Apple Podcasts Search Scraper

Apple Podcasts Search Scraper

Search Apple Podcasts by keyword and get up to 5,000 matching shows per run. Each podcast comes with its title, publisher, genre, rating, and episode count. No API key or iTunes login. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

Apple Podcasts does not offer a public search API, and browsing the directory manually limits you to a few hundred results. This Actor searches the iTunes store directly, auto-expands your keyword with suffix variations to bypass Apple's per-query cap, and deduplicates the results. You get a clean dataset of every podcast that mentions your topic, ready for analysis.

Who uses it	What they scrape Apple Podcasts for
Podcast producers	Find every show in a niche to pitch guest appearances.
Market researchers	Map the competitive landscape for a topic across all podcast categories.
Advertisers	Build a prospect list of shows by genre and audience size for sponsorship deals.
Content strategists	Identify trending topics and underserved categories for new show launches.

What it does

This Actor searches Apple Podcasts by keyword and returns each matching podcast as a flat row with its title, publisher, genre, rating, and more.

• 🔤 Suffix expansion: the Actor appends a-z and 0-9 to your keyword, runs parallel searches, and merges the results, routinely returning 2,000+ unique podcasts per keyword.
• 🌍 Country filter: restrict results to a specific iTunes storefront with an ISO-2 country code (US, GB, DE, JP, and more).
• 🎙️ Genre filter: narrow results to one of 17 Apple Podcasts categories, or run without a search term to pull the Top Charts for that genre.
• 📊 Flat output: every podcast is a single row with a fixed schema, ready for spreadsheets, databases, or BI tools.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with Apple Podcasts data

🎤 Build a guest-outreach list.

A podcast producer searches for 'daily news' and filters by the News genre to export every active show for booking interviews.

📈 Map a competitive category.

A market researcher runs a keyword for 'true crime' across all genres, then sorts by rating and episode count to identify the top players.

💰 Find sponsorship targets.

An advertiser searches for 'health and fitness' podcasts in the US store, filters by high episode counts, and builds a media-buy list.

🆕 Spot content gaps.

A content strategist pulls the Top Charts for the Technology genre without a search term to see which sub-topics are under-served.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
Bypass Apple's cap	Auto-expanded suffix searches return thousands of podcasts, not the first 100.
No coding	A ready-to-run Actor with a simple search box, no API registration or OAuth.
Deduplicated results	The Actor merges parallel searches and removes duplicates so you get clean, unique rows.
Flexible exports	Download your dataset as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or push it to any webhook.

How it compares

No other Store actor targets Apple Podcasts the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

	Apple Podcasts Search Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When Apple Podcasts changes	Maintained for you	You fix it	You re-learn the page
Proxies, retries, anti-bot	Built in	Your problem	Browser only
Output	Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export	Whatever you build	Copy-paste
Cost	Pay per result	Engineering time	Analyst hours

Configure the run

Drive the Actor with a search keyword, and optionally narrow results by country and genre. Filters run as each podcast is read so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
 "maxItems": 10,
 "query": "daily news",
 "country": "US"
}

A larger pull:

{
 "maxItems": 200,
 "query": "daily news",
 "country": "US"
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.02 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$2.00
1,000 results	$20.00
10,000 results	$200.00

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the Apple Podcasts Search Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to Apple Podcasts through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/itunes-podcast-search-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting fewer results than expected?

Check your maxItems setting. Free users are capped at 10 items. Paid users can set up to 5,000. Also, very niche keywords may naturally return fewer podcasts even with suffix expansion.

Why do I see duplicate podcasts in my results?

The Actor deduplicates by podcast ID, but if you see duplicates, confirm you are using the latest version. If the issue persists, the same podcast may appear under different IDs in Apple's catalog, which is rare.

The Actor returns no results for my keyword.

Try a broader keyword or remove the genre filter. Apple's search is literal; misspellings or very long phrases may return zero matches. Also verify your country code is valid (e.g., 'US', not 'USA').

Can I search for a specific podcast by name?

Yes. Enter the exact podcast name as the search keyword. The Actor will return that show and any others with similar titles. For a single known show, set maxItems low to speed up the run.

Why does the run take a long time?

Suffix expansion runs up to 36 parallel searches (a-z, 0-9). A high maxItems value and a broad keyword will take longer. Reduce maxItems or use a more specific keyword to speed it up.

FAQ

Question	Answer
How many podcasts can I get per search?	Apple's native search caps at about 100 results per query. This Actor auto-expands your keyword with suffix variations (a-z, 0-9), runs parallel searches, and deduplicates them, routinely returning 2,000+ unique podcasts. Paid users can set the max up to 5,000.
Do I need an Apple ID or API key?	No. The Actor reads the public iTunes search endpoint directly. You do not need an Apple ID, an API key, or any registration.
Can I search in languages other than English?	Yes. The search keyword accepts any language, and you can set the country code to a non-English storefront (e.g., 'DE' for Germany, 'JP' for Japan) to get localized results.
What data fields does the Actor return?	Each row includes the podcast title, publisher, genre, rating, episode count, and other metadata Apple provides in its search results. The exact field list is shown in the sample output on the Actor's page.
Can I get the Top Charts without a search term?	Yes. Leave the search term empty and select a genre. The Actor will return up to 200 podcasts from Apple's Top Charts for that genre.
How does the suffix expansion work?	The Actor takes your keyword and appends each letter (a-z) and digit (0-9) to it, then runs a separate search for each variation. All results are merged and deduplicated, so you get podcasts that mention your keyword in any context.
Is there a rate limit?	The Actor manages request pacing internally to stay within Apple's acceptable usage. Free Apify users are limited to 10 items per run as a preview; paid users can retrieve up to 5,000.
Can I filter by multiple genres at once?	The genre filter accepts one category per run. To cover multiple genres, run the Actor once per genre and merge the datasets afterward.
What export formats are supported?	You can download your results in CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML. The dataset can also be pushed to a webhook or integrated with Apify's API.
Does this Actor get episode-level data?	No. This Actor returns podcast-level metadata (show title, publisher, genre, etc.). It does not fetch individual episode titles or audio files.

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Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Apple Inc. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.