Podcast Scraper

Search and extract podcast data from Apple Podcasts. Find shows by keyword, get full details, and list episodes with metadata. No API key needed.

🎙️ What does Podcast Scraper do?

Podcast Scraper extracts structured podcast data from the Apple Podcasts / iTunes catalog. Three modes:

🔹 Search — Find podcasts by keyword across the Apple Podcasts catalog 🔹 Details — Get full metadata for specific podcasts by ID 🔹 Episodes — List recent iTunes episodes or opt into complete RSS archives with direct audio URLs

Who is it for?

Podcast Scraper is for marketers, media researchers, podcast networks, and data teams that need podcast show metadata, episode lists, and publishing signals from Apple Podcasts at scale.

❓ Why use Podcast Scraper?

🔹 No API key needed — Uses the public iTunes Search API 🔹 Fast and cheap — Pure HTTP API calls, no browser needed 🔹 5M+ podcasts — Access the entire Apple Podcasts catalog 🔹 Episode data — Recent iTunes lists or complete RSS archives with release dates, durations, show notes, GUIDs, and audio enclosures 🔹 Multi-country — Support for all 175+ iTunes Store countries

💡 Use cases

🔹 Podcast advertising — Find relevant podcasts for ad placements by genre and audience size 🔹 Market research — Analyze podcast landscape in specific niches 🔹 Competitive analysis — Monitor competitor podcasts and episode frequency 🔹 Content planning — Track trending topics and popular podcast formats 🔹 Media monitoring — Track mentions across podcast episodes

📊 Sample output

Podcast data

Field	Example
podcastName	Hard Fork
artistName	The New York Times
primaryGenre	Technology
episodeCount	186
feedUrl	https://feeds.simplecast.com/...
contentRating	Clean

Episode data

Field	Example
episodeName	The Future of Computing
releaseDate	2026-08-30
durationMinutes	48
podcastName	Example Technology Podcast
episodeSource	rss
audioUrl	https://cdn.example.com/audio/episode-42.mp3
feedUrl	https://feeds.example.com/podcast.xml

Pricing

Event	Price
Start (per run)	$0.005
Podcast scraped	$0.001
Episode scraped	$0.0005

Free plan estimate: ~100 podcasts or ~500 episodes per month on the Apify Free plan.

🔢 How to scrape podcasts

1. Go to the Podcast Scraper page on Apify
2. Select mode (search, details, or episodes)
3. Enter search keywords or Apple Podcasts IDs
4. For episode extraction, keep the default iTunes source or choose RSS for complete archives and audio URLs
5. Set country and max results
6. Click "Start" and download results as JSON, CSV, or Excel

📥 Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
mode	string	search, details, or episodes
searchTerms	string[]	Keywords to search (search mode)
podcastIds	string[]	Apple Podcasts IDs (details/episodes mode)
episodeSource	string	itunes (default, up to 200 recent episodes) or rss (complete feed archive with audio URLs)
country	string	iTunes Store country (default: US)
maxResults	number	Max results per query (default: 50; RSS max: 5,000; Apple API modes: 200)

📤 Output fields

Podcast output

type, podcastId, podcastName, artistName, feedUrl, artworkUrl, genres, primaryGenre, episodeCount, country, contentRating, releaseDate, url, searchTerm, scrapedAt

Episode output

type, episodeId, podcastId, podcastName, episodeName, description, fullDescription, releaseDate, durationMinutes, episodeUrl, audioUrl, guid, feedUrl, episodeSource, artworkUrl, contentRating, episodeNumber, scrapedAt

💡 Tips

🔹 Finding podcast IDs — Open a podcast in Apple Podcasts, look at the URL: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id{NUMBER}. The number is the podcast ID. 🔹 Country matters — Different countries show different podcast catalogs and charts. Use the country parameter to search specific markets. 🔹 Episode limits — The default iTunes source returns up to 200 recent episodes. Choose episodeSource: "rss" for up to 5,000 items from the show's published RSS archive. 🔹 RSS availability — RSS mode resolves the feed URL through Apple. Feeds can be unavailable, invalid, or contain fewer items than the publisher's historical catalog; failures are reported with the affected podcast ID.

🔗 Integrations

Export podcast data to Google Sheets, Slack, Zapier, Make, or any webhook. Connect via the Apify API for automated podcast monitoring.

💻 API usage

Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/podcast-scraper').call({
    mode: 'search',
    searchTerms: ['artificial intelligence', 'machine learning'],
    maxResults: 50,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('YOUR_TOKEN')
run = client.actor('automation-lab/podcast-scraper').call(run_input={
    'mode': 'episodes',
    'episodeSource': 'rss',
    'podcastIds': ['1528594034'],
    'maxResults': 500,
})
items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items
print(items)

cURL

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~podcast-scraper/runs" \
  -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -d '{"mode": "search", "searchTerms": ["true crime"], "maxResults": 100}'

⚖️ Legality

Podcast Scraper accesses publicly available data through Apple's official iTunes Search API. This API is designed for programmatic access and is used by thousands of podcast apps and services.

Use with AI agents via MCP

Podcast Scraper is available as a tool for AI assistants via the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Setup for Claude Code

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/podcast-scraper"

Setup for Claude Desktop, Cursor, or VS Code

Add this to your MCP config file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/podcast-scraper"
        }
    }
}

Example prompts

• "Search for podcasts about 'machine learning'"
• "Get episode list for this podcast"
• "Find the top technology podcasts and their episode counts"

FAQ

Q: Do I need an Apple developer account? A: No. The iTunes Search API is public and requires no authentication.

Q: Can I get podcast ratings and reviews? A: The iTunes Search API doesn't include ratings or review text. For reviews, you would need to scrape the Apple Podcasts web pages directly.

Q: How many episodes can I get per podcast? A: The default iTunes source returns up to 200 recent episodes. In episodes mode, set episodeSource to rss to extract up to 5,000 items from the publisher's available RSS archive.

Q: Does this work for Spotify podcasts? A: This scraper targets Apple Podcasts specifically. Most podcasts are listed on both platforms, so Apple Podcasts data covers the majority of the podcast ecosystem.

Q: The scraper returns fewer episodes than the podcast actually has. A: The default iTunes source returns at most 200 recent episodes. Choose RSS mode for the complete archive currently exposed by the publisher's feed. Some publishers prune older feed items, so RSS results can still be smaller than the lifetime episode count.

Q: My search returns podcasts from a different country. A: Set the country parameter to the correct ISO country code (e.g., "US", "GB", "DE"). Different Apple Podcasts stores have different catalogs and rankings.

Q: Can I filter podcasts by language? A: The iTunes API doesn't have a language parameter. Most podcast results include metadata about content language, so you can filter the output client-side based on podcast description or primary content indicators.

How do you find podcasts by genre or topic using an API?

Use search mode with targeted keywords. The iTunes Search API — which powers this scraper — supports keyword searches across podcast titles, descriptions, and author names. Tips for finding niche podcasts:

• Search for the specific topic (e.g., "founder stories", "applied machine learning", "B2B SaaS")
• Set country to match your target audience's market (e.g., "US", "GB", "AU")
• Use maxResults: 200 to cast a wide net, then filter the output by primaryGenre or episodeCount
• High episodeCount typically signals an active, established podcast

For category browsing (e.g., "all Business podcasts"), the iTunes API does not support category filtering directly — keyword search is the most reliable approach.

How do you track podcast episode publishing frequency?

Use episodes mode to pull the episode list for specific podcasts, then analyze releaseDate patterns:

1. Get the podcast ID from Apple Podcasts (visible in the URL: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id{NUMBER}).
2. Run the scraper in episodes mode with those IDs.
3. Export to CSV and sort by releaseDate.
4. Calculate the average gap between consecutive episode release dates.

This is useful for podcast advertising research (active vs. inactive shows), competitive analysis (how often does a competitor publish?), and content planning benchmarking.

Can you use this scraper to monitor podcast episode titles for specific keywords?

Yes. Combine episodes mode with scheduled runs and keyword filtering:

1. Run the scraper weekly for a list of competitor or industry podcast IDs.
2. After each run, filter the episodeName and description fields for keywords relevant to your monitoring goal (e.g., your brand name, competitor mentions, topic trends).
3. Connect a webhook to Slack or email to receive the dataset after each run.
4. Filter programmatically using the Apify dataset API or a downstream tool like Make or Zapier.

Note: The default iTunes source returns up to 200 recent episodes. Use episodeSource: "rss" to extract the publisher's available archive and direct audio URLs in the Actor output.

How do I find a podcast's RSS feed URL?

Every podcast result from this scraper includes a feedUrl when Apple supplies one. In episodes mode, set episodeSource to rss and the Actor will resolve and parse that feed for you, returning the available archive, show notes, and enclosure URLs (audio file links).

RSS mode lets you:

• Access episodes beyond the 200-episode iTunes API limit
• Collect direct audio file URLs from <enclosure> tags
• Parse full episode descriptions and stable GUIDs
• Monitor new episodes while retaining the source feedUrl in every row

Related actors

🔹 Spotify Scraper — Scrape Spotify tracks, albums, and playlists 🔹 YouTube Scraper — Extract YouTube videos, channels, and comments 🔹 YouTube Transcript — Extract transcripts and captions from YouTube videos 🔹 iTunes Scraper — Search iTunes for music, apps, and media