Medium Posts Search Scraper

Search Medium by keyword and pull back a clean, structured table of posts — title, subtitle, author, publication, claps, responses, reading time, paywall status, and publish dates, one row per post. Run several keywords in a single pass and every result is tagged with the keyword that found it. Built for content marketers, researchers, and writers who need to track what's being published on a topic across Medium without copying article details by hand, one page at a time.

Why This Scraper?

• Up to 1,000 posts per keyword — a documented hard cap you can rely on for predictable runs, or set the limit to 0 to collect everything Medium returns for the term.
• Multiple keywords in one run, each result tagged with its source — every row carries the exact keyword that produced it, so a 5-keyword run lands in one dataset you can group and compare without guessing where a post came from.
• Free-posts-only filter — flip one switch to exclude members-only (paywalled) articles and build a dataset every row of which you can actually open and read without a Medium membership.
• Best Match or Most Recent ordering — keep Medium's own relevance ranking, or reorder the collected posts newest-first by publish date to surface the latest writing on an emerging topic.
• Around 20 fields per post — title, subtitle, canonical URL, reading time in minutes, members-only flag, content visibility, series flag, clap count, and response (comment) count, all in one flat row.
• First-published and last-updated timestamps in ISO 8601 — two precise dates per post (initial publish + latest update) so you can filter by freshness or chart publishing cadence over time.
• Author identity on every row — display name, @username, and stable profile id, ready to build creator lists or join against your own records.
• Publication context when a post belongs to one — publication name, subscriber count, and description captured alongside the article, so you can see which outlets dominate a topic and how large their audiences are.
• Full-resolution preview image URL — the post's lead image at 1200px wide, ready to drop into a content board, newsletter, or dashboard.

Use Cases

Content Marketing & Strategy

• Track every new post on a topic you publish about and see how crowded the space is
• Benchmark your articles' claps and responses against the top results for your keywords
• Find the publications that dominate a niche and their subscriber sizes before pitching
• Build a swipe file of high-engagement titles and subtitles for headline inspiration

Research & Trend Analysis

• Assemble a dated corpus of posts on an emerging topic using publish timestamps
• Measure how publishing volume on a keyword changes month over month
• Compare engagement (claps, responses) across competing subtopics
• Capture free-to-read posts only when you need a fully readable reference set

Creator & Influencer Discovery

• Surface the most-clapped authors writing about your subject
• Build creator shortlists with display name, @username, and profile id
• Identify rising voices by sorting recent posts newest-first
• Spot which publications a target author writes for

Competitive & Market Intelligence

• Monitor what competitors and thought leaders are posting on shared keywords
• Track members-only vs. free coverage of a topic to gauge how it's monetized
• Feed Medium coverage into market reports and content dashboards
• Watch a product or brand name across Medium for mentions and reviews

Getting Started

Search a Single Topic

The simplest run — one keyword, default settings:

{
    "keywords": ["productivity"]
}

Track Several Topics, Newest First

Search multiple keywords and reorder each set so the latest posts come first:

{
    "keywords": ["machine learning", "prompt engineering", "vector databases"],
    "maxItems": 100,
    "sortBy": "recency"
}

Build a Fully Readable, Free-Only Dataset

Collect a large set of free-to-read posts for a topic, in relevance order:

{
    "keywords": ["personal finance"],
    "maxItems": 500,
    "sortBy": "relevance",
    "freeOnly": true
}

Input Reference

Search

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
keywords	array	["productivity"]	Terms to search Medium for, such as machine learning or productivity. Each keyword is searched separately and its posts are added to the results.

Options

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
maxItems	integer	30	Maximum number of posts to collect for each keyword. Set to 0 to collect as many as Medium returns. Hard cap of 1000 posts per keyword — higher values are treated as 1000.
sortBy	string	Best Match	How to order the collected posts for each keyword. Best Match keeps Medium's own relevance ranking. Most Recent reorders the posts collected for that keyword so the newest are first (this sorts the results that were fetched, not all of Medium).
freeOnly	boolean	false	Only include posts that are readable for free. When enabled, members-only (paywalled) posts are skipped.

Output

Every matching post becomes one flat row. Posts that belong to a publication also carry that publication's name, subscriber count, and description; self-published posts leave those fields empty.

{
    "id": "a1b2c3d4e5f6",
    "title": "The Productivity System That Finally Stuck",
    "subtitle": "After trying every app, here's what actually moved the needle.",
    "url": "https://medium.com/@janedoe/the-productivity-system-that-finally-stuck-a1b2c3d4e5f6",
    "readingTime": 7.4,
    "isLocked": false,
    "visibility": "PUBLIC",
    "isSeries": false,
    "responseCount": 38,
    "clapCount": 1240,
    "firstPublishedAt": "2024-09-12T14:30:00+00:00",
    "latestPublishedAt": "2024-09-14T09:05:00+00:00",
    "previewImage": "https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1200/1*AbCdEfGhIjKlMnOp.jpeg",
    "authorId": "9f8e7d6c5b4a",
    "authorName": "Jane Doe",
    "authorUsername": "janedoe",
    "publicationName": "Better Productivity",
    "publicationSubscriberCount": 84210,
    "publicationDescription": "Practical guides for working smarter, not harder.",
    "keyword": "productivity"
}

Post

Field	Type	Description
id	string	Medium post identifier
title	string	Post title
subtitle	string	Post subtitle / preview text
url	string	Canonical post URL
readingTime	number	Estimated reading time in minutes
isLocked	boolean	Members-only (paywalled) post
visibility	string	Content visibility status
isSeries	boolean	Whether the post is part of a series
previewImage	string	Full-resolution preview image URL (1200px wide)
keyword	string	The search keyword that produced this row

Engagement & Timing

Field	Type	Description
clapCount	integer	Number of claps the post has received
responseCount	integer	Number of responses (comments) — the count, not the comments themselves
firstPublishedAt	string	Initial publish timestamp (ISO 8601)
latestPublishedAt	string	Latest publish / update timestamp (ISO 8601)

Author & Publication

Field	Type	Description
authorId	string	Author profile id
authorName	string	Author display name
authorUsername	string	Author @username
publicationName	string	Publication name (empty if self-published)
publicationSubscriberCount	integer	Publication subscriber count
publicationDescription	string	Publication description

Tips for Best Results

• Use specific, multi-word keywords — vector databases returns a tighter, more relevant set than a broad term like data, which floods the results with loosely related posts.
• Pair Most Recent with a narrow keyword to track the latest writing on an emerging topic — the newest posts in the fetched set rise to the top by publish date.
• Enable Free Posts Only when you need a dataset you can fully read end to end without a Medium membership — every remaining row links to an open article.
• Run related keywords together rather than in separate runs — they land in one dataset, and the keyword field on each row lets you split or compare them afterward.
• Set Max Posts Per Keyword to 0 to sweep everything Medium returns for a term, up to the 1,000-post-per-keyword ceiling.
• Filter on firstPublishedAt after the run to keep only posts from a date window — both publish dates come back in ISO 8601, ready to sort or compare.
• Watch publicationSubscriberCount to rank which outlets carry the most reach on your topic before deciding where to pitch or partner.

Pricing

From $2.50 per 1,000 results — well under half the cost of comparable Medium search tools. No compute charges — you only pay per result returned. Bronze, Silver, and Gold subscribers pay progressively less; the table below shows total cost at each discount tier.

Results	No discount	Bronze	Silver	Gold
100	$0.30	$0.28	$0.27	$0.25
1,000	$3.00	$2.80	$2.65	$2.50
10,000	$30.00	$28.00	$26.50	$25.00
100,000	$300.00	$280.00	$265.00	$250.00

A result is one post returned to your dataset. Apify platform fees are additional and billed separately.

Integrations

Export data in JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or RSS. Connect to 1,500+ apps via:

• Zapier / Make / n8n — Workflow automation
• Google Sheets — Direct spreadsheet export
• Slack / Email — Notifications on new results
• Webhooks — Trigger custom workflows on run completion
• Apify API — Full programmatic access

Legal & Ethical Use

This actor collects publicly available information from Medium search results. Use it responsibly and in line with Medium's terms of service and applicable laws. Collected data — including author names and usernames — may constitute personal data; you are responsible for handling it lawfully, including under GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy regulations. Do not use the data to spam, harass, or otherwise harm content creators. This tool is intended for legitimate research, analytics, and content-strategy purposes.