Medium Email Scraper

Medium Email Scraper

The Medium Email Scraper extracts publicly indexed contact emails from Medium writer profiles, publications and stories, and delivers them as a structured dataset ready for JSON or CSV export.

Medium is where a very specific kind of person publishes: indie hackers and SaaS founders, ML and data-engineering practitioners, UX writers, crypto and fintech analysts, freelance journalists and technical ghostwriters. A large share close a post with a "want to work together?" line and an address.

The Medium Email Scraper collects those addresses at scale. It builds keyword-driven Google searches against medium.com, parses each result block structurally, and keeps only the emails matching the domains you list.

This is contact discovery through public search results. The Medium Email Scraper does not log in to Medium, does not use a Medium API, and does not open the Medium website — no browser, no JavaScript rendering, no authentication, no cookies.

Who needs a Medium writer contact scraper

Content agencies hiring freelancers, PR teams pitching bylines, developer-relations leads, recruiters sourcing technical writers, and B2B marketers looking for guest-post partners.

Medium profiles are self-selected proof of subject-matter expertise. That makes the Medium Email Scraper a sharper lead generation instrument than any follower-count directory.

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Key Features of the Medium Email Scraper

Everything below is genuinely implemented in the Medium Email Scraper. No roadmap items.

Feature	What it does
Google SERP data collection	Builds site:medium.com queries and fetches result pages through the Apify GOOGLE_SERP proxy
Query expansion	Base, quoted and intitle: variants plus one variant per modifier, to get past Google's per-query result ceiling
Domain filtering	Only emails ending in your listed domains survive (@gmail.com, @yahoo.com by default)
Global deduplication	One row per unique email across every query, page and keyword in the run
Email normalisation	Understands name [at] domain [dot] com, name (at) domain, name @ domain.com, domain .com, zero-width characters and the full-width ＠
Junk filter	Rejects placeholders such as email@, yourname@, test@, xxx@ and single-character locals
Boundary-correct matching	@gmail.com never matches inside @gmail.company or @gmail.com.br
Soft-wrap repair	Discards a hit that is only the tail of another email in the same result block
Concurrency control	An asyncio worker pool runs queries in parallel with a shared stop signal on maxEmails
Retry logic	Up to 3 attempts per page with exponential backoff and a fresh proxy session per request
Block detection	CAPTCHA, "unusual traffic" and consent pages are detected and retried, never counted as empty
Resumable state	Progress persists in the key-value store, saved on PERSIST_STATE, MIGRATING and ABORTING
Structural parser	Locates the <h3> title then the smallest surrounding block, rather than trusting Google's CSS class names
Whole-page fallback	A markup change degrades the crawler to "emails without account details", never to "no emails"
Streaming dataset writes	Every lead is pushed to the Apify dataset the moment it is found

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How the Medium Email Scraper Works

The Medium Email Scraper pipeline has six stages and no hidden state.

1. Read input. Keywords, optional location, email domains, limits and concurrency.
2. Build queries. Each keyword pairs with each domain into a site:medium.com search, e.g. site:medium.com technical writer "@gmail.com" "Berlin".
3. Expand queries. With expandQueries on, quoted and intitle: phrasings also run, plus one variant per modifier. Base queries always go first.
4. Fetch result pages. Asynchronous aiohttp requests through the Apify GOOGLE_SERP proxy, with pagination up to maxPagesPerQuery.
5. Parse blocks. The parser reads the result title, the Medium site label and the story snippet as metadata for each candidate lead.
6. Extract, deduplicate, store. A domain-filtered regex pulls addresses from the block text; new ones stream into the dataset, duplicates are dropped.

Everything the Medium Email Scraper returns was already visible to anyone running the same search manually.

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What Data Does the Medium Email Scraper Extract

Each item carries the same 14 fields, so the output schema of the Medium Email Scraper never shifts between runs.

Field	Meaning
network	Platform name
keyword	The keyword that produced the lead
query	The exact Google query used
title	Raw result title
accountName	Account label Google prints
fullName	Display name parsed from a profile-style title; empty for story snippets
username	URL-safe Medium handle when one is exposed; otherwise null
profileUrl	Canonical Medium profile URL when a handle is known; otherwise empty
url	Direct Medium link when exposed, else the profile URL
description	Bio or story snippet, cleaned of labels and engagement counters
email	Lower-cased email address
emailDomain	The matched domain, e.g. @gmail.com
possiblyTruncated	true when Google's snippet ellipsis touched the email
foundAt	ISO 8601 UTC timestamp

Medium handles are @-prefixed, so a populated username yields a profileUrl of the form https://medium.com/@handle.

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Input Fields

Nine fields drive the Medium Email Scraper. Only keywords is required.

Field	Type	Default	Description
keywords	array (required)	["writer", "founder"]	Search terms: niche, job title, industry
location	string	""	Optional location phrase added to every query
customDomains	array	["@gmail.com", "@yahoo.com"]	Only emails on these domains are kept; the @ is optional
maxEmails	integer 1–10000	20	Stop after this many unique emails
countryCode	string	""	Two-letter country for the search proxy (US, GB, DE…)
expandQueries	boolean	true	Search each keyword × domain pair in several phrasings
queryModifiers	array	["email", "contact", "write for", "freelance", "consulting"]	Extra words combined with each keyword when expansion is on
maxPagesPerQuery	integer 1–50	30	Pagination cap per query
maxConcurrency	integer 1–20	5	Parallel queries

JSON input example

{
  "keywords": ["technical writer", "machine learning engineer", "indie hacker"],
  "location": "Berlin",
  "customDomains": ["@gmail.com", "@protonmail.com"],
  "maxEmails": 350,
  "countryCode": "DE",
  "expandQueries": true,
  "queryModifiers": ["email", "contact", "write for", "freelance", "consulting"],
  "maxPagesPerQuery": 30,
  "maxConcurrency": 5
}

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Output Schema and Dataset Export

The Medium Email Scraper writes leads to the Apify dataset as they are discovered, so results accumulate visibly during the run.

JSON output example

{
  "network": "Medium",
  "keyword": "technical writer",
  "query": "site:medium.com technical writer \"@gmail.com\" \"Berlin\"",
  "title": "Lena Hoffmann (@lenahoffmann) - Medium",
  "accountName": "lenahoffmann",
  "fullName": "Lena Hoffmann",
  "username": "lenahoffmann",
  "profileUrl": "https://medium.com/@lenahoffmann",
  "url": "https://medium.com/@lenahoffmann",
  "description": "Technical writer in Berlin. I write about developer docs, API design and DX. Freelance enquiries: lena.hoffmann.docs@gmail.com",
  "email": "lena.hoffmann.docs@gmail.com",
  "emailDomain": "@gmail.com",
  "possiblyTruncated": false,
  "foundAt": "2026-08-31T12:33:19.605Z"
}

Export the Medium Email Scraper dataset as JSON, CSV, XLSX or XML from the Apify console, or read it over the API into your CRM.

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How to Run It

1. Open the Medium Email Scraper on Apify and click Try for free.
2. Replace the default keywords with the writing niche you are targeting — UX researcher, devrel engineer, crypto analyst, SaaS growth writer.
3. Set the email domains you want. A narrow list produces a cleaner dataset than a broad one.
4. Optionally add a location and a countryCode if you need writers in a specific market.
5. Choose maxEmails and start the run.
6. Follow the live log: it reports pages fetched, blocked pages, retries and emails per page.
7. Export the dataset, or chain the Medium Email Scraper into a workflow through the Apify API.

Tips for a better yield

Feed the Medium Email Scraper a role plus a topic. writer is broad; fintech content writer is a query that converts.

Leave query expansion on. The write for, freelance and consulting modifiers are tuned for how Medium bios are actually phrased.

If a niche runs dry, change customDomains before you change the keyword — writers often list a work address on a different provider than their personal one.

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Use Cases for the Medium Email Scraper

Use case	How the Medium Email Scraper helps
Freelance writer sourcing	Build a shortlist of writers with demonstrated output in your topic
Guest post and backlink outreach	Find authors who already publish adjacent content and pitch collaborations
Developer relations	Reach practitioners writing about your stack, SDK or API
Recruiting	Source technical writers, analysts and engineers who publish publicly
PR and media relations	Pitch stories to independent journalists and analysts on Medium
Content and competitor research	Map who writes in a category and how they position their expertise
CRM enrichment	Append profile URLs and bio snippets to existing contact records
Newsletter and podcast recruitment	Invite proven writers to contribute or appear as guests

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Why Choose This Actor

Medium has no exportable author directory, and its own search surfaces stories rather than contact details.

The Medium Email Scraper automates the tedious half of Medium lead generation — searching, paginating, copying, deduplicating — and leaves the editorial judgement to you.

Because the Medium Email Scraper parses structurally instead of by CSS class name, and because a whole-page fallback exists, a Google layout change degrades result quality rather than breaking the run.

It also complements its siblings. Writers migrate: pair the Medium Email Scraper with the Substack Email Scraper for the ones who moved to newsletters, and with the Quora Email Scraper for the consultants answering questions in the same niche.

For the professional and social layer around an author, the LinkedIn Email Scraper covers their B2B footprint, the X Email Scraper catches their short-form posting, and the Reddit Email Scraper reaches the communities where their work circulates.

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Limitations

These constraints on the Medium Email Scraper are real. Read them before your first run.

• Only publicly indexed emails. The Medium Email Scraper finds addresses Google has already crawled. A writer who never published an email will not appear.
• Google's result cap. A single query returns roughly 300 results at most. That is precisely why query expansion exists — leave it enabled.
• possiblyTruncated. When Google's snippet ellipsis touches an address, the row is flagged true. Verify those before outreach.
• Apify GOOGLE_SERP proxy required. The Medium Email Scraper cannot run without Apify proxy credentials.
• Free-plan cap. Free Apify plans are limited to 100 emails per run; paid plans are uncapped.
• username and profileUrl availability. These are populated only when Medium exposes a handle in Google's result. Story and publication pages sometimes print only a display name, so those rows keep accountName and fullName but have an empty username and profileUrl. That is a Google limitation, not a bug.
• Variable yield. Output depends on keywords, domains and location. No volume is guaranteed.

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Example: a full run

A typical Medium Email Scraper run with three keywords, two domains, expansion on and maxEmails: 350.

The Medium Email Scraper issues base queries first (site:medium.com indie hacker "@gmail.com"), then quoted and intitle: variants, then one variant per modifier — email, contact, write for, freelance, consulting.

Five queries run concurrently, each paginating until it runs dry or reaches maxPagesPerQuery. Addresses are normalised, domain-filtered, deduplicated globally and streamed to the dataset until the 350th unique email trips the shared stop signal.

Blocked or failed queries are re-queued once at the end of the run, so a transient CAPTCHA does not quietly cost you a whole keyword.

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Related Actors

The Medium Email Scraper belongs to a family of contact-discovery Actors that share this engine and output schema.

Actor	What it collects
Medium Email and Phone Number Scraper	Emails and phone numbers from Medium
Medium Phone Number Scraper	Public phone numbers from Medium
Behance Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Behance
Bigo Live Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Bigo Live
Bluesky Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Bluesky
Bumble Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Bumble
Clubhouse Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Clubhouse
Dailymotion Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Dailymotion
DeviantArt Email Scraper	Public contact emails from DeviantArt
Discord Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Discord
Dribbble Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Dribbble
Facebook Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Facebook
Goodreads Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Goodreads
Hinge Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Hinge
Instagram Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Instagram
KakaoTalk Email Scraper	Public contact emails from KakaoTalk
Kick Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Kick
Lemon8 Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Lemon8
Likee Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Likee
LINE Email Scraper	Public contact emails from LINE
LinkedIn Email Scraper	Public contact emails from LinkedIn
Mastodon Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Mastodon
Mixcloud Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Mixcloud
Patreon Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Patreon
Pinterest Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Pinterest
Quora Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Quora
Reddit Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Reddit
Rumble Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Rumble
Snapchat Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Snapchat
SoundCloud Email Scraper	Public contact emails from SoundCloud
Substack Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Substack
Telegram Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Telegram
Threads Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Threads
TikTok Email Scraper	Public contact emails from TikTok
Tinder Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Tinder
Tumblr Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Tumblr
Twitch Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Twitch
Vimeo Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Vimeo
VK Email Scraper	Public contact emails from VK
WeChat Email Scraper	Public contact emails from WeChat
Weibo Email Scraper	Public contact emails from Weibo
X Email Scraper	Public contact emails from X

FAQ

What is the Medium Email Scraper?

An Apify Actor that extracts publicly indexed contact emails from Medium writer profiles, publications and stories via Google search results and writes them to a structured dataset.

Does the Medium Email Scraper log in to Medium?

No. The Medium Email Scraper does not log in, does not call a Medium API, and does not open medium.com. It reads Google search results only.

Where do the emails come from?

Titles, snippets and site labels in Google's public index — usually an address a writer put in their bio or at the end of a story. The Medium Email Scraper reads nothing else.

Can I choose which email providers are returned?

Yes. customDomains filters the Medium Email Scraper's extraction step. Defaults are @gmail.com and @yahoo.com, and the leading @ is optional.

Why is username empty on some rows?

Google sometimes prints only a display name for a story or publication result. Where no handle is exposed, username is null and profileUrl is empty, while accountName and fullName remain populated.

What does possiblyTruncated: true mean?

Google's snippet ellipsis touched the address, so it may be cut off. Treat those rows as unverified before sending anything.

How many Medium writer emails will one run return?

It depends on keywords, domains and location — no volume is guaranteed. Free Apify plans stop at 100 emails per run; paid plans are uncapped.

Do I need a proxy?

Yes. The Medium Email Scraper requires the Apify GOOGLE_SERP proxy and will not run without Apify proxy credentials.

Should I leave query expansion on?

Almost always. Google caps a single query near 300 results, and expansion is how the Medium Email Scraper works around that ceiling.

Does the output schema ever change?

No. Every item the Medium Email Scraper writes carries the same 14 fields, which keeps downstream mapping stable.

Is this affiliated with Medium?

No. It is an independent Apify Actor, not endorsed by or connected to Medium.

Can I export to CSV or schedule recurring runs?

Yes. Export as JSON, CSV, XLSX or XML, and use Apify Schedules to run the Medium Email Scraper on a recurring basis into the same dataset.

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Support

Questions about the Medium Email Scraper, feature requests, or need a custom build? Email neurodata.apify@gmail.com.

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