Mastodon Scraper

Mastodon Scraper: public posts by hashtag, account or timeline, no login

Point it at any Mastodon server and pull public posts: the text with the HTML stripped out, who posted it, their follower count, replies, boosts and favourites, any media links, the language and the hashtags.

The thing to understand before you plan anything: a Mastodon server only holds the posts that reached it. Ask two servers for the same hashtag and you get two different sets, neither of them complete. There is no central index to ask instead, so if coverage matters, run it against two or three servers and merge.

🔍 What Mastodon Scraper does

One server per run, one of three modes.

Hashtag reads that server's timeline for a tag. Put opensource or #opensource in query, either works.

Account reads one account's posts. Mastodon for a local account, or [email protected] for someone elsewhere, which the server you asked resolves for you.

Public reads the server's own timeline. With local off you get the federated view, everything that server has seen. With local on you get only posts written there, which is the better one for watching a single community.

One caveat on that last mode: large servers, mastodon.social among them, require a login for their public timeline. Ask anyway and you get a BLOCKED row and nothing else. Hashtag and account modes still work on those servers.

📥 What you give it

{
  "instance": "fosstodon.org",
  "mode": "hashtag",
  "query": "opensource",
  "maxItems": 200
}

📤 What you get back

A real row from a recent run:

{
  "ok": true,
  "id": "117267800308722144",
  "text": "Linuxiac: Navidrome 0.64 Music Server & Streamer Adds Experimental Jellyfin Music API Support\nhttps://linuxiac.com/navidrome-0-64-adds-experimental-jellyfin-music-api-support/\n#linux #opensource #tech",
  "author": "kiltedtux",
  "authorName": "FuzzyFeeds",
  "authorFollowers": 26,
  "createdAt": "2026-09-14T05:43:48.744Z",
  "repliesCount": 0,
  "reblogsCount": 0,
  "favouritesCount": 0,
  "language": "en",
  "mediaUrls": [],
  "tags": ["linux", "opensource", "tech"],
  "url": "https://mastodon.social/@kiltedtux/117267800308722144"
}

Boosted posts are the one thing to watch. The row credits the account that passed the post on, and its engagement numbers come from that wrapper rather than from the original, so those counts read low. Filter them out by comparing author against the handle you asked for.

🧾 Reading the output

Posts carry ok: true. Anything with ok: false carries an errorCode and is not charged.

The Console's Overview table shows author, text, favourites, boosts, date and URL, and renders diagnostic rows as blank lines. Download the dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel for the tags, media and follower counts.

▶️ How to run it

1. Open Mastodon Scraper and click Try for free. 2. Type the server into Instance, without https://. 3. Pick a Mode, then fill Query with the hashtag or handle. 4. Set Max posts, then click Start. 5. Download the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel or XML.

💰 How much does it cost?

$1.50 per 1,000 posts. Flat on every Apify plan, no volume tiers, and the same in all three modes.

You pay per post row. Diagnostic rows are free, and a hashtag or timeline that turns up empty does not bill you for results.

💡 What people use it for

• Watching a brand or project name as a hashtag across two or three servers and merging on id.
• Archiving an account's public posts before a server shuts down, which happens often enough to

matter.

• Building a plain-text corpus from a niche server's local timeline, with local switched on.
• Finding who in a community actually gets boosted, by sorting a tag pull on reblogsCount.

🚧 What it does not do

• No replies and no threads. You get the post, not the conversation under it.
• One server per run. Covering the network means several runs and a merge on your side.
• No search across servers. Mastodon has no central index, and neither does this.
• Public timelines are often gated. Expect BLOCKED on the largest servers in public mode.
• No private, followers-only or direct posts, and no login that could reach them.
• A failure partway through a long run loses that run's posts. You get the diagnostic row

instead. Smaller maxItems values survive a shaky server better.

• Counts are one server's view, always at or below the real total.
• Rows are a snapshot. Posts get edited, deleted and defederated.

🧭 Which social scraper do you need?

❓ Questions people ask

Which server should I use? The one closest to the topic. A niche server's local timeline is richer for its subject than a giant server's federated firehose.

Why did the same hashtag give me different posts yesterday? Because the server's view changes as posts federate in. That is Mastodon working as designed, not a gap here.

Can I read someone on another server? Yes. Use [email protected] in account mode and the server you asked will resolve it.

Why is the public timeline empty or blocked? That server requires a login for it. Use hashtag or account mode, or try a smaller server.

How do I drop boosts? Keep only rows where author matches the handle you asked for.

Is this legal? These are public posts on public timelines, served by an API built to be read. They are still written by identifiable people, so GDPR and similar laws apply and you want a reason for collecting them. 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 server, the mode, the query and the run id. The errorCode on the diagnostic row usually names the problem by itself.