Bulk Reddit Search Scraper

Batch-process hundreds of Reddit searches in a single run — no Reddit API key needed. Built for teams that need to monitor multiple topics, brands, or people across Reddit without running separate scrapers. Every post lands in an Apify Dataset you can export as JSON, CSV, or Excel, or pull through the Apify API.

Why This Scraper?

Most Reddit scrapers handle one search at a time. This one processes multiple queries in parallel and includes your routing identifier (profileUrl) in every result—so you can easily match posts back to the correct profile, topic, or campaign in your downstream systems.

Perfect for:

• Social listening platforms tracking multiple brands/celebrities
• Research teams monitoring various topics simultaneously
• Marketing agencies handling multiple client campaigns
• Anyone who needs to batch Reddit searches efficiently

Key Features

Feature	Benefit
Bulk Query Processing	Run 100+ searches in one actor run instead of 100 separate runs
No Reddit API key	Works without Reddit API credentials or OAuth setup
profileUrl Mirroring	Your identifier echoed in every result for easy routing
Fast Mode (45% Cheaper)	Extracts posts from the search page — fewer fields, much lower cost (see table)
Crash Recovery	Every post saved the moment it's scraped; state checkpointed between queries
Query Isolation	One bad query never kills the run — failures are logged and the run continues

How profileUrl Mirroring Works

When you search for "Kim Kardashian" with profileUrl: "https://myapp.com/profiles/kim", every returned post includes that URL:

{
    "profileUrl": "https://myapp.com/profiles/kim",
    "title": "Kim Kardashian's new business venture...",
    "url": "https://reddit.com/r/entertainment/...",
    ...
}

This eliminates the need for post-processing joins—your pipeline immediately knows which profile each post belongs to.

Quick Start

{
    "queries": [
        { "profileUrl": "https://myapp.com/kim", "searchQuery": "Kim Kardashian" },
        { "profileUrl": "https://myapp.com/taylor", "searchQuery": "Taylor Swift" }
    ],
    "searchTime": "week",
    "maxItemsPerQuery": 50,
    "fastMode": true
}

How to Scrape Reddit Posts (Step by Step)

1. Open the actor in Apify Console. Go to the Bulk Reddit Search Scraper page and click Try actor.
2. Enter your queries. Paste one or more {profileUrl, searchQuery} pairs into the Search Queries field, then pick a time filter (searchTime) and sort order. The defaults (residential proxy, Fast Mode) work out of the box.
3. Click Start. Posts stream into the run's Dataset in real time as each query completes — you don't have to wait for the whole run to finish.
4. Export your data. Open the Storage → Dataset tab and download the results as JSON, CSV, or Excel, or fetch them programmatically via the Apify API (see Integrations & API).

Input Parameters

Required

Parameter	Type	Description
queries	Array	List of {profileUrl, searchQuery} objects. Batch as many as you need.

Search Options

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
searchTime	String	"all"	Time filter: hour, day, week, month, year, all
sort	String	"new"	Sort: new, hot, relevance, top, comments
includeNSFW	Boolean	true	Include adult (NSFW) content. When disabled, posts flagged as adult are filtered out. In Fast Mode detection is best-effort (based on the search page), so occasional NSFW items may slip through.
searchMode	String	"raw"	Query mode: raw, exact, and, or (see below)
searchType	String	"posts"	posts (recommended) applies Reddit's posts-only search filter; all searches without it. Either way, the output contains posts only — comments are never scraped.

Search Mode Explained

Mode	Input	Transformed Query	Use Case
raw	Emily Miller	Emily Miller	Reddit default (implicit AND)
exact	Emily Miller	"Emily Miller"	Exact phrase, prevents typo fixes
and	Emily Miller	Emily AND Miller	Explicit AND (same as raw)
or	Taylor Swift	Taylor OR Swift	Match any word

Recommendation: Use exact mode for person names and usernames. It prevents Reddit's spell correction (e.g., nitpicknate → "nitpicknate" instead of being auto-corrected to "nitpick rate") and enables "no results" detection.

Results Control

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
maxItemsPerQuery	Number	25	Posts per query (1-500)
maxItems	Number	—	Global cap across all queries

Performance & Infrastructure

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
fastMode	Boolean	true	~45% cheaper search-page extraction (see field availability table below)
maxConcurrency	Number	3	Parallel queries (2 for 1GB RAM, 3 for 2GB)
proxyConfiguration	Object	Apify residential	Residential proxies are required — Reddit blocks datacenter IPs. Without residential proxies, queries fail with SEARCH_FAILED. The default uses Apify's residential proxy group.

Output Format

Each post is pushed individually to the dataset. A Standard Mode record contains every field:

{
    "profileUrl": "https://myapp.com/kim",
    "id": "t3_abc123",
    "dataType": "post",
    "title": "Kim Kardashian announces new skincare line",
    "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/entertainment/comments/abc123/...",
    "createdAt": "2026-01-27T14:30:00.000Z",
    "upVotes": 1542,
    "numberOfreplies": 234,
    "communityName": "r/entertainment",
    "username": "redditor123",
    "userId": "t2_9x8y7z",
    "body": "Full post content here...",
    "flair": "News",
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/abc123.jpg",
    "imageUrls": ["https://preview.redd.it/abc123.jpg?width=640&format=pjpg"],
    "videoUrl": null,
    "isVideo": false,
    "isNSFW": false
}

A Fast Mode record has the same shape, but fields that aren't visible on the search results page come back empty:

{
    "profileUrl": "https://myapp.com/kim",
    "id": "t3_def456",
    "dataType": "post",
    "title": "Discussion about the new skincare line",
    "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/entertainment/comments/def456/...",
    "createdAt": "2026-01-27T13:05:00.000Z",
    "upVotes": 310,
    "numberOfreplies": 45,
    "communityName": "r/entertainment",
    "username": "[deleted]",
    "userId": null,
    "body": null,
    "flair": null,
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/def456.jpg",
    "imageUrls": ["https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/def456.jpg"],
    "videoUrl": null,
    "isVideo": false,
    "isNSFW": false
}

Note: The numberOfreplies spelling (lowercase "r") is intentional and kept stable for backward compatibility with downstream consumers.

Fast Mode vs Standard Mode

Fast Mode extracts posts directly from the rendered search results page instead of fetching each post's .json endpoint. Measured runs show it cuts compute cost and run time by about 45% — but the search page simply doesn't show everything, so some fields are unavailable or approximate.

Field Availability by Mode

Field	Standard Mode	Fast Mode
body (post text)	Full text	Always null
username, userId, flair	Real values	Usually "[deleted]" / null (not shown on the search page)
isVideo, videoUrl	Detected	Always false / null
upVotes, numberOfreplies, createdAt	Exact	Approximate (parsed from the rendered page)
isNSFW	Reliable (Reddit's flag)	Best-effort (detected from the search page)
title, url, communityName, thumbnailUrl	Available	Available

Rule of thumb: Fast Mode is ideal for monitoring and alerting — you learn that a post exists, its title, link, community, and rough engagement, at ~45% lower cost. Use Standard Mode when you need post text, author identity, video links, or exact counts.

How Fast Mode Saves Money

Standard Mode: Browser scrolls search → Collects URLs → HTTP fetches each post individually → Full data extraction

Fast Mode: Browser scrolls search → Extracts data directly from DOM → Done

By skipping the per-post HTTP fetch phase, Fast Mode reduces compute time and network overhead by approximately 45%.

Real-World Cost Comparison

Based on actual test runs (January 2026):

Scenario	Mode	Time	Cost
3 queries, 25 posts each	Fast	75s	$0.0021
3 queries, 25 posts each	Standard	137s	$0.0038
10 queries, 50 posts each	Fast	~4 min	~$0.035
50 queries, 25 posts each	Fast	~15 min	~$0.11

Bottom line: if the Fast Mode field set covers your use case, you get the posts at roughly half the compute cost.

Built for Reliability

This scraper is designed so that a crash, a migration, or a broken query costs you as little data as possible:

• Per-post incremental saving. Every post is pushed to the dataset the moment it's extracted — not at the end of the query or run. If the actor crashes mid-run, everything scraped up to that second is already saved.
• Checkpoint & resume. After each query completes, progress is checkpointed. If the Apify platform migrates the actor to another server mid-run, it resumes from the last checkpoint instead of starting over — already-completed queries are skipped.
• One bad query never kills the run. Each query is isolated: if one fails (bad syntax, no results, temporary block), it's recorded with an error type and the run moves on to the next query. Only if more than 80% of queries have failed after at least 5 completed queries does the actor abort early to protect your budget — the remaining queries are marked skipped, and the run still succeeds with all the data collected so far.
• Rate limit handling. Automatic retries with session and proxy rotation when Reddit throttles or blocks a request.

Run Statistics & Per-Query Results

Besides the dataset, every run writes two records to its key-value store — great for debugging and pipeline monitoring:

• STATISTICS — run-level summary: queries processed / succeeded / failed / partial / skipped, total posts saved, global limit, concurrency, mode, and whether the run aborted early.
• QUERY_RESULTS — one entry per query with its profileUrl, searchQuery, final status (success, partial, failed, or skipped), postsFound, postsSaved, and the error / errorType (e.g. SEARCH_FAILED, NO_RESULTS) if anything went wrong.

Check QUERY_RESULTS first when a query returns fewer posts than expected — it tells you exactly which query had a problem and why.

Memory Recommendations

Workload	Memory	Concurrency	Notes
1-5 queries	1024 MB	2	Minimum viable
5-15 queries	2048 MB	3	Recommended
15-50 queries	2048 MB	2-3	Lower concurrency for stability
50+ queries	4096 MB	3	Large batch jobs

Proxy Requirements

Residential proxies are required. Reddit aggressively blocks datacenter IPs — without residential proxies, queries fail with SEARCH_FAILED.

The default configuration uses Apify's residential proxy group, which works out of the box. If you use custom proxies, ensure they're residential.

Limitations

• ~250 results per query: Reddit's own search surfaces only about 250 results for any single query, regardless of the requested limit. maxItemsPerQuery accepts up to 500, but expect Reddit to stop delivering new posts around the 250 mark. To go deeper on a topic, split it into multiple narrower queries (e.g. by time window or subreddit keyword).
• Posts only: The scraper returns posts — never comments or community/user profiles, even with searchType: "all".
• Fast Mode field gaps: body, author fields, and video fields are unavailable in Fast Mode, and counts are approximate (see the field availability table above).
• Rate limits: Reddit may throttle aggressive scraping. The scraper retries with session and proxy rotation automatically, but very large jobs may take longer.

Example Use Cases

Social Listening Platform

Monitor mentions of 50 celebrities across Reddit, routing each mention to the correct profile:

{
    "queries": [
        { "profileUrl": "https://platform.com/celeb/1", "searchQuery": "Taylor Swift" },
        { "profileUrl": "https://platform.com/celeb/2", "searchQuery": "Bad Bunny" }
        // ... 48 more
    ],
    "searchTime": "day",
    "maxItemsPerQuery": 25,
    "fastMode": true
}

Brand Monitoring

Track your brand and competitors:

{
    "queries": [
        { "profileUrl": "brand:ours", "searchQuery": "\"Acme Corp\" OR \"Acme Inc\"" },
        { "profileUrl": "brand:competitor1", "searchQuery": "\"Big Corp\"" },
        { "profileUrl": "brand:competitor2", "searchQuery": "\"Other Inc\"" }
    ],
    "searchTime": "week",
    "sort": "relevance",
    "maxItemsPerQuery": 100
}

Research Data Collection

Gather posts about specific topics for analysis (Standard Mode for full post text):

{
    "queries": [
        { "profileUrl": "topic:ai", "searchQuery": "artificial intelligence" },
        { "profileUrl": "topic:ml", "searchQuery": "machine learning" },
        { "profileUrl": "topic:llm", "searchQuery": "large language models" }
    ],
    "searchTime": "month",
    "sort": "top",
    "maxItemsPerQuery": 200,
    "fastMode": false
}

Integrations & API

Run the scraper programmatically and pull results into your own pipeline. The actor handle is xmolodtsov/reddit-scraper.

Start a run with curl

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/xmolodtsov~reddit-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "queries": [
      { "profileUrl": "https://myapp.com/kim", "searchQuery": "Kim Kardashian" }
    ],
    "searchTime": "week",
    "maxItemsPerQuery": 25
  }'

Node.js (apify-client)

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

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

const run = await client.actor('xmolodtsov/reddit-scraper').call({
    queries: [{ profileUrl: 'https://myapp.com/kim', searchQuery: 'Kim Kardashian' }],
    searchTime: 'week',
    maxItemsPerQuery: 25,
});

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

You can also wire runs into Zapier, Make, or webhooks via the standard Apify integrations, and export any dataset as JSON, CSV, or Excel from the Console or API.

FAQ

Is it legal to scrape Reddit? The scraper only collects publicly available posts — the same content anyone can see without logging in. That said, how you use scraped data is your responsibility: respect Reddit's terms, applicable privacy laws (GDPR/CCPA) when posts contain personal data, and consult a lawyer for your specific use case.

Do I need Reddit API credentials? No. This scraper works without a Reddit API key, OAuth app, or Reddit account — one less registration and no Reddit API pricing to worry about.

Why do I need residential proxies? Reddit aggressively blocks datacenter IP ranges. With datacenter proxies (or no proxies), searches get blocked and queries fail with SEARCH_FAILED. The default input already uses Apify's residential proxy group, so it works out of the box.

How much does it cost to scrape 1,000 posts? Based on measured runs, compute cost in Fast Mode works out to roughly $0.03–$0.09 per 1,000 posts depending on batch shape (fewer, larger queries are cheaper per post), plus residential proxy bandwidth and the actor rental fee. Standard Mode costs roughly twice the compute. See the cost comparison table above for concrete measured runs.

A query returned 0 posts — is something broken? Not necessarily: check the QUERY_RESULTS record in the run's key-value store. NO_RESULTS means Reddit genuinely found nothing (try searchMode: "raw" or a broader searchTime); SEARCH_FAILED usually points to a proxy/blocking issue.

Development

npm install          # Install dependencies
apify run            # Run locally with Apify proxies
npm test             # Run tests
npm run format       # Format code

Changelog

• v1.1 - includeNSFW: false now actually filters out NSFW posts; removed unused timeoutSecs input; documentation honesty overhaul (Fast Mode field availability, real limits)
• v1.0 - Initial release with Fast Mode, bulk queries, profileUrl mirroring, and migration persistence

License

MIT

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Questions? Open an issue on the GitHub repository.