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Reddit Historical Archive Scraper

Scrape years of old Reddit posts and comments by date — content that Reddit's own search and listings can no longer reach. This Reddit historical scraper queries the Arctic-Shift archive (a maintained Pushshift successor, indexed into 2026) with PullPush.io as a fallback, so you can pull deep history, search comment bodies and reconstruct full threads.

No Reddit login, no API key, no client secret and no proxy required. Point it at subreddits, post IDs, usernames, search terms or raw Reddit URLs and get clean, flat rows back.

What you get

Posts and comments come back as flat dataset rows. Each row has a type field (post or comment).

Post fields include: id, fullname, subreddit, subredditNamePrefixed, author, title, selftext, url, permalink, domain, isSelf, isVideo, over18, score, upvoteRatio, numComments, numCrossposts, gilded, totalAwardsReceived, flairText, thumbnail, plus created/retrieved timestamps.

Comment fields include: id, fullname, parentId, linkId, subreddit, author, body, score, ups, downs, gilded, controversial, depth (reconstructed thread depth), permalink, createdUtc, retrievedUtc, edited and distinguished.

Export everything to CSV, JSON, Excel, HTML, XML or JSONL from the Apify dataset, or pull it live via the API and webhooks.

Use cases

• Historical research and archival — collect a subreddit's posts and comments going back years for longitudinal study of a community.
• Academic and journalism work — pull date-bounded windows of Reddit discussion around an event, topic or brand.
• AI / NLP training corpora — build domain-specific datasets from years of niche-subreddit text and comment threads.
• Brand and reputation monitoring — full-text search every comment ever made mentioning your brand or product, which Reddit's own search cannot do.
• Account and thread analysis — pull a user's entire post and comment history, or fetch a single post with its complete archived comment tree.

How to use

1. Choose what to scrape — fill in any combination of Subreddits, Post IDs, Usernames, Post Search Queries, Comment Search Queries or raw Reddit URLs.
2. Optionally narrow the window with After Date / Before Date (ISO YYYY-MM-DD) and a Minimum Score.
3. Pick a Sort (new or top) and set Max Items caps to control volume and cost.
4. Click Start. Each post or comment is saved as one flat row, ready to download or pipe downstream.

Example input

{
"subreddits":["wallstreetbets"],
"afterDate":"2021-01-01",
"beforeDate":"2021-02-28",
"sort":"top",
"minScore":100,
"maxItems":1000
}

FAQ

How far back can I scrape?

The archive backends index Reddit content from its early years up to the present, so you can pull posts and comments many years old — well beyond Reddit's own search depth and listing limits.

Can I search inside comment bodies?

Yes. Use Comment Search Queries for full-text search across archived comments. Reddit's native search only matches post titles, so this finds every comment mentioning a term across Reddit history.

Do I need a Reddit account, API key or proxy?

No. The scraper uses public archive APIs (Arctic-Shift, with PullPush as a fallback) that work over a direct connection — no login, no OAuth, no API key and no proxy needed. A proxy toggle is available for extra robustness but is off by default.

Which export formats are supported?

CSV, JSON, Excel, HTML, XML and JSONL from the Apify dataset, plus the Apify API and webhooks for live integrations.

Is this a Pushshift alternative?

Yes. It queries Arctic-Shift, a maintained Pushshift successor archive indexed into 2026, with PullPush.io as a fallback. So it covers the same deep Reddit history that Pushshift used to serve, with no API key.

How do I export old Reddit posts and comments to CSV or JSON?

Run the scraper, then download the resulting dataset as CSV, JSON, Excel, HTML, XML or JSONL straight from Apify, or pull it through the API. Every post and comment is a flat row, so it imports cleanly into spreadsheets and databases.

Can I scrape Reddit data without an API key or login?

Yes. The scraper reads public archive APIs over a direct connection, so no Reddit account, OAuth, API key, client secret or proxy is required to pull old posts, comments, or full user history.

Changelog

2026-06-15

• Reliability pass: re-verified end-to-end on live data with real-world inputs. Routine maintenance build.

2026-06-07

• Docs: added coverage for using the scraper as a Pushshift alternative, exporting old Reddit posts and comments to CSV/JSON, and scraping Reddit data without an API key or login.

2026-06-05

• SEO and documentation refresh; metadata corrected to describe the Arctic-Shift primary backend with PullPush fallback (not PullPush alone).
• Verified live and rebuilt.