Search Reddit Users by Name and Karma

Search Reddit accounts by username, the People tab on reddit.com search. Returns karma totals, avatar, account age, and profile blurb, with pagination.

GET/api/reddit/search/users$0.002 / call

Search Reddit accounts by name. Mirrors the "People" tab on reddit.com search.

Reach for this when you have a name and need the account behind it: resolving a partial username, checking how old an account is before you trust it, or pulling karma to rank a list of authors you collected elsewhere. If you want what a user has actually written, use /api/reddit/user/{name}/comments instead. This endpoint finds accounts, it does not read them.

Query Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`q`	string	Yes	Search query
`nsfw`	boolean	No	`true` to include NSFW accounts
`limit`	number	No	Number of users to return, `1`-`100` (default `25`)
`after`	string	No	Pagination cursor (a `t2_` account fullname)

There is no sort or t on this endpoint. Reddit ranks account results by its own relevance model only, so passing either one has no effect. That is the main difference from Search Posts and Search Media, which both accept a sort and a timeframe.

Example

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  "https://api.redditapis.com/api/reddit/search/users?q=trader"

const response = await fetch(
  "https://api.redditapis.com/api/reddit/search/users?q=trader",
  { headers: { Authorization: "Bearer TOKEN" } }
);

import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://api.redditapis.com/api/reddit/search/users",
    params={"q": "trader"},
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer TOKEN"},
)

Response Shape

{
  "users": [
    {
      "name": "BadassTrader",
      "link_karma": 461535,
      "comment_karma": 97193,
      "icon": "https://styles.redditmedia.com/t5_iodsf/styles/profileIcon_j0pwe4uv6xg91.png",
      "created": "2018-05-01T00:05:08.000Z",
      "subreddit": {
        "title": "",
        "public_description": "Superstonk Mod",
        "subscribers": 0,
        "url": "/user/BadassTrader/"
      }
    }
  ],
  "after": "t2_5g73h"
}

Response Fields

Field	Type	Notes
`name`	string	Username, no `u/` prefix
`link_karma`	number	Karma from submitted posts
`comment_karma`	number	Karma from comments
`icon`	string \| null	Avatar URL. Falls back to a Reddit default avatar for accounts that never set one.
`created`	string \| null	ISO-8601 account creation time
`subreddit`	object \| null	The user's profile subreddit (`u/name`). `null` for accounts without one.
`subreddit.title`	string	Profile display title. Often an empty string.
`subreddit.public_description`	string	Profile blurb shown under the name
`subreddit.subscribers`	number	Profile followers. Reddit reports `0` here on search results even for accounts that have followers.
`subreddit.url`	string	Profile path, e.g. `/user/BadassTrader/`
`after`	string \| null	Pagination cursor for the next page

total_karma is not part of this response. Reddit omits it from account search results, so it is absent from every row rather than returned as 0. When you need the authoritative total, call /api/reddit/user/{name}, which returns total_karma along with the awardee_karma and awarder_karma buckets.

Notes

subreddit is null for a minority of accounts. Guard the nested reads rather than assuming the object is present.
Deleted and suspended accounts do not appear in results at all.

Independent third-party API for developers and researchers. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Reddit, Inc.