Bluesky Scraper Lite 🦋

Scrape Bluesky posts and profiles — keyword search, user timelines and full author stats in one Actor. Search any keyword, or list handles like @apify.com, and get clean JSON with post text, hashtags, engagement counts, images, link cards and complete author info (followers, following, post counts). No login required — built on Bluesky's open AT Protocol, so it's fast, reliable and cheap.

The all-in-one alternative to buying separate post and user scrapers: search + profiles + author feeds in a single run.

🔎 What you can scrape

• Keyword search — all posts matching a query, newest (latest) or most engaging (top) first, with optional date range (since/until) and language filters
• Profile timelines — every post by any handle, with or without replies
• Full profiles — follower/following/post counts, display name, description, avatar
• Per-post extras — hashtags (extracted), images with alt text, embedded link cards, reply/repost/like/quote counts, web URL for every post

📥 Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
searchQueries	Array	—	Keywords to search posts for.
profileHandles	Array	—	Handles to scrape (with or without @), e.g. apify.com. Saves the profile + their posts.
postsPerQuery	Integer	25	Max posts per query/handle.
sort	Select	latest	latest or top (search only).
since / until	Date	—	Only posts in this date range, YYYY-MM-DD (search only).
lang	String	—	Language filter like en, de (search only).
includeAuthorInfo	Boolean	true	Attach follower/following/post counts to every post.
includeReplies	Boolean	false	Include replies when scraping profiles.
maxConcurrency	Integer	5	Parallel API requests.
proxyConfig	Object	—	Optional; Bluesky's API is open so usually not needed.

At least one of searchQueries / profileHandles is required.

Example input

{
    "searchQueries": ["web scraping"],
    "profileHandles": ["@bsky.app"],
    "postsPerQuery": 25,
    "sort": "top"
}

📤 Output

One item per post (and one per profile) in the default dataset — export to JSON, CSV, Excel, HTML, XML:

{
    "itemType": "post",
    "id": "3l7vlkxhqxs2c",
    "uri": "at://did:plc:.../app.bsky.feed.post/3l7vlkxhqxs2c",
    "url": "https://bsky.app/profile/bsky.app/post/3l7vlkxhqxs2c",
    "text": "We just shipped something #bluesky",
    "createdAt": "2026-10-01T12:00:00.000Z",
    "hashtags": ["bluesky"],
    "langs": ["en"],
    "authorDid": "did:plc:...",
    "authorHandle": "bsky.app",
    "authorName": "Bluesky",
    "authorAvatar": "https://...",
    "authorFollowers": 250000,
    "authorFollows": 100,
    "authorPosts": 5000,
    "images": [{ "fullsize": "https://...", "thumb": "https://...", "alt": "..." }],
    "link": { "uri": "https://...", "title": "...", "description": "..." },
    "replyCount": 12,
    "repostCount": 45,
    "likeCount": 300,
    "quoteCount": 8,
    "query": "web scraping"
}

Profile items have itemType: "profile" with the same author fields plus text = bio.

⚙️ How it works

Built directly on Bluesky's public AT Protocol endpoints (app.bsky.feed.searchPosts, app.bsky.feed.getAuthorFeed, app.bsky.actor.getProfile) — the same API the official app uses. No browser, no login, no blocked accounts. Handles cursor pagination automatically until your postsPerQuery limit, deduplicates posts across queries, and caches author lookups so popular authors cost one request, not hundreds.

❓ FAQ

How do I scrape Bluesky without an API key?

Just enter a keyword and run — no key, no login. Bluesky's AT Protocol exposes post search, author feeds and profiles publicly. One caveat this Actor handles for you: the public.api.bsky.app host returns 403 for unauthenticated keyword search (known upstream issue), so it calls api.bsky.app, where the same endpoint works freely. An optional app password only raises rate limits.

How do I scrape Bluesky posts for free?

Enter a keyword in searchQueries (or a handle in profileHandles) and click Start. Your Apify account includes free monthly platform credits — because this Actor uses Bluesky's open API instead of a browser, each run costs only fractions of a credit.

Can I scrape posts from a specific Bluesky user?

Yes — put their handle (e.g. @bsky.app or bsky.app) into profileHandles. You get their profile with follower counts plus their latest posts. Enable includeReplies to also capture replies.

Can I search Bluesky posts by keyword with a date range?

Yes — fill searchQueries, set sort (latest or top), and optionally since/until (YYYY-MM-DD) and lang to filter by language.

Does it need my Bluesky login or password?

No. All data comes from Bluesky's public API — no account, cookies or credentials required. You only see public data.

Can I get the data as Excel or CSV?

Yes — every run produces a dataset exportable to JSON, JSONL, CSV, XLSX, HTML, XML and RSS from the Console, or via GET /v2/datasets/{id}/items?format=xlsx.

Can I run it via API from my app?

Yes: POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/liver0914~bluesky-scraper-lite/run-sync-get-dataset-items with your input and token returns the scraped data directly in the response.

💡 Tips

• Trend monitoring: run on a schedule with sort: "top" and since set to yesterday.
• Influencer research: list up to 1000 handles in profileHandles — profiles include follower counts for ranking.
• Cheapest runs: keep postsPerQuery tight; every item is one API page or less.

🛠️ Local development & testing

npm install
npm test   # boots a local mock of the Bluesky XRPC API and runs 16 end-to-end assertions

📚 Related

Built by the same developer as Contact Info Scraper Lite, Rumble Scraper Lite, Mastodon Scraper Lite, Cloudflare Bypasser Lite and GitHub Email Scraper Lite — a full open-web scraping toolkit.