Reddit Subreddit Post & Comment Harvester

Harvest posts from any public subreddit — hot, new, top, rising, controversial or best — with score, author, flair, selftext, images, galleries, video, polls and crossposts. Add full nested comment threads when you need the discussion too. Rich date, score, comment-count, upvote-ratio, keyword and author filters; no API key, no login, no proxy setup.

What this actor does

• Any public subreddit: bare name (python), r/-prefixed name (r/python) or a full Reddit URL; multiple subreddits in one run
• Six listing modes: hot, new, top, rising, controversial, best; top and controversial support Reddit's six time windows
• Deep history: follows Reddit's listing pages to the practical ceiling (roughly 1,000 posts for hot/new, about 500 for top/controversial)
• Posts with media: score, upvote ratio, comment count, author, flair, selftext, images, gallery images (full resolution), video (HLS + MP4), poll options and votes, crosspost parent
• Optional comment threads: full nested trees with 6 comment sorts, depth, parent links, OP flag, edited/deleted flags and awards
• Rich filtering: date range, score, comment count, upvote ratio, post type, flair, title/body keywords, authors, domain, awards, content length and moderation flags
• Empty fields are omitted from the output — no need to defend against null/empty values downstream

Output per post

• dataType — always post
• subreddit, subreddit_prefixed, subreddit_id
• post_id, post_name, title
• author, author_id
• url, permalink, content_url, domain
• is_self, post_type (self/link/image/video/gallery/poll), post_type_raw
• score, upvote_ratio, num_comments
• link_flair, link_flair_background_color, flair_url
• content (self-post text), content_html
• thumbnail_url
• created_utc, created_at (ISO-8601 UTC)
• is_stickied, is_nsfw, is_spoiler, is_crosspost
• is_archived — when the comment mode loads the post page
• total_awards_received, top_award_id, top_award_icon_url
• media_type, has_media
• images[], gallery_images[], gallery_count
• video_url (direct MP4), video_hls_url (HLS)
• poll_data — options, option ids, total votes, closing time
• crosspost_parent_id, crosspost_parent_subreddit, crosspost_parent_url
• language, crawled_at, source

For crossposts, content is the parent text Reddit renders in the listing, while post_type_raw is crosspost and the crosspost_parent_* fields identify the source post.

Output per comment

Returned when includeComments is on and maxCommentsPerPost is above 0. The parent post is emitted first, then its comments.

• dataType — always comment
• subreddit, subreddit_prefixed, subreddit_id
• post_id, post_url, post_title, link_id
• comment_id, comment_name, parent_id, parent_kind
• author, avatarUrl
• body, body_html
• score, total_awards_received
• depth (0 = top-level), position, parentPositions
• is_op, collapsed, contentType
• isCommentDeleted, isAuthorDeleted, isHighlighted, hasPaidAward — present only when true
• created_utc, created_at, edited, edited_at
• permalink, crawled_at, source

Fields not available anonymously

Reddit no longer exposes these to logged-out readers of the public pages, so they are omitted rather than guessed: author flair, raw upvotes/downvotes, post distinguished (mod/admin badge), removed_by_category, post locked, original-content marker, gilded, the award-type breakdown, video duration/bitrate/dimensions, and oEmbed title/author/HTML for external links. Link posts still carry their target URL and preview image.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
subreddits	array	–	Required. Subreddit names, r/-prefixed names or full URLs
maxPosts	int	25	Max posts per subreddit after filters (1–5,000)
maxItems	int	10,000	Global safety cap on total records (posts + comments)
sort	enum	new	hot, new, top, rising, controversial, best
timeFilter	enum	day	hour, day, week, month, year, all (top/controversial)
includeComments	bool	false	Collect comments for every harvested post
maxCommentsPerPost	int	0	Max comments per post (0–100,000); needs includeComments
commentSort	enum	confidence	confidence, top, new, controversial, old, qa
postedAfter	date	–	Only posts created on/after this date (UTC); switches the listing to new
postedBefore	date	–	Only posts created on/before this date (UTC)
includeNSFW	bool	false	Include posts explicitly flagged NSFW
onlyWithFlair	bool	false	Drop posts without a link flair
postType	enum	–	text, link, image, video, gallery, poll, crosspost, multi_media
minScore	int	–	Minimum post score
maxScore	int	–	Maximum post score
minComments	int	–	Minimum comment count
maxComments	int	–	Maximum comment count
minUpvoteRatio	number	–	Minimum upvote ratio (0–1)
excludeStickied	bool	false	Drop pinned/stickied posts
excludeCrossposts	bool	false	Drop crossposts
excludeSpoilers	bool	false	Drop spoiler-tagged posts
titleContains	string	–	Keep posts whose title contains this text
contentContains	string	–	Keep self posts whose body contains this text
flairContains	string	–	Keep posts whose flair contains this text
authors	array	–	Keep posts by these usernames
excludeAuthors	array	–	Drop posts by these usernames
excludeKeywords	array	–	Drop posts whose title/body/flair contains any keyword
domain	string	–	Keep posts whose link domain contains this text
minAwards	int	–	Minimum total awards
excludeDeletedAuthor	bool	false	Drop posts with a deleted/removed author
minContentLength	int	–	Minimum self-post body length
maxContentLength	int	–	Maximum self-post body length
fullSubreddit	bool	false	Walk the new listing as deep as Reddit allows

Example: 25 new posts from r/Python

{
  "subreddits": ["python"],
  "maxPosts": 25,
  "sort": "new"
}

Example: top image posts with media

{
  "subreddits": ["pics"],
  "maxPosts": 50,
  "sort": "top",
  "timeFilter": "week",
  "postType": "gallery"
}

Example: posts plus full comment threads

{
  "subreddits": ["technology"],
  "maxPosts": 20,
  "sort": "hot",
  "includeComments": true,
  "maxCommentsPerPost": 100,
  "commentSort": "top"
}

Example: brand monitoring with filters

{
  "subreddits": ["startups", "Entrepreneur", "SaaS"],
  "maxPosts": 100,
  "sort": "new",
  "postedAfter": "2026-10-01",
  "minScore": 5,
  "excludeAuthors": ["AutoModerator"],
  "excludeKeywords": ["megathread", "giveaway"]
}

Use cases

• Market research — collect authentic community opinions and pain points
• Brand monitoring — track product mentions across subreddits on a schedule
• Content ideation — find trending questions and high-engagement topics
• Training data — build clean Reddit corpora with full comment context for NLP/LLM work
• Competitive intelligence — monitor launches, sentiment and competitor discussions
• Academic and social research — export a subreddit's reachable history for discourse analysis

FAQ

Do I need a Reddit API key or login? No. The actor reads Reddit's public web data — no API key, no OAuth, no cookies, no account.

Do I need to configure a proxy? No. The actor chooses a working connection to Reddit automatically. Just fill in the input and run it.

What happens with private, banned or misspelled subreddits? They return no records and the run continues with the remaining subreddits. If nothing is found, the run finishes with a status message suggesting you check the names or loosen filters.

How many posts can I get from one subreddit? Up to maxPosts (5,000), but Reddit serves roughly 1,000 posts per hot/new listing and about 500 for top/controversial. fullSubreddit walks the new listing to that ceiling. Filters are applied after posts are loaded, so strict filters can return fewer rows than maxPosts.

Why did I get no comments? maxCommentsPerPost defaults to 0, which collects none. Set it (for example 100) and enable includeComments. If maxItems is tight, the actor keeps every requested post and trims comments first.

Why are some fields missing from a record? The actor omits values Reddit does not expose publicly (author flair, raw upvotes/downvotes, post distinguished/removed flags, award breakdown, video duration). Empty values are omitted rather than emitted as null, so records stay clean.

Why is the video URL a low-resolution MP4? Reddit serves a direct low-resolution MP4 plus an HLS playlist. The actor provides both: video_url for durable downloads and video_hls_url for the adaptive stream when Reddit's signed playlist is available. HLS links can expire; video_url is the stable choice.

Why are some NSFW or spoiler posts still included? includeNSFW filters posts Reddit explicitly flags. Posts in 18+ communities are served to the actor's adult-content session and cannot be distinguished at community level; use excludeSpoilers or keyword filters for tighter control.

Can I schedule recurring runs? Yes — create a schedule in Apify Console for daily or weekly monitoring. Use postedAfter or sort: "new" to collect only recent posts.

How do I export or integrate the data? Download JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML from the run, call the dataset API, or connect to n8n, Make, Zapier or the Apify MCP server.