks in Apify so your endpoint is called when the actor succeeds, fails, or finishes.

Q: Is there an HTTP API for this actor?
A: Yes. You can start runs and fetch results using Apify's REST API. This makes it easy to integrate with any backend or workflow tool.

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🛠️ Troubleshooting

Q: The actor failed with an error. What should I do?
A:

1. Open the run in Apify Console and read the logs
2. Check that the username is valid and public
3. Try lowering maxPages
4. If the problem continues, contact support with the run link

Q: No data was returned. Why?
A: Common reasons:

• Username is misspelled or does not exist
• User has no public posts
• Account is banned, suspended, or private
• A subreddit name (funny, news, etc.) was used instead of a user profile

Q: Some fields are null or missing. Is that normal?
A: Yes. Reddit objects differ by post type:

• Text posts often have no media URLs
• Link/media posts may have empty selftext
• Some metadata fields are optional

Always handle null / missing fields safely in your code.

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🏷️ Keywords

Primary Keywords

reddit scraper • reddit data extraction • reddit user scraper • reddit post scraper • reddit api alternative • apify reddit actor • reddit data mining • reddit analytics tool

Secondary Keywords

reddit web scraping • extract reddit data • reddit user analysis • reddit content scraper • reddit automation • reddit data collection • reddit research tool • reddit sentiment analysis • reddit market research • reddit social media analytics

Technical Keywords

reddit json api • reddit data pipeline • reddit dataset • reddit crawler • reddit bot • reddit data export • reddit csv export • reddit bulk download • reddit archive tool • reddit backup tool

Use Case Keywords

reddit competitor analysis • reddit brand monitoring • reddit trend analysis • reddit academic research • reddit nlp dataset • reddit machine learning • reddit content strategy • reddit engagement metrics • reddit community analysis

Platform Keywords

apify actor • apify scraper • web scraping tool • data extraction tool • no code scraper • cloud scraper • automated web scraping • scheduled scraping

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📄 More Reddit Actors by This Publisher

• Reddit Search Scraper – scrape Reddit search results for any query.
• Reddit Comments Scraper – extract comments from specific threads.
• Reddit Post Viewer – fetch detailed data for individual Reddit posts.

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Need Help?

• 📧 Email Support: Contact through Apify platform
• 💬 Apify Community: Join the Apify Discord/Forum
• 📚 Documentation: Check Apify's official docs
• 🐛 Report Issues: Use Apify's issue tracker

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• ⭐ Rate it on Apify Store
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Made with ❤️ for the Apify Community

Last Updated: November 2025