How to Use the GitHub Profile Scraper

Before you start

• Awareness of safe usage:
  • Spread scraping across multiple launches during daytime hours to reduce the risk of hitting GitHub rate limits.
  • Keep your per-launch volume reasonable, extracting too many profiles in a single run may cause timeouts or incomplete results.

Step 1: Connect your Github account

To let the Phantom act on your behalf:

1. Install the PhantomBuster browser extension and connect your Github session in one click.
2. If you’re not using Chrome or Firefox, you can retrieve your session cookie manually (see our cookie guide).

Even though this step is marked as optional, it’s strongly recommended to provide connect.
This Phantom needs to be logged in to your GitHub account to access certain profile details, especially email addresses.

Step 2: Provide profile URLs

You can give your input in one of three ways:

• A URL:
  • Paste a single GitHub profile URL or username directly in the setup field.
  • Paste the URL of a Google Sheet with your list of profiles URLs (make sure it’s shared with “Anyone with the link”).
  • Or upload a CSV file with your list of profiles URLs (make sure it’s publicly accessible, and note that CSV upload is only available on paid plans).

→ If you’re using a spreadsheet, the Phantom defaults to the first column (A). To use a different column, enter the column’s header name in the field “Column name containing GitHub profile URLs.”

Step 3: Configure extraction settings

• Number of profiles to process per launch (optional):
  • Default = empty, the Phantom processes all provided profiles in one run.

Advanced settings (dropdown in setup)

1. Check if user status is set to hireable (optional):
   • Enable this to return a flag if the GitHub profile owner has set themselves as hireable.
2. Keep scraping profiles when rate limited by GitHub (optional):
   • Enable to allow the Phantom to retry and continue after hitting GitHub request limits.

Result file settings (dropdown in setup)

1. Name your results file (optional)

   • You can customize the file name.

     If you rename the file between launches, the Phantom will create a new results file and start processing inputs from scratch.

2. Fields to keep (optional)
   • Export only the fields you care about by listing them (comma-separated).
     Example: profileUrl, job, location.
   • This generates a second CSV file with just those fields.
   • Learn more in our guide: Customize how your Phantom results files are saved.

Step 4: Select launch frequency

Choose how often the Phantom should run:

1. Launch manually: Start the Phantom yourself whenever you need.
2. Launch once at a specific time: schedule a one-time run at a set date and time.
3. Launch repeatedly: schedule regular runs (e.g. once per day, several times during working hours).
4. Launch after another Phantom: chain automations together so this Phantom starts right after another finishes.
5. Advanced scheduling: customize the exact minutes, hours, days, or months when the Phantom should run.

→ For a complete walkthrough of scheduling options, see our guide to scheduling Phantoms automatically.

Step 5 (Optional): Advanced settings

Advanced settings are available if you want to fine-tune how your Phantom runs, but by default they’re already optimized for most use cases.

We recommend leaving them as they are unless a guide specifically instructs you to change something.

→ For a detailed overview of all advanced options (like execution limits, retries, email notifications, proxies, webhooks, and file management), see our Advanced settings guide.

Launch and results

When you’re ready:

1. Click Launch to start your Phantom.
2. Once it finishes, open the Results tab in the Phantom console.
3. Download your results as a CSV or JSON file.

→ To learn how to export your data to Google Sheets, integrate with other tools, or reuse it in more automations, check our Access and Export your Phantom Results guide.

Export and input limits on the Free plan
If you’re on the Free plan or Free trial, some features are limited:
- CSV exports include only the first 10 rows of results.
- CSV download links (for dynamic viewing in Google Sheets or integrations) are not available.
- JSON exports are not available.
- CSV upload as an input method is not supported.
To unlock all features, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.

What you give (Input) and What you get (Output)

This section gives you a detailed breakdown of everything you need to provide to run this Phantom, and everything you’ll receive once it completes.

What you give (Input)

What you get (Output)

Tips and troubleshooting

Common pitfalls

• Using a private spreadsheet (make sure it’s set to “Anyone with the link”).
• Expecting data that isn’t public: this Phantom only extracts what’s visible on GitHub profiles.

If you run into issues

• Check how to troubleshoot your phantom using Logs.
• Browse the Fix Issues & Troubleshoot Errors section for solutions to common problems.
• Review our Automation Rate Limits by Platform guide.
• Check our Best Practices for Social Media Automation guide.

Suggested automations

• GitHub Contributors Export → Collect contributors from repos, then enrich their profiles with this Phantom.
• GitHub Stargazers Export → Export stargazers of repos, then pass them here to collect detailed user info.
• GitHub User Search Export → Extract user search results, then enrich each one with the GitHub Profile Scraper.
• AI Advanced Enricher → Generate insights or outreach-ready messaging from scraped profile data.