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How to get Reddit posts, comments and search results as structured data

27 Oct 2026 · benthepythondev

If you need Reddit content in a spreadsheet, a database or a script, the Reddit Scraper on Apify returns it as clean rows. You give it a subreddit, a post URL, a username or a search query. It returns the available posts and comments with scores, images and nested comment threads. You don't need a Reddit login or your own API key.

What you get

Each post comes back as one row with these fields:

Identity and links: id, title, url, permalink, domain
Where it was posted: subreddit, subreddit_id, author
Engagement: score, upvote_ratio, num_comments, total_awards_received
Post type and state: is_self (a text post), is_video, post_hint, over_18, spoiler, stickied, locked, link_flair_text
Media: thumbnail and an images array
Time: created_utc
Text: the original selftext, selftext_markdown and selftext_html, plus a content field in the format you choose (markdown, html or text), with content_format telling you which one it is
Size: word_count and token_count

Comments work the same way, using body, body_markdown and body_html. Each post and each top-level comment is its own row. Nested replies stay inside their parent comment's replies field.

A real example output

This is a trimmed excerpt from a real run against r/AskReddit (long text fields shortened):

{
  "id": "1w6eajz",
  "title": "AskReddit is looking for new moderators!",
  "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1w6eajz/askreddit_is_looking_for_new_moderators/",
  "selftext": "As you can probably imagine, r/AskReddit is very busy with nearly 60 million members...",
  "author": "AskRedditModerators",
  "subreddit": "AskReddit",
  "subreddit_id": "t5_2qh1i",
  "score": 214,
  "upvote_ratio": 0.93,
  "num_comments": 0,
  "is_self": true,
  "is_video": false,
  "domain": "self.AskReddit",
  "thumbnail": null,
  "images": [],
  "created_utc": "2026-09-03T17:39:04",
  "link_flair_text": "Modpost",
  "over_18": false,
  "stickied": true,
  "locked": true,
  "word_count": 172,
  "token_count": 252,
  "content_format": "markdown"
}

The next row in the same run was the post "What is the scariest story you know is 100% true?" with id 1wzbc6m.

What people use it for

Replacing a Reddit RSS feed. The README notes that Reddit announced it will stop supporting RSS feeds on November 13, 2026. A scheduled run with onlyNew: true and a watchName returns only the posts that are new since the last run, readable as RSS. You can paste your old feed link (for example https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/.rss) into the subreddit field and the Actor reads the subreddit name out of it. Search feeds map to mode: search with searchQuery, and user feeds map to mode: user with username.

Pulling top posts from a subreddit. Choose a sort and time filter, such as the top posts of the week in r/Python, and export them to JSON, CSV or Excel.

Collecting a user's history or search results. Switch the mode to user or search to get a person's posts or every match for a query.

Feeding text into other tools. The content field gives you one consistent representation per post and comment, and word_count and token_count help you estimate size before passing text on. Runs can also connect to Make, Zapier or n8n.

How to run it on Apify

Open the Reddit Scraper on Apify. A small first run is a good way to see the output before committing to anything bigger:

{
  "mode": "subreddit",
  "subreddit": "Python",
  "sort": "top",
  "timeFilter": "week",
  "maxPosts": 3,
  "includeComments": false,
  "outputFormat": "text",
  "includeImages": false
}

There's also a tested Python-posts example you can open directly. You can run the Actor by hand, put it on a schedule or call it through the Apify API.

Pricing is $0.003 per dataset row, plus a $0.00005 run-start event per GB of allocated memory (minimum one). The README's example: a 10-post run at 1 GB costs $0.03005 before account discounts. Turning on comments adds a row (and a charge) for every top-level comment, so start with includeComments: false if you only need a list of posts.

Open the actor See the Python example

How to call it as an API on RapidAPI

If you'd rather call it like a normal REST API with a RapidAPI key, it's listed at Reddit Scraper on RapidAPI.

Honest limits

Coverage varies. The README says source access and complete-thread availability vary. On a large thread you may not get every comment, so run with a small post and comment limit first and check how much of the thread you got before you schedule anything bigger.
Link-only posts can have empty content. Their title and destination URL are still in their own fields.
The html output is not sanitized. It's the source markup, so don't drop it straight into a web page.
includeImages: false only clears media fields. It empties images and sets thumbnail to null, but it doesn't rewrite the post URL or remove links from the text.
The text format may still contain Markdown. If a post has no source HTML, the original text is kept as it is.
Comments cost more rows. Every top-level comment is billed as a row, so large threads add up. Nested replies don't add rows, because they stay inside their parent comment.

Need a subreddit's posts from years ago or inside a fixed date window? See how to get historical Reddit posts and comments by subreddit and date range.

Affiliate if you still need an Apify account: apify.com/?fpr=qolupv. I may earn a commission; the price you pay does not change.