How to Use the Reddit Post Scraper

Before you start

• This Phantom is designed for post-level enrichment.
  → Use it when you already know which Reddit posts you want to analyze and need more detailed, reliable data than what’s available through search results.
• This Phantom processes up to 100 Reddit posts per launch.
• Reddit exposes a score based on votes rather than exact upvote and downvote counts. The Phantom returns this score to reflect overall engagement.
• Best practices:
  • Start with a small run to validate your search results before scaling up.
  • Expect engagement metrics (post score and comment counts) to change over time.
  • Be mindful that some posts may be edited, deleted, or locked after publication.

Step 1: Choose which Reddit posts to enrich

You can provide your Reddit posts as follows:

• Use a single post URL:
  • Paste the single Reddit post URL.
• Use a spreadsheet with multiple posts:
  • Provide a Google Sheet with Reddit post URLs (make sure it’s shared with “Anyone with the link”).

  • Upload a CSV file with Reddit post 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 “Name of column containing post URLs."

Step 2: Connect your Reddit account

To let the Phantom act on your behalf:

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

Step 3: Configure how many posts to process

Control how much data the Phantom processes during each run.

• Number of posts to scrape per launch:
  • If you set a value, the Phantom will process up to that number of Reddit post URLs.

  • If you leave this field empty, the Phantom will process posts until it is stopped by Reddit rate limits.

    In practice, this usually results in around 100 posts per launch, but the exact number may vary slightly depending on Reddit’s rate limiting behavior.

Result file settings (dropdown in setup)

• 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.

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 to see the data collected.
   
3. Download your results as a CSV or JSON file, or reuse it as input for other Phantoms.
   → This Phantom is typically used after discovering posts and before deeper analysis.

→ 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

• Providing search URLs instead of direct post URLs.
• Expecting the text of comments: This Phantom only returns comment counts, not comment content.
  • To extract full comment threads and replies, use the Reddit Post Comments Export.

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

After enriching Reddit posts, you can:

• Reddit Post Comments Export → Export full comment threads to analyze discussions and sentiment.
• Reddit Profile Scraper → Validate post authors and filter out low-credibility accounts.
• Advanced AI Enricher → Group themes, detect repeated phrases, and tag sentiment across your dataset.