/apify-reddit-scraper

name: apify-reddit-scraper
description: >
  Scrape Reddit with the harshmaur/reddit-scraper Apify Actor: keyword search across all of Reddit
  or inside one subreddit, full subreddit listings, post permalinks with complete comment threads,
  user profiles and community info, with date-range filters and optional delivery of results into
  Slack, Notion, Google Sheets or Airtable through Apify MCP connectors. Use when the user says
  "monitor my brand on Reddit", "find leads on Reddit", "what is Reddit saying about X", "scrape
  r/<subreddit>", "pull all comments from this Reddit thread", "Reddit posts about X since <date>",
  "track competitor mentions on Reddit", "Reddit sentiment for X" (labels are a paid add-on;
  otherwise quote the body), "build a Reddit dataset", "scrape a Reddit user's history", or any
  request for Reddit posts, comments, subreddits or users as structured data. No Reddit API key
  or login is needed. Out of scope: posting or replying on Reddit, private or quarantined
  communities, and semantic/topic search (Reddit search is literal).
author: Harsh Maur
author_url: https://github.com/harshmaur
metadata:
  category: data-extraction
  keywords: "reddit, reddit-scraper, subreddit, reddit-comments, brand-monitoring, social-listening, lead-generation, reddit-search, reddit-sentiment, reddit-dataset, community-research, mcp-connector, slack, notion"

Reddit Scraper

Turn a plain-language Reddit request into one run of `harshmaur/reddit-scraper` and hand back structured posts, comments, users or communities. One Actor covers search, subreddit listings, permalinks, user profiles and community metadata, so routing is about picking the right **input field**, not the right Actor.

Disclosure: the Actor this skill routes to is paid (pay per result) and built by the skill author. Links carry no affiliate parameters.

Example prompts

Prompts this skill handles:

• "Find every Reddit post from the last 30 days where someone asks for a Notion alternative, and pull the comments."
• "Scrape the newest 200 posts in r/SaaS and r/startups."
• "Give me all comments on this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/abc123/..."
• "Track mentions of `Linear` and `Jira` on Reddit since 2026-08-01 and send each hit to my Slack channel."
• "What has u/spez posted recently?"

Out of scope (the boundary):

• "Post a reply in r/startups" — this Actor only reads Reddit. Use the Reddit API with the user's own account.
• "Find Reddit threads *about* the pain of managing invoices" — Reddit search is literal keyword matching, not semantic. Expand the topic into 3–8 short literal keywords first (see Step 1), then run one search per keyword.

Prerequisites

• Apify account ([sign up](https://apify.com)); the free plan covers small runs.
• Authentication via one of:
• `apify login` (OAuth, if using the Apify CLI)
• `APIFY_TOKEN` environment variable
• Token from [Apify Console → Settings → Integrations](https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations)
• Apify CLI (`npm install -g apify-cli`), or the Apify MCP server (see "Calling the Actor").

Workflow

Step 1 — Classify the request and pick input fields

| User gives you | Field to use | Notes | |---|---|---| | Keywords, a brand, a product, a phrase | `searchTerms` (array) | One search per term, each with its own `maxPostsCount`. Keep terms short and literal (`"notion alternative"`, not a sentence). Free plans search the first 40 terms per run. | | Keywords + "only in r/X" | `searchTerms` + `withinCommunity` | Accepts `developers`, `r/developers` or the full subreddit URL. | | A subreddit to scrape in bulk | `subredditUrls` (array of names or community URLs) | Fetches far more posts than a plain listing. **Never put post permalinks here** — they are dropped silently and the run finishes with 0 items. | | Post, user-profile, subreddit or search-page URLs | `startUrls` (array of `{ "url": ... }`) | Search options (sort/time/community) do NOT apply to these. | | "since <date>" / "between <dates>" / "last month" / "past week" | `postedAfter`, `postedBefore` (`YYYY-MM-DD`) | Relative periods too: "last month" → `postedAfter` = today − 1 month. Also `commentedAfter` / `commentedBefore` for comments. Results are fetched newest-first and stop early once older than the window; `searchSort` and `searchTime` are ignored while a date is set. | | "with comments" / "full thread" | `crawlCommentsPerPost: true` + `maxCommentsPerPost` | Multiplies result count and cost — see gotchas. | | "comments that mention X" | `searchComments: true`, `searchPosts: false` | Comment search across Reddit. | | "which subreddits are about X" | `searchCommunities: true` | Returns `dataType: "community"` rows. | | "send to Slack / Notion / Sheets" | `mcpConnector` + `mcpTarget` (+ `mcpMessage`) | Requires an authorized MCP connector in the user's Apify account; see `references/input-mapping.md`. |

When the user's phrase is descriptive rather than literal ("people frustrated with their CRM"), draft 3–8 literal keywords (`"CRM sucks"`, `"switching from HubSpot"`, `"CRM recommendation"`), put them in the run section of your answer (Step 3), and run them as `searchTerms`.

Step 2 — Build the input

Start from these defaults and change only what the request needs:

{
  "searchTerms": ["notion alternative"],
  "searchPosts": true,
  "searchComments": false,
  "searchCommunities": false,
  "searchSort": "new",
  "searchTime": "month",
  "maxPostsCount": 50,
  "crawlCommentsPerPost": false,
  "maxCommentsPerPost": 50,
  "includeNSFW": false,
  "fastMode": true
}

• `searchSort`: `new` for monitoring, `relevance` for precise matching, `top` / `hot` for what performed, `comments` for the most discussed.
• `searchTime`: `hour` | `day` | `week` | `month` | `year` | `all`. When the user names a period — a date or a relative one like "last month", "past week" — you have two options, and you must pick one deliberately:
• **Exact window:** `posted