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 all episodes for a podcast with dates and durations

❓ 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 — Full episode lists with release dates and duration 🔹 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	OpenAI's Fog of War
releaseDate	2026-03-06
durationMinutes	66
podcastName	Hard Fork

💰 How much does it cost to scrape podcasts?

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. Set country and max results
5. 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)
country	string	iTunes Store country (default: US)
maxResults	number	Max results per query (default: 50, max: 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, releaseDate, durationMinutes, episodeUrl, 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 iTunes API returns up to 200 episodes per request. For podcasts with thousands of episodes, you'll get the most recent 200. 🔹 RSS feeds — Each podcast result includes the RSS feed URL, which you can use to get complete episode archives directly.

🔗 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',
    'podcastIds': ['1528594034'],
    'maxResults': 100,
})
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: Up to 200 per API call. For full archives, use the podcast's RSS feed URL (included in the output).

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 iTunes API returns a maximum of 200 episodes per request. For podcasts with more episodes, use the feedUrl from the podcast output to access the full RSS feed archive directly.

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 iTunes API returns up to 200 recent episodes. For podcasts with very large archives, use the feedUrl field in the output to access the full RSS feed directly.

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

Every podcast result from this scraper includes a feedUrl field — this is the podcast's RSS feed, which contains the complete episode archive, show notes, and enclosure URLs (audio file links). The iTunes Search API reliably returns this field for most podcasts.

You can use the RSS feed to:

• Access episodes beyond the 200-episode iTunes API limit
• Download audio files directly (the <enclosure> tag in each <item>)
• Parse full episode descriptions and chapter markers
• Monitor new episodes without re-querying the iTunes API

Other audio and media scrapers

🔹 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