🐘 Mastodon Scraper — Posts, Hashtags, Accounts & Trends

Extract Mastodon data from any instance (mastodon.social, mas.to, fosstodon.org and thousands more) through the public REST API — hashtag feeds, a user's posts, the public/federated timeline, trending posts, or profile data. Mastodon is the largest open, federated social network, and its data is wide open: pull clean, structured JSON with engagement counts, media, hashtags and author info, no login required for public content. Export to JSON/CSV/Excel, run on a schedule, call via API, or connect to Make, Zapier or n8n.

🐘 What is the Mastodon Scraper?

It turns any Mastodon instance into a structured dataset. Point it at a server, pick a mode — hashtag posts, an account's posts, the public/federated timeline, trends, or a profile — and it returns every matching record with full engagement metrics straight from Mastodon's own REST API. HTML is stripped from post bodies for clean text, and because it reads a JSON API instead of a headless browser, it's fast and cheap with no residential proxy required.

What data does it extract?

• Post text (HTML stripped), created date and language
• Engagement counts — favourites, boosts (reblogs) and replies
• Boost detection (is_reblog) and the original author of a boosted post
• Author info — username, full acct handle, display name, follower count and URL
• Hashtags on each post and the matched search tag
• Media URLs and media types (images, video, gifv) attached to each post
• Profile data — bio, followers, following, status count, avatar, join date, bot flag
• Post and account URLs, plus a scraped_at timestamp

⬇️ Input

Choose an instance and a mode, then supply hashtags or accounts as needed:

Field	Description
mode	hashtag, account, public, trends, profile or search
instance	Mastodon server to query, e.g. mastodon.social, mas.to, fosstodon.org
hashtags	Tags to scrape without the # (hashtag mode), e.g. news, art, bitcoin
accounts	Handles to scrape, e.g. Gargron or Gargron@mastodon.social
query	Keyword to search statuses for (search mode — needs a token)
localOnly	In public mode, only this instance's posts vs the full federated timeline
maxItems	Max records to return, split across hashtags/accounts (1–50000)
accessToken	Optional API token, only needed for keyword search
proxyConfiguration	Optional Apify Proxy for IP rotation on large runs

Example input

{
  "mode": "hashtag",
  "instance": "mastodon.social",
  "hashtags": ["bitcoin", "ai"],
  "maxItems": 500
}

⬆️ Output

Every post (or profile) is one clean row — view it as a table, or export JSON / CSV / Excel:

{
  "id": "123456789",
  "url": "https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/123456789",
  "created_at": "2026-06-26T09:00:00.000Z",
  "text": "Mastodon keeps growing!",
  "language": "en",
  "replies_count": 33,
  "reblogs_count": 210,
  "favourites_count": 540,
  "is_reblog": false,
  "in_reply_to_id": null,
  "author_username": "Gargron",
  "author_acct": "Gargron",
  "author_display_name": "Eugen",
  "author_followers": 280000,
  "author_url": "https://mastodon.social/@Gargron",
  "original_author_acct": null,
  "hashtags": ["mastodon"],
  "media_urls": [],
  "media_types": [],
  "scraped_at": "2026-06-26T15:30:00.000Z"
}

💡 Use cases

• 👂 Social listening & brand monitoring: track a topic, product or brand across the whole fediverse.
• 📈 Trend & sentiment analysis: feed hashtag and trending streams straight into an LLM.
• 🔬 Open-social research: study communities, federation and how content spreads between servers.
• 🔍 Influencer & audience research: profile stats and posting activity to find who leads a niche.

❓ FAQ

How do I scrape Mastodon hashtags? Set mode: hashtag, choose an instance, add one or more hashtags (without the #), and Run. You get every recent post for those tags with text, engagement counts, media and author info.

Do I need an API key or login? No — hashtags, accounts, public timelines, trends and profiles all work with no login, straight from each instance's public REST API. Only keyword search mode needs an access token.

Does it work on any instance? Yes — point instance at any Mastodon server. It defaults to mastodon.social (the largest, which sees most of the federated timeline), but niche servers like fosstodon.org are great for niche communities.

Can I scrape remote accounts on another server? Yes — use the full user@instance handle (e.g. Gargron@mastodon.social) and the queried instance resolves it for you.

How do I get an access token for search? In your Mastodon account go to Preferences → Development → New application, create one, and paste its access token into accessToken. It's only required for keyword search; every other mode is login-free.

What's the difference between local and federated in public mode? With localOnly: true you get only posts from the chosen instance; with it off you get the whole federated timeline that instance can see.

How many records can it return? Up to your maxItems cap (up to 50,000); it paginates automatically and splits the cap across the hashtags or accounts you give it.

Can I run it on a schedule or via API? Yes — schedule recurring runs in Apify, call it via the API/SDK, or connect it to Make, Zapier or n8n.

Is scraping Mastodon legal? It reads publicly available data via Mastodon's own public API. Use it responsibly for research and monitoring, and follow applicable laws and each instance's terms.

🔗 You might also like

• Bluesky Scraper — posts, profiles, followers & search
• Lemmy Scraper — the federated Reddit alternative
• Reddit Scraper — posts, comments & communities
• Instagram Scraper — posts, profiles & hashtags

---

Keywords: Mastodon scraper, Mastodon API, fediverse scraper, ActivityPub, Mastodon posts, Mastodon hashtag scraper, Mastodon trends, Mastodon profile scraper, mastodon.social scraper, social media scraper, social listening, sentiment analysis, open social data, fediverse data export, Twitter alternative data.