Harris County Court Records Scraper

Harris County Court Records Scraper

Scrape Harris County court records by case number, party name, or date range, up to a million per run. Each record returns case type, status, court, filing date, and party details. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

The Harris County District Clerk's website holds millions of civil and probate case records, but searching them manually means clicking through pages one at a time. This Actor reads the public search portal directly, letting you pull records by case number, party name, or date range, and returns each match in one flat schema. No API key, no browser automation setup, no manual downloads.

Who uses it	What they scrape Harris County District Clerk for
Legal researchers	Pull all probate cases filed in a given month to spot trends in estate filings.
Background check services	Look up civil case histories by a person's name for pre-employment or tenant screening.
Journalists	Collect all open cases involving a particular company or public figure for investigative reporting.
Real estate investors	Find probate cases that may indicate a property coming to market.

What it does

This Actor collects Harris County civil and probate court case records from the official public portal and returns each case as a structured row with case number, type, status, court, filing date, and optional party and event details.

• 🔍 Case number lookup: Enter a specific case number to pull that single record instantly.
• 👤 Party name search: Search by last name, first name, and party type (Party, Attorney, or Company).
• 📅 Date range filtering: Narrow results by filing date from and to, in MM/DD/YYYY format.
• 🏛️ Court and status filters: Limit results to a specific court number or case status like Open, Closed, or Dismissed.
• 📋 Full case details: Optionally fetch complete party information, attorney names, addresses, and the full event history for each case.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with Harris County District Clerk data

📈 Monitor new probate filings.

A real estate investor runs the Actor weekly with a date range of the last seven days to catch new probate cases that may signal distressed property opportunities.

🔎 Run background checks at scale.

A screening company feeds a list of last names into the Actor to check for civil court involvement across Harris County before approving an application.

📊 Build a court activity dataset.

A legal researcher pulls all civil cases from Court 3 over a year to analyze filing patterns and case durations for a law review article.

📰 Investigate a public figure.

A journalist searches by a company name as a party to uncover all open and closed civil cases involving that entity for a story.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
Bulk export	Download up to a million records in one run to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.
No manual clicking	The Actor navigates the search portal and pagination for you.
Structured data	Every record arrives in a consistent schema ready for analysis or a database.
Flexible search	Switch between precise case number lookup and broad party name or date searches.

How it compares

No other Store actor targets Harris County District Clerk the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

	Harris County Court Records Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When Harris County District Clerk changes	Maintained for you	You fix it	You re-learn the page
Proxies, retries, anti-bot	Built in	Your problem	Browser only
Output	Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export	Whatever you build	Copy-paste
Cost	Pay per result	Engineering time	Analyst hours

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from a case number, a party name, or a date range, alone or together, and filters run as each record is read so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
  "maxItems": 10,
  "caseType": "Probate",
  "dateFrom": "01/01/2025",
  "dateTo": "01/31/2025"
}

A larger pull:

{
  "maxItems": 200,
  "caseType": "Probate",
  "dateFrom": "01/01/2025",
  "dateTo": "01/31/2025"
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.01599 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$1.60
1,000 results	$15.99
10,000 results	$159.90

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the Harris County Court Records Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to Harris County District Clerk through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/harris-county-court-records-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check that your date range is valid and not in the future. If you are using a party name search, try a broader last name without a first name. Also verify that the case type (Probate or Civil) matches the records you expect.

The run is taking a very long time.

Fetching full case details for many records is slow because the Actor visits each case page. Try reducing the maximum records, narrowing the date range, or unchecking 'Include Case Details' for faster bulk searches.

I entered a case number but got a different case.

Make sure the case number is correct and that you have selected the right case type (Probate or Civil). The portal may return no results or an error if the number does not exist in the selected type.

The Actor stopped before reaching my max items.

This usually means the search returned fewer total records than your maximum. Try broadening your filters, such as using a wider date range or removing the court filter.

Some fields are empty in my results.

Not all cases have every detail available. If 'Include Case Details' is off, party and event fields will be empty. Even with it on, some older cases may lack complete information on the portal.

FAQ

Question	Answer
What types of cases can I scrape?	You can scrape Probate and Civil case types from the Harris County District Clerk's public portal. The Actor lets you select which type to search before the run starts.
Can I search by a person's name?	Yes. Enter a last name in the Party Search section, and optionally a first name, to find all cases where that person appears as a party, attorney, or company, depending on the party type you select.
How do I get the full details of a case?	Keep the 'Include Case Details' option checked. The Actor will then visit each case's detail page to collect party names, addresses, attorney information, and the complete event history.
What date format should I use?	Use MM/DD/YYYY format for both Date From and Date To fields. For example, 01/01/2025 for January 1, 2025.
Does this Actor require a login or API key?	No. It reads the public Harris County District Clerk search portal directly, so no registration or API key is needed.
How many records can I get in one run?	You can set the maximum records up to 1,000,000 per run. The Actor will stop when it reaches that number or when no more matching records are found.
What happens if I enter a case number?	When you provide a case number, the Actor ignores all other search filters and retrieves that specific case record directly.
Can I filter by a specific court?	Yes. You can select a court number from 1 to 5 for Probate cases or 1 to 4 for Civil cases, or leave it on 'All' to search across all courts.
What export formats are supported?	You can export your dataset in CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML format from the Apify platform after the run completes.
Is this legal to scrape?	The Actor accesses publicly available court records. You are responsible for complying with the website's terms of service and any applicable laws regarding the use of the data.

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Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Harris County District Clerk. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.