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. Pass back the `after` value from the previous response exactly as issued; it is opaque and carries your paging depth. See Pagination depth.

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	Cursor for the next page, or `null` when there is no next page to request. An empty cursor does not always mean you have every item, so read `listing_status` (below) to find out which. See Pagination depth.

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.

When `after` comes back empty

An empty cursor means there is no next page to ask for. It does not always mean you have every user: Reddit often stops serving a busy listing long before it runs out. Paging r/all on 2026-08-14 stopped after 400 posts covering about a minute of a feed that plainly holds more.

The response tells you which happened. When after is null it also carries listing_status, which reads complete, truncated or unknown. Only complete means you have everything; treat the other two as a partial answer and widen your search rather than stopping. The full field list and what to do about each answer is in Pagination depth.

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.