Check if user exists with PRAW

Question

Is it possible to check if a specified user exists using PRAW, and if so what is the proper way to do so? I couldn't find any builtin functions that do this, so your help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Arnav's answer only works in old versions of PRAW (prior to 2016). If you're starting a new project, you should use the newest version of PRAW. In that version, here's the code that works:

import praw
from prawcore.exceptions import NotFound

reddit = praw.Reddit(  # authentication goes here
)

def user_exists(name):
    try:
        reddit.redditor(name).id
    except NotFound:
        return False
    return True