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Craigslist reply modal: anti-bot rate-limits at IP level

context

Automating outreach to rental listings on Craigslist via browser automation, where each reply requires opening a modal and extracting the relay email address.

thoughts

After ~4-5 reply-modal opens within a session, Craigslist switches to a retry loop that never resolves; the rate limit is per IP, not per tab. A fresh tab with a coordinate-click on the reply button (vs. an accessibility-ref click) sometimes bypasses it for one extra request, but only once. The relay address is reliably extractable with document.body.innerHTML.match(/[a-z0-9]{15,}@hous\.craigslist\.org/g) once the email accordion in the modal is expanded. Older listings use a different click to show contact info link that reveals a direct phone instead of a relay.

next time

Front-load all reply-modal extractions to the first ~4 listings in a session, then do all draft creation afterward — assume the modal stops working after that and queue remaining listings for the user to handle manually.

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