sherlock-project

    sherlock-project/sherlock

    #149 this week

    Hunt down social media accounts by username across social networks

    cli
    security
    cti
    cybersecurity
    forensics
    hacktoberfest
    information-gathering
    Python
    MIT
    88.3K stars
    10.4K forks
    88.3K GitHub watchers
    Updated 8/5/2026
    View on GitHub

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    Use Cases & Benefits

    • Hunts down social media accounts by username across more than 400 social networks using a command-line interface.
    • Provides comprehensive and automated username reconnaissance across numerous platforms, saving time compared to manual searches.
    • Use for cybersecurity investigations to gather social media footprints of targets during threat intelligence or digital forensics.
    • Use for penetration testing and red team operations to identify potential social media presence of individuals or organizations.
    • Use for OSINT research to collect publicly available social media account data for analysis or profiling.

    About sherlock


    sherlock
    Hunt down social media accounts by username across 400+ social networks

    Installation    •    Usage    •    Contributing

    demo

    Installation

    [!WARNING]
    Packages for ParrotOS and Ubuntu 24.04, maintained by a third party, appear to be broken.
    Users of these systems should defer to pipx/pip or Docker.

    MethodNotes
    pipx install sherlock-projectpip may be used in place of pipx
    docker run -it --rm sherlock/sherlock
    dnf install sherlock-project

    Community-maintained packages are available for Debian (>= 13), Ubuntu (>= 22.10), Homebrew, Kali, and BlackArch. These packages are not directly supported or maintained by the Sherlock Project.

    See all alternative installation methods here

    General usage

    To search for only one user:

    sherlock user123
    

    To search for more than one user:

    sherlock user1 user2 user3
    

    Accounts found will be stored in an individual text file with the corresponding username (e.g user123.txt).

    $ sherlock --help
    usage: sherlock [-h] [--version] [--verbose] [--folderoutput FOLDEROUTPUT]
                    [--output OUTPUT] [--tor] [--unique-tor] [--csv] [--xlsx]
                    [--site SITE_NAME] [--proxy PROXY_URL] [--json JSON_FILE]
                    [--timeout TIMEOUT] [--print-all] [--print-found] [--no-color]
                    [--browse] [--local] [--nsfw]
                    USERNAMES [USERNAMES ...]
    
    Sherlock: Find Usernames Across Social Networks (Version 0.14.3)
    
    positional arguments:
      USERNAMES             One or more usernames to check with social networks.
                            Check similar usernames using {?} (replace to '_', '-', '.').
    
    optional arguments:
      -h, --help            show this help message and exit
      --version             Display version information and dependencies.
      --verbose, -v, -d, --debug
                            Display extra debugging information and metrics.
      --folderoutput FOLDEROUTPUT, -fo FOLDEROUTPUT
                            If using multiple usernames, the output of the results will be
                            saved to this folder.
      --output OUTPUT, -o OUTPUT
                            If using single username, the output of the result will be saved
                            to this file.
      --tor, -t             Make requests over Tor; increases runtime; requires Tor to be
                            installed and in system path.
      --unique-tor, -u      Make requests over Tor with new Tor circuit after each request;
                            increases runtime; requires Tor to be installed and in system
                            path.
      --csv                 Create Comma-Separated Values (CSV) File.
      --xlsx                Create the standard file for the modern Microsoft Excel
                            spreadsheet (xlsx).
      --site SITE_NAME      Limit analysis to just the listed sites. Add multiple options to
                            specify more than one site.
      --proxy PROXY_URL, -p PROXY_URL
                            Make requests over a proxy. e.g. socks5://127.0.0.1:1080
      --json JSON_FILE, -j JSON_FILE
                            Load data from a JSON file or an online, valid, JSON file.
      --timeout TIMEOUT     Time (in seconds) to wait for response to requests (Default: 60)
      --print-all           Output sites where the username was not found.
      --print-found         Output sites where the username was found.
      --no-color            Don't color terminal output
      --browse, -b          Browse to all results on default browser.
      --local, -l           Force the use of the local data.json file.
      --nsfw                Include checking of NSFW sites from default list.
    

    Apify Actor Usage Sherlock Actor

    Run Sherlock Actor on Apify

    You can run Sherlock in the cloud without installation using the Sherlock Actor on Apify free of charge.

    $ echo '{"usernames":["user123"]}' | apify call -so netmilk/sherlock
    [{
      "username": "user123",
      "links": [
        "https://www.1337x.to/user/user123/",
        ...
      ]
    }]
    

    Read more about the Sherlock Actor, including how to use it programmatically via the Apify API, CLI and JS/TS and Python SDKs.

    Credits

    Thank you to everyone who has contributed to Sherlock! ❤️

    contributors

    Star history

    Sherlock Project Star History Chart

    License

    MIT © Sherlock Project
    Original Creator - Siddharth Dushantha

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