# Threads Keyword & Hashtag Search Scraper — Posts + Metrics (`scrapersdelight/threads-keyword-search-scraper`) Actor

Search public Threads (threads.com) by keyword or hashtag and get every post on the results page: text, author, likes, replies, reposts, quotes, media, links and exact timestamp. Bulk keyword lists, date and engagement filters, no login. $1 per 1,000 posts, no per-run fee.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/scrapersdelight/threads-keyword-search-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Scrapers Delight](https://apify.com/scrapersdelight) (community)
- **Categories:** Social media, Marketing, SEO tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$1.00 / 1,000 per post returneds

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?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
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.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## 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.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## 🔎 Threads Keyword & Hashtag Search Scraper — Posts + Engagement Metrics

Search [Threads](https://www.threads.com) — Meta's text network — by **keyword or hashtag** and get
back **one row per public post**: the full text, the author, exact timestamp, **likes, replies,
reposts and quotes**, media URLs, outbound links, mentions and hashtags.

Feed it a list of terms and it searches all of them.

**No login. No cookies. No Instagram account. No CAPTCHA solving. No browser.**

**$0.001 per post returned — $1.00 per 1,000 posts, and no actor-start fee.**

```json
{
  "keywords": ["coffee", "#marketing", "ai agents", "small business"],
  "searchType": "both",
  "passesPerSurface": 2,
  "postedWithinDays": 30
}
```

Click **Try for free** and hit **Start**. A run with the shipped input returns real rows and costs
about **five cents**.

***

### ⚠️ Read this first: how many posts you actually get

Threads' logged-out search page is **not paginated**. This Actor reads what the search page itself
renders, and every number below was measured on **real threads.com bytes on 2026-09-02, through
Apify datacenter proxies** — not on a home connection, and not estimated.

| What | Measured |
|---|---|
| Posts on one search request | **18–25** (mean **21.0**, n = 12 real search pages, 252 rows) |
| Unique posts per keyword, `searchType: "both"`, 1 pass (2 requests) | **25–43** (mean 32.7 over 6 keywords) |
| Unique posts per keyword, 3 passes × both surfaces (6 requests) | **52** (`coffee`) and **54** (`marketing`) |
| Practical ceiling per keyword | **~50–70 unique posts** |

**Why there is a ceiling.** Two things were tested and are reported honestly rather than papered
over:

1. The search page's own payload declares `page_info: {end_cursor: null, has_next_page: false}` —
   Threads hands a logged-out client **no cursor**.
2. Re-issuing the search query against `POST /api/graphql` with the page's own freshly minted `LSD`
   token — the technique that *does* work for Threads profile feeds — is refused with
   `invalid_variable_type`. **Fourteen** different variable shapes were tried (with and without the
   relay-provider variables, `recent` as `0`/`1`/`true`/`false`/`null`/omitted, with `first`, with
   `after`, dropping each base variable in turn). All fourteen failed. See `SIGNOFF.md`.

**What does add depth** is that the two search surfaces disagree with each other and that the
results rotate between requests. So `passesPerSurface` is the depth knob — and because you are
billed **per delivered post**, a repeat pass that returns nothing new **costs you nothing**.

If you need a specific creator's whole post history instead, that is a different surface — use
**Threads Profile Scraper**.

***

### 🧰 What you can do with it

- 👂 **Social listening** — track your brand, your competitors and your category on Threads, daily.
- 📈 **Trend + content research** — sort a keyword's results by `engagementTotal` and see what
  actually lands in that niche before you write anything.
- 🎯 **Creator discovery** — `authorIsVerified`, `engagementTotal` and `authorProfileUrl` on every
  row; pull 30 category keywords and you have a ranked shortlist of accounts in your space.
- 🔗 **Lead generation** — switch on `onlyWithLinks` and keep only the posts pushing an outbound
  URL. `externalLinkDomain` tells you which product each one is promoting.
- 🗞️ **Newsroom / PR monitoring** — `postedWithinDays: 1` plus a keyword list is a morning brief.
- 🧪 **Dataset building** — `text`, `language`, `mediaType` and engagement counts, ready for
  sentiment or classification work.

***

### 📤 Output — one row per post

Fill rates below are **measured**, across **252 rows from 12 real search pages** (`coffee`,
`ai agents`, `marketing`, `nike`, `crypto`, `small business` × Top + Hashtag surfaces), 2026-09-02.

#### Search context

| Field | Type | Fill | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| `searchKeyword` | string | 100% | the term this row was found under |
| `searchSurface` | string | 100% | `top` or `tags` |
| `searchUrl` | string | 100% | the exact URL the row came from |

#### The post

| Field | Type | Fill | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| `postId` | string | 100% | stable Threads post id (`pk`) |
| `postCode` | string | 100% | short code used in the permalink |
| `postUrl` | string | 100% | `https://www.threads.com/@user/post/<code>` |
| `text` | string | 100% | full post text, newlines and emoji preserved |
| `textLength` | integer | 100% | characters |
| `postedAt` | ISO 8601 | 100% | exact publish time, UTC |
| `likeCount` | integer | 100% | median 38, max 16,845 in the sample |
| `replyCount` | integer | 100% | |
| `repostCount` | integer | 100% | |
| `quoteCount` | integer | 100% | |
| `reshareCount` | integer | 47.2% | only present on some posts |
| `engagementTotal` | integer | 100% | likes + replies + reposts + quotes, pre-computed to sort on |
| `countsHidden` | boolean | 100% | true when the author hid their counts |
| `isReply` | boolean | 100% | 11.9% of sampled results were replies |
| `replyToAuthor` | string | 11.9% | who the reply is to |
| `isPaidPartnership` | boolean | 100% | |
| `language` | string | 5.6% | only where Threads has detected one |

#### Media

| Field | Type | Fill | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| `mediaType` | string | 100% | measured mix: `text` 139, `image` 50, `carousel` 46, `video` 17 |
| `imageUrl` | string | 44.8% | highest-resolution candidate |
| `videoUrl` | string | 6.7% | direct MP4 |
| `carouselCount` | integer | 18.3% | items in a multi-image post |
| `hasAudio` | boolean | 6.7% | video posts only |

#### Links, tags, mentions

| Field | Type | Fill | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| `hashtags` | string\[] | 2.8% | hashtags really are rare on Threads — only 7 of 252 posts used one |
| `mentions` | string\[] | 3.2% | @-mentioned usernames |
| `externalLinks` | string\[] | 2.4% | outbound URLs, from the body **and** the link-preview card |
| `externalLinkDomain` | string | 2.4% | the first link's domain, ready to group by |
| `linkPreviewTitle` | string | 1.6% | link-card title where Threads rendered one |

#### The author

| Field | Type | Fill | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| `authorUsername` | string | 100% | |
| `authorFullName` | string | 94.4% | display name |
| `authorId` | string | 100% | stable Threads user id |
| `authorProfileUrl` | string | 100% | |
| `authorIsVerified` | boolean | 100% | 15.5% of sampled results were from verified accounts |
| `authorIsPrivate` | boolean | 100% | |
| `authorProfilePicUrl` | string | 100% | |
| `scrapedAt` | ISO 8601 | 100% | |

**Follower count is deliberately not here.** The search page does not carry it, and this Actor does
not invent columns. Pipe `authorUsername` into **Threads Profile Scraper** when you need it.

***

### ⚙️ Input

| Field | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| `keywords` | *(sample)* | One term per line. `coffee`, `#marketing`, or a pasted Threads search URL. |
| `searchType` | `both` | `top` = the main results page, `tags` = the hashtag surface, `both` = the union. |
| `passesPerSurface` | `1` | 1–5. Re-request each surface to pick up rotating results. |
| `maxPostsPerKeyword` | `100` | Per-term cap. 0 = no cap. |
| `maxItems` | `1000` | Whole-run cap. 0 = no limit. |
| `minLikes` | `0` | Drop the long tail. |
| `postedWithinDays` | `0` | Search mixes fresh posts with older high-performers — set `7` or `30` for monitoring. |
| `excludeReplies` | `false` | Standalone posts only. |
| `onlyWithLinks` | `false` | Only posts carrying an outbound URL. Strict: 2.4% of results. |
| `requestConcurrency` | `3` | Keywords searched in parallel. |
| `proxyConfiguration` | Apify datacenter | See below. |

Leave `keywords` empty and the Actor runs a documented sample instead of failing, so `{}` from an
API, MCP or agent caller always comes back with real rows.

***

### 💵 Pricing

| | |
|---|---|
| **Per post returned** | **$0.001** |
| Actor start fee | **$0.00** |
| 1,000 posts | **$1.00** |
| 30 keywords, 2 passes, both surfaces (~1,300 posts) | **~$1.30** |

You are billed **as each post is written**, so a run that hits your charge cap stops cleanly —
you never pay for rows you did not receive. Duplicate posts across surfaces and passes are
de-duplicated **before** billing and charged once. A keyword threads.com refuses to serve is
**not billed at all**.

For comparison, checked on the live Apify Store on 2026-09-02: the Threads-search incumbent charges
**$0.02/item**, the next-biggest **$0.008/item**, and one competitor charges **$0.04 per run**
before a single row.

***

### 🌐 Proxies and reliability — the honest version

threads.com sometimes answers a logged-out request with its **"log in" interstitial** (a ~265 KB
shell with no data in it) instead of the search page. It is transient and per-request: a retry on a
**fresh proxy session** clears it. This Actor retries up to 4 times per search page, on a new
session each time.

**Measured over 12 consecutive search pages through Apify datacenter proxy: 12 of 12 readable —
9 on the first attempt, 3 on the second.**

A term that never yields a search page after all 4 attempts is **named in the log and in the run's
status message**, and is not billed. A blocked keyword is never silently reported as "no results" —
those are different facts and you are told which one happened.

Datacenter proxy is the default because a search page is ~1 MB and residential bandwidth would cost
more than the posts on the page are priced at. If you do see blocked terms, switch
`proxyConfiguration` to `RESIDENTIAL` and re-run.

***

### ❓ FAQ

**Do I need a Threads or Instagram login?**
No. Everything this Actor reads is what threads.com serves to a logged-out visitor.

**How many posts will I get per keyword?**
18–25 from a single request; 25–43 with `searchType: "both"`; **52–54 measured with 3 passes over
both surfaces**. Roughly 50–70 is the ceiling. See the table at the top.

**Can you add pagination / "load more"?**
Not from the logged-out search surface. The page reports no cursor, and the GraphQL search query is
refused with `invalid_variable_type` on every variable shape tested (14 of them). If that changes,
this page changes with it.

**Are the results sorted by date?**
No — Threads' own ranking mixes recent posts with older high-performers. The 252-row sample spanned
2023 to the day it was taken. Use `postedWithinDays` to force recency, and sort on `postedAt`.

**What's the difference between the `top` and `tags` surfaces?**
They are two different Threads result pages for the same term. Measured overlap per keyword was only
**6–11 shared posts** out of ~21 each, so `both` is the default.

**Do I have to write the `#`?**
No. `marketing` and `#marketing` both work, on both surfaces.

**Does it get follower counts?**
No — the search page does not carry them. Feed `authorUsername` into **Threads Profile Scraper**.

**Does it get comments/replies to a post?**
Only replies that themselves matched your keyword (`isReply: true`, 11.9% of results). A post's full
reply thread is a different surface.

**Can I monitor a keyword daily?**
Yes — schedule it. Set `postedWithinDays: 1`, and de-duplicate on `postId` across runs.

**What happens on an empty input?**
It runs a documented sample and returns rows. It never fails.

**Will a blocked page look like "no results"?**
No. Blocked terms are counted, named in the log, and named in the run status message.

**What does a zero-row run cost?**
Nothing beyond compute. There is no actor-start fee and nothing is charged unless a post is written.

**Can I export to CSV / Google Sheets?**
Yes — every Apify dataset exports to CSV, JSON, XLSX, XML and HTML, and the API serves it directly.

***

### ⚖️ Legal & fair use

This Actor reads **only public, logged-out** Threads search pages — the same pages any visitor sees
without an account. It does not log in, does not use or store credentials, does not touch private or
follower-only accounts, and does not attempt to bypass a login wall.

`https://www.threads.com/robots.txt` contains, verbatim:

```
## Notice: Collection of data on Threads through automated means is
## prohibited unless you have express written permission from Threads
## and may only be conducted for the limited purpose contained in said
## permission.
...
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
```

That is stated here plainly rather than hidden. A `robots.txt` directive is a request to automated
crawlers rather than a law, but **Meta's Terms of Service separately prohibit automated
collection**, and the legal position around scraping public pages differs by jurisdiction and is
still being litigated.

**You are responsible for your own use.** Respect GDPR/CCPA where personal data is involved, honour
deletion requests, do not re-publish scraped content as your own, and take your own legal advice
before commercial use. Run at a reasonable rate — the defaults here are deliberately gentle.

***

*Built by ScrapersDelight. Sibling Actors: **Threads Profile Scraper** (followers, bio links, recent
posts).*

# Actor input Schema

## `keywords` (type: `array`):

One search term per line. Plain words (`coffee shop`), hashtags (`#marketing`) and pasted Threads search URLs all work. Leave empty to run the built-in sample so you can see the output shape.

## `searchType` (type: `string`):

`top` is the main Threads search results page (serp\_type=default). `tags` is the hashtag surface for the same term. They return overlapping but genuinely different sets — measured 2026-09-02, the two surfaces shared only 6-11 of ~21 posts each — so `both` is the default and yields the most unique posts per term.

## `passesPerSurface` (type: `integer`):

How many times to re-request each surface. Threads has no logged-out pagination cursor, but the SERP rotates between requests, so extra passes surface posts the first one missed. Measured over 3 passes x 2 surfaces (6 requests): 52 unique posts for `coffee`, 54 for `marketing`, versus ~21 from a single request. You are billed per delivered post, so a pass that returns nothing new costs nothing.

## `maxPostsPerKeyword` (type: `integer`):

Stop collecting a term once this many posts have been delivered for it. The realistic ceiling from the logged-out search surfaces is roughly 50-70 unique posts per term, so a higher number simply means 'no per-term cap'. 0 = no cap.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Hard stop for the whole run, across every keyword. Keeps a large keyword list from running away. 0 = no limit.

## `minLikes` (type: `integer`):

Only return posts with at least this many likes. Useful for cutting the long tail when you are looking for what actually got traction. 0 = keep everything.

## `postedWithinDays` (type: `integer`):

Threads search mixes fresh posts with older high-performers — the sample of 252 real results spanned 2023 to today. Set this to 7 or 30 for a monitoring run. 0 = no date filter.

## `excludeReplies` (type: `boolean`):

Drop posts that are a reply to someone else's post and keep only standalone posts. Measured fill: about 12% of search results are replies.

## `onlyWithLinks` (type: `boolean`):

Keep only posts that carry an outbound URL (in the text or as a link-preview card). This is the lead-gen filter — it finds the people promoting something. It is a strict filter: measured 2.4% of search results carry a link.

## `requestConcurrency` (type: `integer`):

How many keywords to search at the same time. 3 is a good balance; raising it past 5 makes threads.com serve its logged-out interstitial more often, which just costs retries.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Apify datacenter proxy is the default and is what this Actor's reliability was measured on (12 of 12 search pages read, 9 first try, 3 on a retry). Switch to RESIDENTIAL only if a run reports blocked terms — a search page is about 1 MB, so residential traffic costs real money.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "keywords": [
    "coffee"
  ],
  "searchType": "both",
  "passesPerSurface": 1,
  "maxPostsPerKeyword": 25,
  "maxItems": 25,
  "minLikes": 0,
  "postedWithinDays": 0,
  "excludeReplies": false,
  "onlyWithLinks": false,
  "requestConcurrency": 3,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `posts` (type: `string`):

The dataset of scraped Threads posts (one item per post, de-duplicated across keywords, surfaces and passes).

# 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 = {
    "keywords": [
        "coffee"
    ],
    "passesPerSurface": 1,
    "maxPostsPerKeyword": 25,
    "maxItems": 25
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("scrapersdelight/threads-keyword-search-scraper").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 = {
    "keywords": ["coffee"],
    "passesPerSurface": 1,
    "maxPostsPerKeyword": 25,
    "maxItems": 25,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("scrapersdelight/threads-keyword-search-scraper").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 '{
  "keywords": [
    "coffee"
  ],
  "passesPerSurface": 1,
  "maxPostsPerKeyword": 25,
  "maxItems": 25
}' |
apify call scrapersdelight/threads-keyword-search-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,scrapersdelight/threads-keyword-search-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

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/Cg2MaELd6ZJ0anAxA/builds/BRLt0wH8FiJmaTbWt/openapi.json