How to Use the Reddit Post Comments Export

Before you start

• This Phantom is designed to help you deep-dive into conversations on Reddit posts.
• You can extract around 4,000 comments per post before a short rate limit applies.
• 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:
  • For large threads, start with one post to validate output size and structure.
  • Comment threads evolve over time, new replies may appear between runs.
  • Be mindful that Reddit discussions can include strong opinions or sensitive content.

Step 1: Choose which Reddit posts to analyze

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 comments to extract

Control how much data the Phantom processes during each run.

1. Number of posts to scrape per launch:
   • Leave this field empty to process all posts provided as input.
2. Maximum number of comments to scrape per post:
   • Leave this field empty to extract all available comments.
   • In practice, this usually means the Phantom can extract around 4,000 comments per post, depending on Reddit’s rate limiting behavior.
   • Large threads may take longer to process and generate large result files.
3. Use Watcher mode to track new comments (optional):
   • Watcher mode is useful if you want to monitor ongoing discussions.
   • When enabled:
     • The Phantom reprocesses the same posts at every launch.
     • Only new comments since the last run are saved to the results.

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 often where qualitative insights come from: language, objections, emotions, and repeated themes.

→ 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

• Exporting very large threads without testing output size first. Start with a single post to understand result volume before scaling.
• Expecting deleted or removed comments to always be available. Reddit may limit access to some comments depending on moderation or account state.
• Forgetting to enable Watcher mode when tracking ongoing discussions.
• Assuming comment extraction will never hit limits. Large threads may temporarily trigger Reddit rate limits, if this happens, wait a few minutes before launching the Phantom again.

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 exporting Reddit comments, you can:

• Reddit Profile Scraper → Validate commenters and filter insights by credibility.
• Advanced AI Enricher → Group themes, detect repeated phrases, and tag sentiment.
• Reddit Post Scraper → Enrich the original posts with updated engagement metrics.