diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 0cfc9276a..411845989 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -52,6 +52,9 @@ torrequest = "^0.1.0"
 pandas = ">=1.0.0,<3.0.0"
 openpyxl = "^3.0.10"
 
+[tool.poetry.extras]
+tor = ["torrequest"]
+
 [tool.poetry.group.dev.dependencies]
 jsonschema = "^4.0.0"
 
diff --git a/sherlock_project/sherlock.py b/sherlock_project/sherlock.py
index 2464e04ca..36859b4b8 100644
--- a/sherlock_project/sherlock.py
+++ b/sherlock_project/sherlock.py
@@ -211,6 +211,18 @@ def sherlock(
     query_notify.start(username)
     # Create session based on request methodology
     if tor or unique_tor:
+        try:
+            from torrequest import TorRequest  # noqa: E402
+        except ImportError:
+            print("Important!")
+            print("> --tor and --unique-tor are now DEPRECATED, and may be removed in a future release of Sherlock.")
+            print("> If you've installed Sherlock via pip, you can include the optional dependency via `pip install sherlock-project[tor]`.")
+            print("> Other packages should refer to their documentation, or install it separately with `pip install torrequest`.\n")
+            sys.exit(query_notify.finish())
+
+        print("Important!")
+        print("> --tor and --unique-tor are now DEPRECATED, and may be removed in a future release of Sherlock."))
+
         # Requests using Tor obfuscation
         try:
             underlying_request = TorRequest()