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This tutorial walks you through sending a synchronous request to each Bright Data Reddit Scraper API endpoint. By the end, you’ll have working examples for collecting posts, discovering posts and collecting comments.

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Prerequisites

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Request structure

Every synchronous request follows the same pattern: 
POST https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id={DATASET_ID}&format=json
Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN
Content-Type: application/json

[{"url": "https://www.reddit.com/..."}]
The only things that change between endpoints are the dataset_id and the input shape.
Synchronous requests support up to 20 URLs and have a 1-minute timeout. If the request takes longer, the API automatically returns a snapshot_id instead. See async requests.

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Posts — Collect by URL

Scrape a specific Reddit post by its URL. Dataset ID: gd_lvz8ah06191smkebj4 
curl -X POST \
  "https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id=gd_lvz8ah06191smkebj4&format=json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '[{"url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/comments/1asdf12/how_do_i_start_learning_python/"}]'
You should see a 200 response. This takes 10 to 30 seconds. 
[
  {
    "post_id": "1asdf12",
    "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/comments/1asdf12/how_do_i_start_learning_python/",
    "user_posted": "example_user",
    "title": "How do I start learning Python?",
    "description": "I'm a complete beginner and want to know the best resources...",
    "num_upvotes": 1240,
    "num_comments": 86,
    "date_posted": "2025-03-14T18:22:00Z",
    "tag": "Tutorial",
    "community_name": "learnpython",
    "community_url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython",
    "community_description": "Subreddit for posting questions...",
    "community_members_num": 1120000,
    "community_rank": "Top 1%",
    "photos": [],
    "videos": []
  }
]
Full Posts - Collect by URL schema

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Posts — Discover by subreddit URL

Scrape recent posts from a specific subreddit, optionally sorted by new, top or hot. Dataset ID: gd_lvz8ah06191smkebj4
Discovery endpoints are best used asynchronously via /trigger since they may return many results. The sync example below is for quick testing.
curl -X POST \
  "https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id=gd_lvz8ah06191smkebj4&format=json&type=discover_new&discover_by=subreddit_url" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '[{"url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/", "sort_by": "hot"}]'
Full Discover by subreddit URL schema

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Posts — Discover by keyword

Find Reddit posts matching a search term, filtered by date. Dataset ID: gd_lvz8ah06191smkebj4 
curl -X POST \
  "https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id=gd_lvz8ah06191smkebj4&format=json&type=discover_new&discover_by=keyword" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '[{"keyword": "machine learning", "date": "Past week", "num_of_posts": 20}]'
Full Discover by keyword schema

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Comments — Collect by URL

Scrape all comments from a Reddit post or a specific comment thread, with optional filtering by age. Dataset ID: gd_lvzdpsdlw09j6t702 
curl -X POST \
  "https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id=gd_lvzdpsdlw09j6t702&format=json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '[{"url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/comments/1asdf12/", "days_back": 7}]'

[
  {
    "comment_id": "kabc1de",
    "user_posted": "example_commenter",
    "comment": "Start with the official Python tutorial, it's free and covers all the basics.",
    "date_posted": "2025-03-14T19:02:11Z",
    "num_upvotes": 412,
    "num_replies": 8,
    "replies": [],
    "post_url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/comments/1asdf12/",
    "post_id": "1asdf12",
    "post_type": "text",
    "community_name": "learnpython",
    "community_url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython",
    "is_moderator": false,
    "is_pinned": false,
    "is_locked": false
  }
]
Full Comments - Collect by URL schema

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Next steps

Async batch requests

Scrape thousands of posts or run keyword discovery jobs in a single async request.

API reference

Full endpoint specs, parameters and response schemas.