# GitHub Email Scraper - Find Emails from Commits (`liver0914/github-email-scraper-lite`) Actor

Extract contributor emails from GitHub commit history. Scan repos, users or orgs and get author emails, names and commit counts. No token required.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/liver0914/github-email-scraper-lite.md
- **Developed by:** [Long Li](https://apify.com/liver0914) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, Developer tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $2.00 / 1,000 email founds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## GitHub Email Scraper Lite — Find Contributor Emails from Commit History

Give it a GitHub repository, user or organization and get back **every human contributor email hidden in the commit history** — deduplicated, with author names, linked GitHub accounts, commit counts and last-commit dates. The classic lead-gen move for developer tools, recruiting and outreach.

Works with the public GitHub API — **no token required** for small scans (add a personal access token for 5,000 requests/hour when scanning orgs at scale).

### What you get

One dataset row per unique email:

| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| `email` | Commit author email. |
| `name` | Author name attached to the commits. |
| `githubUser` | Linked GitHub login, when the commit author has an account match. |
| `repo` | Repository where the email first appeared. |
| `commitCount` | How many commits in the scanned window used it. |
| `lastCommitAt` | Newest commit date with this email. |
| `isNoreply` | True for GitHub-masked `@users.noreply.github.com` addresses. |

Noise is filtered for you: `@users.noreply.github.com` masks (excluded by default, toggle `includeNoreply`), GitHub web-flow bot committers, and obvious machine senders (`dev.bot@`, `ci@`, `actions@`...).

### Input

| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| **GitHub URLs** | `github.com/owner/repo` to scan one repo, or `github.com/owner` to scan an account's recently pushed repos. |
| **Max commits per repo** | How deep to walk history (default 300). |
| **Max repos per user/org** | Account mode: how many active repos to scan (default 10; forks and archived repos skipped). |
| **Include noreply** | Keep GitHub-masked addresses. |
| **GitHub token** (optional) | Raises the rate limit from 60 to 5,000 req/h. |
| **Max concurrent repos** | Default 3, kept low to respect rate limits. |

### How to find GitHub emails (the honest way)

Every `git commit` stores the author's email in public history — `git log` shows it locally, and the GitHub REST API exposes the same data for any public repo. GitHub's own "Keep my email address private" setting replaces it with an `id+username@users.noreply.github.com` mask; those addresses can't receive mail, so this actor flags and excludes them instead of selling you dead rows.

### FAQ

**Do I need a token?**
For a few repos up to a few hundred commits: no. For organization-wide scans: yes — a free personal access token (no scopes needed for public data) lifts the limit to 5,000 requests/hour. If the quota runs out mid-run, the actor degrades gracefully and reports partial results.

**Why is an email I expected missing?**
The author has email privacy enabled (only their noreply mask commits), the commits come from a bot identity, or the email first appears deeper in history than your *Max commits* window — raise the limit.

**Private repos?**
No. Public data only; a token with private scope still won't be used to read private commits.

**Legal/ethical?**
Commit emails are published by their authors as part of open-source contribution metadata. Use for outreach responsibly — this is public data, but people still read what you send.

### Related actors

- [Contact Info Scraper Lite](https://apify.com/liver0914/contact-info-scraper-lite) — emails, phones and social links from any website
- [Cloudflare Bypasser Lite](https://apify.com/liver0914/cloudflare-bypasser-lite) — fetch HTML from Cloudflare-protected pages
- [Bluesky Scraper Lite](https://apify.com/liver0914/bluesky-scraper-lite) · [Mastodon Scraper Lite](https://apify.com/liver0914/mastodon-scraper-lite) · [Rumble Scraper Lite](https://apify.com/liver0914/rumble-scraper-lite)

### Pricing

Pay-per-event: charged per unique email found (`email-found` event), plus platform usage. Failed scans cost nothing. While the actor is on the free plan, runs cost platform usage only.

# Actor input Schema

## `githubUrls` (type: `array`):

Repository URLs (github.com/owner/repo), user profiles (github.com/owner) or organization URLs. For users/orgs, their recently pushed repos are scanned.

## `maxCommitsPerRepo` (type: `integer`):

How far back to walk the commit history of each repository (100 commits per API page).

## `maxReposPerUser` (type: `integer`):

When a user or organization URL is given, how many of their recently active repos to scan.

## `includeNoreply` (type: `boolean`):

Keep GitHub-masked emails (id+login@users.noreply.github.com). They cannot receive mail, so they are excluded by default.

## `githubToken` (type: `string`):

Raises the API rate limit from 60 to 5000 requests/hour. Only needed for large scans; leave empty for small jobs.

## `maxConcurrency` (type: `integer`):

How many repositories are scanned at the same time.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "githubUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://github.com/apify/apify-js"
    }
  ],
  "maxCommitsPerRepo": 300,
  "maxReposPerUser": 10,
  "includeNoreply": false,
  "maxConcurrency": 3
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

All discovered emails in the default dataset.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "githubUrls": [
        {
            "url": "https://github.com/apify/apify-js"
        }
    ],
    "maxCommitsPerRepo": 300,
    "maxReposPerUser": 10,
    "includeNoreply": false,
    "maxConcurrency": 3
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("liver0914/github-email-scraper-lite").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "githubUrls": [{ "url": "https://github.com/apify/apify-js" }],
    "maxCommitsPerRepo": 300,
    "maxReposPerUser": 10,
    "includeNoreply": False,
    "maxConcurrency": 3,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("liver0914/github-email-scraper-lite").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "githubUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://github.com/apify/apify-js"
    }
  ],
  "maxCommitsPerRepo": 300,
  "maxReposPerUser": 10,
  "includeNoreply": false,
  "maxConcurrency": 3
}' |
apify call liver0914/github-email-scraper-lite --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,liver0914/github-email-scraper-lite"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/FkxQdNtQqComng7jH/builds/aiSReF16E7dvnxW8W/openapi.json