sherlock-project
Hunt down social media accounts by username across social networks
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes, if you need to search for usernames across many social networks at once. The tool is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, uses permissive MIT licensing, and low install friction. It's a solid fit for OSINT work or account verification workflows. Not necessary if you only need to check one or two specific platforms.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Low friction install with a wheel distribution.
- Active maintenance with recent commits and a large community presence (89488 stars).
- Eight runtime dependencies are all well-established libraries, suggesting straightforward setup.
License · maintenance · safety
MIT (permissive) — MIT license is permissive and imposes minimal restrictions—you can use, modify, and distribute the package freely in both open-source and commercial contexts.
last release 2025-09-16 (332 days) · last repo commit 2026-08-14 · 89,488 stars
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 113,849 downloads/mo, #12,327 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
pip install sherlock-project
sherlock user123
sherlock user1 user2 user3 --csv- Whether the 400+ social networks figure remains current or if the actual list varies by version
- Whether Tor and proxy features work reliably across all supported platforms
- Performance characteristics when searching for multiple users simultaneously
What it is and what it does
Sherlock is a command-line tool that hunts for usernames across a large set of social networks and online platforms. You give it one or more usernames, and it queries each network to see if an account exists there, then reports back which sites have matches. It's built on requests and requests-futures for parallel lookups, with support for Tor routing, proxy configuration, and output to CSV or Excel.
The tool is designed for OSINT (open-source intelligence) and reconnaissance work—finding digital footprints of a person or identity across the internet. It runs on Python 3.9 through 3.13 and handles both single and batch username searches from the command line.
Use it for
- Verify whether a username is available across multiple platforms before registering a new account
- Conduct OSINT investigations to map out all online accounts associated with a specific username
- Batch-check a list of usernames to identify which social networks they're registered on
- Export account discovery results to CSV or Excel for reporting or further analysis
- Route searches through Tor or a proxy to maintain anonymity during reconnaissance
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes, if you need to search for usernames across many social networks at once.
The tool is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, uses permissive MIT licensing, and low install friction. It's a solid fit for OSINT work or account verification workflows. Not necessary if you only need to check one or two specific platforms.
Install
sherlock-project on PyPI
Before you install
Low friction install with a wheel distribution. Active maintenance with recent commits and a large community presence (89488 stars). Eight runtime dependencies are all well-established libraries, suggesting straightforward setup.
License in practice
MIT license is permissive and imposes minimal restrictions—you can use, modify, and distribute the package freely in both open-source and commercial contexts.
Quickstart
pip install sherlock-project
sherlock user123
sherlock user1 user2 user3 --csvVerify before relying
- Whether the 400+ social networks figure remains current or if the actual list varies by version
- Whether Tor and proxy features work reliably across all supported platforms
- Performance characteristics when searching for multiple users simultaneously
Package facts
| License | MIT permissive |
| Python support | Supports the current Python release <4.0,>=3.9 |
| Install friction | Low. Pure-Python wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | 8 packagesPySockscertificoloramaopenpyxlpandasrequestsrequests-futuresstem |
| Maintenance | Actively maintained 332 days since the last release |
| Last repo commit | |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 113,849 / month, #12,327 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | Development Status :: 5 - Production/StableIntended Audience :: DevelopersIntended Audience :: Information TechnologyLicense :: OSI Approved :: MIT LicenseNatural Language :: EnglishOperating System :: OS IndependentProgramming Language :: Python :: 3Programming Language :: Python :: 3.10Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11Programming Language :: Python :: 3.12Programming Language :: Python :: 3.13Programming Language :: Python :: 3.9Topic :: Security |
Evidence: sherlock_project-0.16.0-py3-none-any.whl
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