iTunes Podcast Scraper - Apple Podcasts Data Extractor

Search and extract podcast data from Apple Podcasts via iTunes Search API. Get show metadata, episodes, ratings, genres, and RSS feed URLs. No authentication required.

Use cases

• Research a podcast niche's competition and episode counts
• Find shows for guest pitching or ad placement
• Collect RSS feed URLs for downstream episode processing
• Track genre trends across countries
• Build a podcast discovery or directory app

Input

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
mode	string	Yes	"search"	Scraping mode Allowed: search, lookup, topByGenre.
searchQuery	string	No	"technology"	Search term for podcasts (required for 'search' mode). Example: "technology", "true crime", "business news"
podcastIds	array	No	—	iTunes podcast IDs for lookup mode
genreId	integer	No	—	iTunes genre ID for topByGenre mode (e.g., 1301=Arts, 1303=Comedy, 1304=Education, 1305=Kids, 1307=Health, 1309=TV, 1310=Music, 1311=News, 1314=Religion, 1315=Science, 1316=Sports, 1318=Technology, 1321=Business, 1323=Government, 1324=Society, 1325=History, 1326=True Crime)
country	string	No	"US"	ISO country code (e.g., US, JP, GB, DE)
maxResults	integer	No	50	Maximum number of results
includeEpisodes	boolean	No	false	Fetch episode list from RSS feed (slower but more data)

Example input

{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "technology",
  "country": "US",
  "maxResults": 50,
  "includeEpisodes": false
}

Output

The exact fields depend on the mode you run. This is real output from an actual run of this Actor:

{
  "collectionId": 470624027,
  "trackName": "TED Tech",
  "artistName": "TED Tech",
  "collectionViewUrl": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ted-tech/id470624027?uo=4",
  "feedUrl": "https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/67585c62102e6d4448d44969",
  "artworkUrl600": "https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/d9/32/32/d932328a-a21d-999c-690c-f05d680778b2/mza_13752174967843677920.jpg/600x600bb.jpg",
  "primaryGenreName": "Technology",
  "genres": [
    "Technology",
    "Podcasts"
  ],
  "trackCount": 291,
  "country": "USA",
  "releaseDate": "2026-09-04T04:00:00Z",
  "contentAdvisoryRating": "Clean"
}

Field	Type
collectionId	number
trackName	string
artistName	string
collectionViewUrl	string
feedUrl	string
artworkUrl600	string
primaryGenreName	string
genres	array
trackCount	number
country	string
releaseDate	string
contentAdvisoryRating	string

The dataset also ships a preset table view (Overview), so the key columns are readable straight away in Apify Console, and exportable to JSON, CSV, Excel, or XML.

How to run it

In Apify Console — open the Actor, fill in the input form, click Start, then download the results from the Dataset tab.

With the JavaScript client

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('cloud9_ai/itunes-podcast-scraper').call({
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "technology",
  "country": "US",
  "maxResults": 50,
  "includeEpisodes": false
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

With the Python client

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN')

run = client.actor('cloud9_ai/itunes-podcast-scraper').call(run_input={
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "technology",
  "country": "US",
  "maxResults": 50,
  "includeEpisodes": False
})

for item in client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).iterate_items():
    print(item)

With the API — POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/cloud9_ai~itunes-podcast-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN with the input JSON as the body.

Notes and limits

• No API key, account, or login is needed — just the input above.
• maxResults caps how much a single run collects, which is also what caps the run's cost.
• Requests are paced and failed requests are retried automatically, so runs stay inside the source's rate limits.
• Only publicly available data is collected. How you use the output is your responsibility, including the source's terms of use and any applicable data-protection law.

Support

Found a bug, or need a field that isn't in the output? Open an issue on the Issues tab of this Actor in Apify Console. Issues there are read and answered.

License

Apache-2.0