Bluesky Scraper

Bluesky Scraper: posts and profiles by handle, plus three ways to follow a keyword

Give it Bluesky handles and it returns each author's profile and their recent posts, with no login at all. Give it a keyword instead and it returns matching posts with engagement counts and links.

Keyword search is the part worth reading before you buy. Bluesky closed its full archive search to signed-out clients, so a keyword run without your own app password gets posts from public topic feeds or from a live capture window, not the whole history.

🦋 What Bluesky Scraper does

Point it at handles and it is simple: one profile row with the follower counts and bio, then that author's recent posts, each with text, timestamps and the like, repost, reply and quote counts. Nothing to sign in to.

A keyword is where it forks, and source on every row tells you which lane produced it:

On auto it takes the archive when you signed in, topic feeds when a feed matches your keyword, and live capture when neither applies. Every keyless keyword run also writes one free notice row saying exactly which lane ran and why.

📥 What you give it

{
  "searchQuery": "artificial intelligence",
  "searchMode": "auto",
  "authorHandles": ["bsky.app"],
  "maxItems": 100,
  "liveWatchSecs": 60
}

A rejected app password does not stop the run. It logs a warning and falls back to the keyless lanes, so check source on the rows if you expected archive results.

📤 What you get back

A real post row from a recent keyless run, with the text cut short:

{
  "ok": true,
  "type": "post",
  "uri": "at://did:plc:thtnfvzp2gvyeke24vvrlh4k/app.bsky.feed.post/3mvhejxpvac2g",
  "postUrl": "https://bsky.app/profile/hustlrbase.bsky.social/post/3mvhejxpvac2g",
  "authorHandle": "hustlrbase.bsky.social",
  "authorName": "Hustle with Elisa",
  "authorDid": "did:plc:thtnfvzp2gvyeke24vvrlh4k",
  "text": "“Overwhelmed by Managing Multiple Client Accounts?” ... #ClientManagement #Automation #AI",
  "createdAt": "2026-09-14T05:22:45.479Z",
  "likeCount": 0,
  "repostCount": 0,
  "replyCount": 0,
  "quoteCount": 0,
  "langs": [],
  "feedName": "Artificial Intelligence",
  "feedUri": "at://did:plc:ugbenc43qu4v3hemephm2cry/app.bsky.feed.generator/aaamqhwmov3y4",
  "feedCreator": "raefmeeuwisse.bsky.social",
  "matchesQueryText": false,
  "source": "topic_feed",
  "matchedQuery": "artificial intelligence"
}

A profile row carries type: "profile" with handle, displayName, description, followersCount, followsCount, postsCount, avatar, banner, createdAt and profileUrl.

🧾 Reading the output

Four kinds of row share the dataset.

Filter on type, not on the presence of text. Notice and profile rows share the dataset with posts, and the default table view renders them as partly blank lines. With a language set, the topic-feed notice row also counts the posts read, left out, and left out for having no tag.

▶️ How to run it

1. Open Bluesky Scraper and click Try for free. 2. For authors, put handles into Author handles and clear Search query. 3. For a keyword, type it into Search query. For the full archive, add your handle and an app password from bsky.app. 4. Set Max items per query/author, then click Start. 5. Read the notice row first if you ran a keyword without credentials. It says which lane answered.

💰 How much does it cost?

$2.00 per 1,000 posts, which is $0.002 each. Flat on every Apify plan, no volume tiers.

Posts are what you pay for. Profile rows, notice rows, the no-input sample and diagnostic rows are all free, duplicates and posts left out by language are dropped before they reach you, and a run that returns no posts costs you nothing.

One thing to know before you budget: on the topic_feed lane you pay for every post the feed returned, including ones where matchesQueryText is false. If you only want literal matches, sign in for the archive or use live capture.

💡 What people use it for

• Watching a handful of accounts daily, deduped on uri, to see what they posted and how it landed.
• Catching mentions of a product name as they happen, with searchMode on live and a longer

window.

• Pulling a whole topic feed's recent posts to see who is active in a niche.
• Backfilling a keyword properly with an app password, then keeping it current with short live runs.

🚧 What it does not do

• No archive search without your own app password. Bluesky refuses signed-out archive search,

and no setting here changes that.

• Live capture only sees the window. It watches the public stream for the seconds you allow and

returns the matches inside it. Nothing older exists to return, and a rare keyword can produce zero.

• Fresh live posts look unpopular. A post captured seconds after it was written has no likes yet,

so the counts are near zero by nature rather than by fault.

• Author timelines are recent posts only, capped at 1,000 per handle. It is not a full account

export.

• Topic feeds are somebody else's editorial choice. A feed decides what goes on it, so those

rows reflect the feed, not a search.

• A language goes by the tag the author's app set. Plenty of accounts, news outlets among them,

post with no tag at all, and those posts are left out once you pick a language. Archive search and live capture do not take one.

• No threads, no replies as a tree, no follower lists, no direct messages.
• No account is created for you. The app password stays yours, and archive search runs through

your own account.

🧭 Which social scraper do you need?

❓ Questions people ask

Do I need a Bluesky account? Only for archive keyword search. Handles, profiles, timelines, topic feeds and live capture all work signed out.

What is an app password? A separate password Bluesky issues for tools, under Settings, Privacy and security. You can revoke it any time, and it is not your account password.

Why did my keyword return posts that do not mention it? You were on the topic-feed lane. Check source and matchesQueryText on the rows, and read the notice row.

Why did live capture return nothing? Nobody posted a match during the window. Raise liveWatchSecs, or sign in and use the archive.

Can I scrape several authors in one run? Yes. Each handle gets its own profile row and its own maxItems worth of posts.

Is scraping Bluesky legal? These are public posts on a public network. They are still personal data, which GDPR and similar laws cover, so have a reason for collecting it. Apify's write-up on scraping and the law is a good starting point, and we are not lawyers.

🆘 If something breaks

Open the Issues tab on the actor page. Send the run ID, the handle or keyword, and the source value on the rows you got. The errorCode on the diagnostic row usually names the problem on its own.