# /lemmy/communities/search

`POST /api/lemmy/communities/search`

Price: 10 credits

Search or list Lemmy communities known to the instance, each with its subscriber count, post and comment totals and active-user counts

## How to use it

With `query` this matches community names and titles only, not a community's own sidebar text; without it you get the instance's directory, which with `sort=TopAll` is the way to find the largest communities of the network. The directory only holds what this instance has federated, so a small instance knows fewer communities than lemmy.world. NSFW communities are withheld unless `show_nsfw` is true. Feed `alias` from a row into lemmy/posts/search to read that community.

## Parameters

- `access-token` (string, required)

## Request body

- `timeout` (integer) — Max scrapping execution timeout (in seconds) (default: 300; min: 20; max: 1500)
- `instance` (string) — Lemmy instance domain to read from. Any instance answers for the whole network, and its own view of vote and comment counts is what you get (default: "lemmy.world"; examples: "lemmy.world", "lemmy.ml", "sopuli.xyz"; minLength: 1)
- `count` (integer, required) — Max number of communities to return (examples: 50; min: 1; max: 5000)
- `query` (string, nullable) — Free-text query matched against community names and titles, not a community's own sidebar text. Without it the instance's community directory is listed instead (examples: "linux"; minLength: 1)
- `sort` (string, nullable) — Ordering applied by the instance (one of: "Active", "Hot", "New", "Old", "Scaled", "Controversial", "MostComments", "NewComments", "TopHour", "TopSixHour", "TopTwelveHour", "TopDay", "TopWeek", "TopMonth", "TopThreeMonths", "TopSixMonths", "TopNineMonths", "TopYear", "TopAll")
- `listing_type` (string, nullable) — `Local` keeps only communities hosted by the instance, `All` includes federated ones (one of: "All", "Local")
- `show_nsfw` (boolean) — Include communities marked NSFW, which are withheld otherwise (default: false)

## Response

### 200 — Successful Response

- `@type` (string) (default: "LemmyCommunity")
- `id` (string, required)
- `url` (string, nullable)
- `alias` (string, nullable)
- `community_title` (string, nullable)
- `description` (string, nullable)
- `image` (string, nullable)
- `banner` (string, nullable)
- `visibility` (string, nullable)
- `instance_id` (string, nullable)
- `is_local` (boolean, nullable)
- `is_nsfw` (boolean, nullable)
- `is_removed` (boolean, nullable)
- `is_deleted` (boolean, nullable)
- `is_hidden` (boolean, nullable)
- `is_posting_restricted_to_mods` (boolean, nullable)
- `created_at` (integer, nullable)
- `updated_at` (integer, nullable)
- `subscriber_count` (integer, nullable)
- `local_subscriber_count` (integer, nullable)
- `post_count` (integer, nullable)
- `comment_count` (integer, nullable)
- `active_day_user_count` (integer, nullable)
- `active_week_user_count` (integer, nullable)
- `active_month_user_count` (integer, nullable)
- `active_half_year_user_count` (integer, nullable)
- `moderators` (array) (default: [])
  - `@type` (string) (default: "LemmyUser")
  - `id` (string, required)
  - `url` (string, nullable)
  - `alias` (string, nullable)
  - `name` (string, nullable)
  - `bio` (string, nullable)
  - `image` (string, nullable)
  - `banner` (string, nullable)
  - `matrix_user_id` (string, nullable)
  - `instance_id` (string, nullable)
  - `is_local` (boolean, nullable)
  - `is_bot` (boolean, nullable)
  - `is_banned` (boolean, nullable)
  - `is_deleted` (boolean, nullable)
  - `is_admin` (boolean, nullable)
  - `ban_expires_at` (integer, nullable)
  - `created_at` (integer, nullable)
  - `updated_at` (integer, nullable)
  - `post_count` (integer, nullable)
  - `comment_count` (integer, nullable)
  - `moderated_communities` (array) (default: [])

## Errors

### 422 — Validation Error

instance is not a domain

What to do: Check the fields against this schema. A URN with the wrong prefix is the most common cause.

- `detail` (array)
  - `loc` (array, required)
  - `msg` (string, required)
  - `type` (string, required)
  - `input` (any)
  - `ctx` (object)

### 408

The request ran past its time limit

What to do: Raise `timeout` in the request body, up to the maximum this endpoint documents. Lowering `count` or turning off the `with_*` flags also helps, because less work finishes sooner.

### 412

No such post, comment, community or user on this Lemmy instance, or the instance did not answer the Lemmy API

What to do: Retrying will not help: either the entity does not exist, or the input points at a different one.

### 429

Too many requests: a rate limit or a usage window is exhausted

What to do: When the response carries an X-Retry-After header, wait that many seconds and retry: the same number is in the body as `detail.retry_after`, and the limit clears once that window passes. The message in the body names the limit that was hit.

### 500

Something broke on our side

What to do: Retrying will not help. If it keeps happening, send us the X-Request-ID from the response headers.

### 529

Rate limit reached, or the endpoint is overloaded

What to do: Wait at least 30 seconds, then retry.

## Response envelope

Success: Array of objects (may be empty if no results)

Error: Error may coexist with partial results if it occurs mid-execution. Check X-Error header and status code.

Every response carries these headers:

- `X-Error` — Error message text (present only on error)
- `X-Request-ID` — Unique request identifier
- `X-Execution-Time` — Execution time in seconds
- `X-Result-Count` — How many records the body carries. 0 means an empty result, which is a normal answer and not by itself an error. A non-zero count can come back together with X-Error when the failure happened partway through — read this header and X-Error independently.
- `X-Total-Available-Results` — How many records exist for this query, when the endpoint can say. On a `dry_run` request this is the answer and the body is empty. It saturates: the endpoint's documented maximum means 'at least that many', any smaller number is exact.
- `X-Warning` — Present when the request body carried keys this endpoint does not document. They were ignored, so any filter you meant to apply through them did not apply. Check the spelling against this schema and retry.
- `X-Retry-After` — Seconds to wait before retrying. Present only on 429.