Reddit Post Comment Thread & Filter Extractor

Paste in one or more Reddit post links and get every comment on that thread as a flat dataset row, in the order the thread tree expands collapsed replies. A companion record with the post's own stats is added for each URL, and a set of optional filters lets you narrow a huge thread down to only the comments worth reading before you export anything.

What this actor does

• Loads each Reddit post you give it and opens collapsed "load more" and "continue this thread" sections so deep replies are not left out.
• Returns every comment with its author, text, score, nesting depth, and the ID of the comment it replies to, so you can rebuild the thread tree.
• Captures awards, gilding, controversiality, distinguished (mod/admin) status and user flair for each comment, when Reddit shows them.
• Applies any score, depth, author, keyword or word-count rule you set, dropping non-matching comments before they reach the dataset.
• Omits any field Reddit did not provide for a given comment or post, instead of writing a blank or null value.

Output per record

Each run produces one post-metadata record per URL and one record per comment that passed your filters.

Post metadata record

Field	Description
recordType	Always post for this record type
post_id	Reddit's post ID
post_name	Fullname in Reddit's t3_<id> format
title	Post title
author	Username of the poster
author_fullname	Poster's Reddit fullname ID
subreddit	Subreddit name without the r/ prefix
subreddit_prefixed	Subreddit name with r/ prefix
domain	Link domain for link posts (e.g. self.programming)
score	Post score (upvotes minus downvotes)
num_comments	Total comment count reported by Reddit
permalink	Full URL of the post
url	Same as permalink
selftext	Post body text, for text posts
selftext_html	Post body as HTML, for text posts
link_flair	Post flair text, if the subreddit uses flairs
is_self	True for text posts
is_stickied	True if the post is pinned
is_nsfw	True if marked over-18
is_spoiler	True if marked as a spoiler
is_original_content	True if flagged as OC
is_locked	True if comments are locked
is_archived	True if the post is archived
more_comments_count	Count of "load more" links Reddit still showed after expansion
comment_sort	Comment sort order active on the page (e.g. best, top)
created_utc	Post creation time as a Unix timestamp
created_at	Post creation time as an ISO 8601 datetime

Comment record

Field	Description
recordType	Always comment for this record type
comment_id	Reddit's comment ID
comment_name	Fullname in Reddit's t1_<id> format
author	Username of the commenter, or [deleted]
author_fullname	Commenter's Reddit fullname ID
text	Comment body text
body_html	Comment body as HTML
score	Comment score (upvotes minus downvotes)
permalink	Direct link to the comment
post_url	URL of the post the comment belongs to
depth	Nesting level in the thread (0 = top-level reply to the post)
parent_comment_id	ID of the comment this one replies to, when it is not top-level
replies_count	Number of direct replies visible under this comment
subreddit	Subreddit the post belongs to
subreddit_prefixed	Subreddit with the r/ prefix
is_op	True if the commenter is the post's original author
is_edited	True if the comment was edited after posting
edited_at	Edit timestamp, when Reddit discloses one
is_stickied	True if the comment is pinned by a moderator
is_collapsed	True if the comment was shown collapsed on the page
is_deleted	True if the comment body or author shows as deleted/removed
is_automod	True if posted by AutoModerator
is_likely_bot	True if the author name matches a common bot-naming pattern
comment_age_seconds	Seconds between posting and the time the comment was scraped
distinguished	Moderator/admin distinguish tag, when present
controversiality	Reddit's controversiality flag for the comment
user_flair	Commenter's subreddit flair text
word_count	Whitespace-separated word count of the comment body
body_quote_count	Number of quote blocks in the comment body
body_code_count	Number of code blocks in the comment body
body_link_count	Number of links in the comment body
awards	List of award objects (name, icon) the comment received
awards_count	Total number of awards received
gilded_count	Number of times the comment was gilded
created_utc	Comment creation time as a Unix timestamp
created_at	Comment creation time as an ISO 8601 datetime

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
postUrls	array	–	Reddit post URLs to scrape comments from (required)
maxComments	integer	100	Maximum number of comments to collect per post, 1-10000
expandThreads	boolean	true	Click "load more" and "continue this thread" to reveal collapsed replies
minScore	integer	–	Drop comments scoring below this number
maxDepth	integer	–	Drop comments nested deeper than this (0 keeps only top-level replies)
excludeDeleted	boolean	false	Drop comments where the author is [deleted] or the body is [removed]
authorFilter	string	–	Keep only comments by an author whose name contains this text (case-insensitive)
keywordFilter	string	–	Keep only comments whose body contains this text; prefix with ! to drop matches instead
minWordCount	integer	–	Drop comments shorter than this many words
maxWordCount	integer	–	Drop comments longer than this many words

Example: default scrape of one thread

{
  "postUrls": ["https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1s9jkzi/announcement_temporary_llm_content_ban/"],
  "maxComments": 200
}

Example: only substantial, positively-scored replies

{
  "postUrls": ["https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScience/comments/1abc123/why_is_the_sky_blue/"],
  "minScore": 5,
  "minWordCount": 15,
  "excludeDeleted": true
}

Example: top-level comments from one author across two posts

{
  "postUrls": [
    "https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1xyz789/post_one/",
    "https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1xyz790/post_two/"
  ],
  "maxDepth": 0,
  "authorFilter": "throwaway",
  "maxComments": 500
}

Use cases

• Sentiment and discourse research: pull every reply to a thread to study how a community reacted to an announcement or news post.
• Moderation audits: use excludeDeleted and authorFilter to review what a specific user posted before their comments were removed.
• Dataset building: filter by minWordCount to collect substantive comments for training or evaluating language models.
• Brand and product monitoring: track replies mentioning a product name with keywordFilter across multiple relevant threads.
• Thread archiving: capture a full comment tree, including depth and parent IDs, before a thread is locked or archived.

FAQ

Does this need a Reddit account or login? No. It reads the public comment pages the same way a logged-out visitor would, so only posts and comments visible without logging in can be collected.

Why are some comments missing from my results? Deleted or removed comments, comments beyond maxComments, and comments beneath unexpanded "load more" links (when expandThreads is off) will not appear. Your score, depth, author, keyword or word-count filters can also remove comments that were successfully scraped.

What does maxDepth: 0 give me? Only comments posted directly on the post itself, with no replies-to-replies.

How is keywordFilter different from a normal search? It is a plain, case-insensitive substring match against the comment body. Prefixing the value with ! inverts it, so !spam keeps everything except comments mentioning "spam".

Why is a field missing on some comment or post records? Fields Reddit does not expose for that record (for example edited_at on a comment that was never edited) are left out of the record instead of being written as null or empty.

Can I scrape a subreddit's whole post list, not just comments? No, this actor only works from direct post URLs you supply; it does not crawl subreddit listings.

Does old.reddit.com vs www.reddit.com in my input matter? No, either form works — post_url in the output is normalized to the www.reddit.com form regardless of which you paste in.

Is this affiliated with Reddit? No. This is an independent tool that reads Reddit's public comment pages and is not operated by or affiliated with Reddit, Inc.