Bluesky Scraper: Extract Posts, Profiles and Feeds from Bluesky at Scale

Direct Answer: What Does Bluesky Scraper Do?

Bluesky Scraper is an Apify actor that extracts posts, profiles, and feeds from Bluesky social network using the AT Protocol API. It supports 4 modes: search posts by keyword, search users, get detailed profiles, and scrape user feeds, up to 10,000 results per run at PPE pricing with first 100 results free.

Unlike Twitter’s restrictive API pricing and limited historical access, Bluesky’s AT Protocol is designed for decentralized access and interoperability. Instead of waiting for API approval or paying inflated fees, you run this actor with a search term or user handle, and it returns structured data in minutes. No browser automation needed. No developer credentials required for basic searches.

The actor is available at: https://apify.com/tugelbay/bluesky-scraper

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What Data Fields You Get

Every record returned by the Bluesky Scraper includes the following fields, depending on the mode you select:

Field	Description	Mode
Post URI	Unique identifier for the post	Posts, Feeds
Text	Post content/message body	Posts, Feeds
Created At	UTC timestamp of publication	Posts, Feeds
Author Handle	User’s unique handle (@username)	Posts, Feeds, Profiles
Author Display Name	User’s public display name	Posts, Feeds, Profiles
Like Count	Number of likes on post	Posts, Feeds
Reply Count	Number of replies	Posts, Feeds
Repost Count	Number of reposts	Posts, Feeds
Quote Count	Number of quote posts	Posts, Feeds
Embed URL	Link embedded in post (if present)	Posts, Feeds
Embed Images	Image URLs in post	Posts, Feeds
Post URL	Direct link to the post	Posts, Feeds
Follower Count	Number of followers	Profiles, Posts, Feeds
Following Count	Number of accounts followed	Profiles, Posts, Feeds
Posts Count	Total posts by user	Profiles, Posts, Feeds
Bio	User biography/description	Profiles, Posts, Feeds
Avatar URL	Profile picture URL	Profiles, Posts, Feeds
Banner URL	Profile banner image URL	Profiles, Posts, Feeds
Joined Date	Account creation date	Profiles, Posts, Feeds

The dataset exports as JSON, CSV, or Excel. You can integrate results directly into Google Sheets via Apify’s native integration, send to a database via API webhook, or download and import into any analytics or CRM tool.

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How Bluesky Scraper Compares to Alternatives

Before choosing a tool, here is how the options stack up:

Feature	Bluesky Scraper	george.the.developer	automation-lab	botflowtech	Manual Browsing
Search Posts by Keyword	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Search Users	Yes	No	No	Yes	No
Get Full Profiles	Yes	No	No	No	Manual
Scrape User Feed	Yes	No	No	No	Manual
4-in-1 Mode	Yes	No	No	No	N/A
Authentication Required	No (optional)	No	Yes	No	Yes
Language Filter	Yes	No	No	No	No
Feed Sorting Options	Yes	No	No	No	Limited
Cost per 1,000 Results	~$0.10-0.50	~$1.50	~$2.00	~$1.20	Unlimited time
User Base	Growing	120	90	70	N/A
Rating	4.8/5	3.9/5	3.7/5	3.5/5	N/A
Community Size	Largest	Medium	Small	Small	N/A

Bluesky Scraper is the only all-in-one tool covering posts, users, profiles, and feeds in a single actor. Competitors are either limited to post search or require authentication. The pricing is also the most transparent: pay only for data delivered, with the first 100 results free.

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How to Run Bluesky Scraper

No code required. The full workflow takes under five minutes:

Step 1: Create a free Apify account

Go to apify.com and sign up. The free plan includes $5 monthly credits plus a free tier that covers limited tests.

Step 2: Open the actor

Navigate to https://apify.com/tugelbay/bluesky-scraper and click “Try for free.”

Step 3: Choose your mode and input

Select one of four modes:

• Search Posts: enter a keyword (e.g., “artificial intelligence”, “web3”, “AI safety”)
• Search Users: enter a search term to find user profiles
• Get Profile: enter a single user handle to extract detailed profile data (e.g., @naval, @ev)
• Get Feed: enter a user handle to scrape their timeline/feed posts

Step 4: Set limits and filters

Configure optional parameters:

• maxResults: how many results to fetch (1 to 10,000)
• lang: filter posts by language code (e.g., “en” for English)
• sortBy: choose chronological order (newest, oldest, most popular)

Step 5: Run and download

Click Start. Depending on result count, the run completes in 30 seconds to 5 minutes. Download as CSV, JSON, or Excel. Connect directly to Google Sheets if you prefer real-time synchronized data.

For a deeper dive into how Apify works across different data sources, see Apify in 2026: The Web Scraping Platform Marketers Actually Need.

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Pricing Examples

The actor runs on Apify’s Pay Per Event (PPE) billing model. The first 100 results per run are free. After that, you pay approximately $0.10-0.50 per result depending on data richness.

Concrete examples:

• 100 posts about “AI” = FREE
• 500 posts about “startup trends” = ~$0.40
• 1,000 user profiles with full bio data = ~$0.50
• 5,000 posts from a user’s feed = ~$2.00
• 10,000 posts across multiple searches = ~$5.00

There is no monthly subscription. You pay only for what you extract. Retries, failed requests, and idle time are not charged. The first 100 results free means you can test extensively before committing any budget.

Apify also bills incrementally within a run, so if you stop a job early, you only pay for completed results.

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Who Is This For

Social Media Marketers and Brand Analysts

Bluesky is where early adopters, tech professionals, and opinion leaders are converging. Track brand mentions, monitor competitor activity, and watch industry trends across posts and user discussions. Extract discourse data to identify emerging narratives, measure sentiment shifts, and spot conversations before they break onto mainstream social media.

Marketers use the Post Search mode to monitor keywords relevant to their industry and the Profile mode to track influencers and potential partnerships.

Researchers and Academics

Analyze discourse, belief systems, and information spread at scale. Bluesky’s open protocol makes it ideal for studying how communities form and how ideas propagate. Researchers in political science, sociology, media studies, and communications can extract post collections to study language patterns, network formation, and narrative evolution.

The Feed mode lets you trace a specific user’s complete public history for longitudinal study. The Profile mode gives you follower/following counts and biographical data for network analysis.

Content Creators and Journalists

Source stories and discover breaking news. Journalists monitoring Bluesky for source discovery, expert voices, and emerging stories can search topic keywords and extract posts with engagement metrics to identify signal from noise. High-engagement posts and prolific users become content leads.

Extract author profiles to contact sources, verify credentials, and understand audience reach.

AI and NLP Engineers

Collect training datasets for language models and sentiment analysis. Bluesky data is valuable for training text classifiers, emotion detection models, and generation tasks. The text-only nature (less marketing spam than Twitter) and diverse user base make it a quality source.

Use bulk Post Search mode to collect domain-specific corpora: AI discourse, startup culture, policy discussions, or niche technical communities.

Business Intelligence and Competitive Analysis

Map competitive landscape and track competitor messaging. Extract post history from competitor accounts, leadership team members, and industry commentators. Analyze sentiment, measure engagement, identify company announcements, and track pricing/feature announcements before they hit official channels.

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What Bluesky Scraper Does Not Do

Being clear about limitations saves wasted time:

It does not provide private or DM data. You get only public posts and publicly-visible profiles. Direct messages and account-private content are not accessible and should not be requested.

It does not include historical data older than AT Protocol’s retention window. Bluesky’s federation model means older posts may not always be available through public endpoints. For historical archives, plan to run scrapes regularly and store your own copies.

It does not include automated posting or bot functionality. The actor extracts data only. To post or interact with Bluesky, you need a separate tool or bot framework.

It does not bypass authentication when required. For some advanced queries or high-volume extraction, Bluesky may require an authenticated AT Protocol session. The actor handles this transparently, but very large runs may need API credentials.

It is limited to text and metadata. Rich media like video embeds are captured as URLs, not the video files themselves. For video analysis, you would need to download files separately.

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Practical Example: Monitoring AI Discourse on Bluesky

Here is a real workflow for tracking industry conversations:

Goal: Monitor AI-related posts daily, identify trending discussions, and track which voices dominate the conversation.

Configuration:

{
 "mode": "searchPosts",
 "query": "artificial intelligence OR AI",
 "maxResults": 1000,
 "lang": "en",
 "sortBy": "newest"
}

What you do with the results:

1. Download the CSV with 1000 posts
2. Filter by engagement: sort by Like Count, Reply Count descending to find the most discussed posts
3. Identify recurring themes: analyze the “Text” column for common words (use regex or a simple word frequency tool)
4. Extract author profiles: build a list of prolific contributors to the AI discussion
5. Schedule daily runs: set the same query to run every morning, accumulate results in a spreadsheet, and track trends week-over-week

Cost: ~$0.90 per 1,000 posts after the first 100 free. Running daily = ~$27/month. Compare that to any social listening tool at $99-$500/month.

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Running Your First Extraction

Step-by-step for searching posts about “web3”:

1. Go to https://apify.com/tugelbay/bluesky-scraper
2. Click “Try for free”
3. Set Mode: Search Posts
4. Set Query: web3
5. Set Max Results: 500
6. Click Start (first 100 are free, next 400 cost ~$0.40)
7. Wait 2-3 minutes
8. Download CSV or JSON
9. Open CSV in spreadsheet: sort by Like Count to find trending posts
10. Extract author handles and run Profile searches to understand who is driving the conversation

Total time: 10 minutes. Total cost after first 100: ~$0.40.

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AT Protocol: Why Bluesky Is Better for Data Access

Unlike Twitter/X, which has restricted API access and raised prices dramatically, Bluesky is built on the AT Protocol, a decentralized standard designed for interoperability. Public data on Bluesky was meant to be accessible and portable.

The implications for data extraction:

• No restrictive API tier system. You access the same data whether you are a hobbyist or enterprise
• No artificial rate limits. You can extract large volumes without approval gates
• Open federation. Multiple PDS (Personal Data Servers) exist, providing redundancy and censorship resistance
• Transparent pricing. You pay for compute on Apify, not for API access tokens

This is why scraping Bluesky is sustainable long-term. The platform was designed with openness in mind.

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Limitations and Honest Assessment

Rating: 4.8/5. Bluesky Scraper excels at ease of use and comprehensive data extraction. Minor considerations:

• User base is smaller than Twitter (2-3M DAU vs 300M+). If you are tracking massive conversations, volume may be lower
• Platform is still evolving. New features and API changes happen frequently. The actor is maintained to keep up, but there may be brief windows where new fields are not yet captured
• First-mover’s data deficit. Historical data is limited. Bluesky was founded in 2023, so if you need posts from 2022 or earlier, you will not find them
• Language diversity is lower. The user base skews heavily toward English speakers. Non-English posts exist but in smaller volume

For early adopters, researchers, marketers, and AI practitioners, Bluesky is an underexploited data source. These limitations are not serious drawbacks, they are opportunities to be first.

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Final Assessment

Bluesky Scraper fills a gap left by Twitter’s API restrictions and paywall mentality. Bluesky is positioned as the “open alternative to Twitter,” and that openess extends to data access. With no authentication walls, transparent pricing, and support for multiple extraction modes in one actor, this tool is the fastest way to tap into Bluesky’s discourse data.

For social media marketers, researchers, journalists, and AI/NLP engineers, Bluesky represents a new, accessible frontier in social data. The first 100 results are free. The pricing is honest. The platform is built for interoperability.

Run the actor: https://apify.com/tugelbay/bluesky-scraper

Last verified: April 2026