Sherlock Username Scraper - Find Accounts by Username

Disclaimer: This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Sherlock open-source project. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. "Sherlock" is referenced only to describe the kind of check this Actor performs.

Hunt a username across 480+ social networks and websites and get back every site where that handle has an account - with the profile URL and a verified match status. Built on the site database of the well-known open-source Sherlock project, with an added precision layer that suppresses false positives.

Give it one handle or a hundred. No login, no API key.

What it does

• Checks a username against 481 sites (social media, forums, dev platforms, gaming, marketplaces, and more).
• Reports the sites where an account exists, each with the direct profile URL.
• Verifies every hit (verifyClaims, on by default): re-checks each positive with a decoy handle and drops sites that can't tell accounts apart - so a "found" really means found.
• Optional full per-site audit (includeUnclaimed): also returns the sites where the handle is free or couldn't be determined - useful for username-availability research.
• Runs up to 100 usernames in a single run.

Example output

{
  "type": "account",
  "username": "torvalds",
  "site": "BitBucket",
  "url": "https://bitbucket.org/torvalds/",
  "status": "claimed",
  "detectionType": "status_code",
  "httpStatus": 200,
  "source": "sherlock",
  "checkedAt": "2026-08-27T04:55:00.000Z"
}

Field	Meaning
username	The handle that was checked
site	Site / network name
url	Direct profile URL for that handle
status	claimed (account exists), or available / unknown when Include unclaimed is on
detectionType	How the site was checked: status_code, message, or response_url
httpStatus	HTTP status returned by the site

Input

Field	Description
Usernames	One or more handles to hunt (up to 100).
Max sites per username	How many of the 481 sites to check per handle (lower = faster/cheaper).
Verify claims	Re-check positives with a decoy handle to kill false hits (recommended, on by default).
Include unclaimed / unknown sites	Also output sites where the handle was NOT found - full per-site audit.
Include adult (NSFW) sites	Include adult sites in the check (off by default).
Proxy	Residential proxies improve coverage (some sites block datacenter IPs).

Use cases

• OSINT & investigations - map a person's or brand's online footprint from a single handle.
• Brand protection - find impersonation accounts using your brand name across the web.
• Username availability - turn on Include unclaimed to see where a new handle is still free.
• Lead & profile enrichment - resolve a known handle to its profile URLs across networks.

Notes on accuracy

Username hunting is best-effort by nature. claimed means the site's "not found" signal was absent and (with Verify claims on) the site could distinguish a real handle from a decoy. Some sites block automated checks from datacenter IPs and are reported as unknown rather than guessed - use residential proxies for the widest coverage.

Run it from an agent (MCP / API)

This Actor is agent-ready. It exposes a typed input schema and returns structured JSON, so an LLM agent or automation can call it over the Apify API / MCP to answer "where does this username exist?" as one step in a workflow. Point your agent at the Actor, pass usernames, and read the account records back.

Agent-ready: autonomous payments (x402 & Skyfire)

This actor is agent-ready — AI agents can discover it, run it, and pay for it autonomously, with no Apify account and no human in the loop. It uses pay-per-event pricing and limited permissions, so it qualifies for Apify's agentic-payment standards:

• x402 — an open, HTTP-native payment protocol. Agents pay per run in USDC on the Base network directly through the Apify MCP server — no account, no API key.
• Skyfire — agent-to-service payments for fully autonomous AI-agent workflows.

Building an AI agent, MCP tool, or autonomous data pipeline? This scraper is ready to plug in and pay as it goes.

How much does it cost?

This Actor uses Apify's pay-per-event pricing: you are charged only for the results it delivers, with no monthly rental and no start fee. The events it can charge are:

• Account found - One account record - a site where the username was checked (default: found), with profile URL and verified status

The current price of each event is shown on the Pricing tab of this page. Set a maximum total charge on the run if you want a hard cap on spend, and use the input limits to control how much the Actor fetches.

Automate & schedule

Run this Actor on autopilot and pull results into your own stack:

• Apify API - start runs, fetch datasets and manage schedules over REST.
• apify-client for JavaScript and apify-client for Python - official SDKs.
• Schedules - run it hourly, daily or weekly and keep your dataset current.
• Webhooks - trigger downstream actions (CRM import, Slack alert, email sequence) the moment a run finishes.

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'MY_APIFY_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('scrapesage/sherlock-scraper').call({
    // your input - see the Input section above
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(`Got ${items.length} records`);

Integrate with any app

Connect the dataset to thousands of apps - no code required:

• Make - multi-step automation scenarios.
• Zapier - push new records straight into your CRM or spreadsheet.
• Slack - get notified when a scheduled run finds something new.
• Google Drive / Sheets - auto-export every run to a spreadsheet.
• Airbyte - pipe results into your data warehouse.
• GitHub - trigger runs from commits or releases.

More scrapers from scrapesage

Related Actors in the same category:

• Twitter (X) Scraper - Tweets, Profiles & Monitor
• Instagram Hashtag Scraper - Filtered Post Search
• LinkedIn Profile Scraper - People, Job Changes & B2B Leads
• LinkedIn Ad Library Scraper - Competitor B2B Ads & Creatives
• YouTube Scraper - Channels, Videos & Creator Leads

FAQ

Does it need my login or an API key? No. It checks public presence signals only. Will it find every account? No tool can - handles can be private, blocked, or use different names. This maximizes coverage across 481 sites and is honest about what it can't determine (unknown). Is scraping public profile presence legal? This checks publicly observable existence signals. You are responsible for using the results in line with the sites' terms and applicable law.

Data & lawful use

You supply the input (usernames); the Actor only checks or enriches what you give it against publicly available sources. Make sure you collected that input lawfully and have a lawful basis to process it. This is a verification and open-source-intelligence tool for security research, fraud prevention and checking identifiers you are authorised to check. Do not use it to locate, track, profile or harass individuals, and follow the anti-spam and telemarketing rules that apply to you (for example GDPR and PECR in the EU and UK, CAN-SPAM and the TCPA in the US, CASL in Canada). Honour opt-outs and deletion requests.

Under Apify's Standard Actor Contract, which governs your use of this Actor, you are the controller of any personal data in your input and output and scrapesage acts only as your processor: that data is processed solely to run your job, written only to your own Apify storage, never used for any other purpose and never shared onward. If you need help with a data-subject request that involves this Actor's output, open an issue on the Issues tab.

Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Sherlock open-source project. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

"Sherlock" is referenced only in a descriptive, nominative sense - to describe the kind of check this Actor performs. This Actor is an independent implementation, is not an official Sherlock product and is not authorised or certified by the Sherlock open-source project. It collects only publicly available information; you are responsible for ensuring your use of that data complies with applicable laws and regulations.

Need help?

Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab, or visit the Apify help center. Feature requests are welcome - this Actor is actively maintained.