Reddit Comment Thread Scraper with Score & Keyword Filters

Reddit Comment Thread Scraper with Score & Keyword Filters

Export Reddit comment threads — top-level comments and nested replies, including branches hidden behind "load more replies" and "continue this thread" — as flat, structured rows. Paste post links (or comment links), choose a sort, and get author, text, score, timestamps, reply depth, parent relationships, and moderation/deletion flags. No Reddit account, API key, or login required.

What this actor does

• Full thread reconstruction — follows Reddit's own nested reply loaders and continue-thread pages until maxComments is reached or Reddit stops serving comments to logged-out readers
• 6 comment sorts — Best, Top, New, Controversial, Old, and Q&A, matching Reddit's UI
• Comment permalink focus — paste a comment permalink with focusOnTargetComment enabled to get that comment plus its ancestor chain, including deeply nested targets
• Rich client-side filtering — date window, reply-depth range, score range, author allow/deny, keyword include/exclude, length bounds, award count, OP-only, deleted/removed, collapsed
• Optional parent post record — title, author, score, ratio, timestamp, subreddit, and text/link metadata when includePost is on
• Flexible URL input — post URLs, comment permalinks, share links, redd.it short links, bare post IDs
• Omit-empty output — a field appears only when Reddit actually exposes a value for it

Output per comment

• dataType — "comment"
• comment_id, comment_name — bare id and Reddit fullname (t1_...)
• post_id, post_url, post_title, link_id — parent thread context
• permalink — direct comment link
• author — username ([deleted] when the account is gone)
• avatarUrl — author avatar image, when available
• body — comment text as readable plain text (block breaks preserved)
• body_html — comment HTML from Reddit's renderer
• score — net score (upvotes minus downvotes) at crawl time
• created_utc, created_at — posted time (epoch and ISO-8601 UTC)
• edited, edited_at — whether and when the comment was edited
• depth — nesting level, 0 = top-level reply to the post
• position — the comment's position among its siblings
• parentPositions — the position path from the thread root. The prefix can be incomplete for branches reached through a "continue this thread" page; use parent_id for exact parentage
• parent_id, parent_kind — direct parent fullname (t3_... for top-level or t1_... for a reply) and kind
• is_op — author is the post's original poster
• collapsed — Reddit collapses the comment by default
• isCommentDeleted, isAuthorDeleted — comment content / author account was deleted
• contentType — text, image, or giphy
• isHighlighted, hasPaidAward — Reddit highlight/paid-award markers when present
• total_awards_received — total award count (0 when none)
• subreddit, subreddit_prefixed, subreddit_id — community context
• crawled_at — when this record was fetched (ISO-8601)
• source — "html"

A rare deleted-comment placeholder that Reddit no longer gives an id for has no comment_id; its isCommentDeleted/isAuthorDeleted flags and position path still identify it. Its parent_id falls back to the post, so use the position path for its place in the tree.

Fields Reddit does not expose to logged-out readers are omitted: comment author_id, author flair fields, ups/downs, score_hidden, controversiality, distinguished, comment-level stickied/locked/archived, collapsed_reason*, legacy gilded, the award breakdown, and removed_by_category. See Limitations below.

Output per post

Emitted once per post as the first record when includePost is on. Comment filters do not apply to it.

• dataType — "post"
• post_id, post_name, title, author, author_id
• subreddit, subreddit_prefixed, subreddit_id
• url, permalink — canonical reddit.com link
• content_url — external destination for link posts
• domain, post_type, is_self
• content, content_html — self-post body
• score, upvote_ratio, num_comments
• created_utc, created_at
• language
• is_nsfw, is_stickied, is_locked
• total_awards_received
• crawled_at, source

Post fields that require Reddit's legacy API data (flair, media/gallery URLs, poll data, crosspost counts, removal category, ups/downs, edited timestamp) are not available to logged-out readers and are omitted.

Input

Accepted postUrls forms:

• Full post URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1abc123/some_title/
• Short URL: https://www.reddit.com/comments/1abc123 (also with ?sort=top)
• Comment URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/x/comments/1abc123/title/comment/xyz987/
• Share link: https://www.reddit.com/r/x/s/<token>
• Short link: https://redd.it/1abc123
• Bare post ID: 1abc123 or t3_1abc123
• old.reddit.com URLs also work

Malformed items (empty strings, garbage URLs, non-strings) are skipped without failing the run.

Removed inputs: distinguishedFilter, controversialOnly, and excludeStickied were removed because Reddit no longer exposes those markers to logged-out readers. Old saved tasks that still send them keep running; the actor logs one warning and ignores them.

Example: scrape a whole thread sorted by Top

{
  "postUrls": ["https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1abc123/some_title/"],
  "maxComments": 500,
  "commentSort": "top",
  "includePost": true
}

Example: recent, high-signal comments only

{
  "postUrls": ["https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/comments/1abc123/some_title/"],
  "maxComments": 1000,
  "postedAfter": "2026-06-01",
  "minCommentScore": 5,
  "excludeDeletedRemoved": true
}

Example: NLP dataset — clean comment bodies

{
  "postUrls": [
    "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1abc123/some_title/",
    "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1def456/other_title/"
  ],
  "maxComments": 5000,
  "excludeDeletedRemoved": true,
  "excludeAuthors": ["AutoModerator"],
  "minCommentLength": 20,
  "excludeKeywords": ["I am a bot"]
}

Example: jump straight to one comment

{
  "postUrls": ["https://www.reddit.com/r/x/comments/1abc123/title/comment/xyz987/"],
  "focusOnTargetComment": true,
  "commentContext": 5
}

Use cases

• Sentiment & NLP datasets — build large, structured corpora from real discussions
• Market & product research — read what customers say in the replies, not just the top comment
• Community & moderation analysis — study conversation depth, controversy, and OP engagement
• Launch monitoring — track reaction to announcements across subreddits on a schedule
• Academic & social research — export discussion trees for network and discourse analysis
• Support mining — surface recurring complaints buried deep in a thread

FAQ

Do I need a Reddit account, API key, or login? No. The actor reads Reddit's public pages anonymously and stores no credentials.

Why are some fields missing compared with older versions? Reddit stopped serving its anonymous JSON endpoints in 2026 and does not render author IDs, vote splits, flair, moderator badges, or award details to logged-out readers. The actor emits every field the public pages still expose and omits the rest instead of inventing values.

Does it really capture the whole thread? Up to maxComments, yes. The actor follows Reddit's nested reply loaders and continue-thread pages until the thread is exhausted or your limit is reached. Reddit's displayed comment count includes deleted and removed comments, so a complete export can be smaller than that number.

What is the difference between parent_id and link_id? link_id always points to the parent post (t3_...). parent_id points to the comment's direct parent — the post for a top-level comment or another comment for a reply. parent_kind tells you which, and parentPositions gives the position path (with the continue-page caveat above).

How do I scrape just one comment instead of the whole thread? Paste its permalink into postUrls and enable focusOnTargetComment. You get that comment plus up to commentContext levels of parent comments. The target must still be publicly visible; deleted/removed targets return no records.

Why does a deleted comment still appear? Deleted comments are part of the thread structure. They carry isCommentDeleted / isAuthorDeleted and usually no body; enable excludeDeletedRemoved to drop them.

What happens for a private subreddit, banned post, or deleted post? The actor returns 0 records for that URL and continues with the other URLs. A status message explains when nothing could be read.

Do I need to configure a proxy? No. The actor selects the network route it needs automatically.

Is this affiliated with Reddit? No. This is an independent third-party actor that reads public web pages; it is not endorsed by or affiliated with Reddit, Inc.

Cost

Measured all-in run cost is roughly $0.72–1.58 per 1,000 comments, depending on thread depth, how many continue-thread branches are loaded, and how many deleted comments Reddit still counts. Small or heavily filtered runs have a higher fixed cost per 1,000. Store pricing is set separately.

Limitations

• Reddit's own displayed comment count includes deleted, removed, and filtered comments that are not served to logged-out readers. The actor reports what is actually served.
• Comment author IDs, vote up/down splits, flair, moderator/admin badges, controversy flags, award names/icons, and removal categories are not exposed anonymously. They are omitted rather than guessed. (The post record still carries the post author's ID when Reddit renders it.)
• Some comments arrive from Reddit's lazy-loading fragments with body_html but without a plain-text body (and occasionally without either) even though they are not deleted. Use body_html as a fallback; the omission rate measured in cloud runs was ~15–18%.
• parentPositions can lose the continue-target's position for branches loaded through "continue this thread" pages, so paths for those descendants may not match the tree exactly. parent_id remains correct.
• Deleted-comment placeholders that Reddit renders without an id may carry the post as parent_id even when nested; their position path is the only tree hint for those rows.
• Very large threads take longer because every hidden branch is loaded through Reddit's own pagination; there is no branch pruning, so cost scales with the served tree as well as maxComments.
• The parent post record is intentionally thin: media, gallery, poll, crosspost, and flair details are not available on the public post page.