Apple Podcasts Scraper — iTunes Search, Episodes & RSS | from $0.50/1K

Built for podcast-app developers, content marketers, and lead-gen teams that need structured Apple Podcasts data — show metadata, episode lists from RSS, genre filters, and country selection — via the official iTunes API. No auth, no proxy, zero COGS.

Scrape Apple Podcasts metadata via the official iTunes Search and Lookup APIs — no authentication, no proxies, zero COGS. Optionally retrieve episodes directly from each podcast's RSS feed.

What you can scrape

• Podcast metadata — title, author, genre, episode count, artwork, feed URL, iTunes URL, release date
• Episodes (optional) — title, GUID, publish date, duration, description, audio file URL from the podcast's RSS feed

Use cases

• Podcast directory and competitive research
• Lead generation (find podcasts by topic, contact via feed)
• Content monitoring — track episode counts, new releases
• App development — build podcast apps with rich metadata

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
searchTerms	string[]	["technology"]	Keywords to search Apple Podcasts
podcastIds	string[]	—	Numeric iTunes podcast IDs for direct lookup
country	string	"us"	Two-letter country code (us, gb, de, fr, jp…)
maxItems	integer	50	Max total podcasts to return (0 = no limit)
includeEpisodes	boolean	false	Also fetch episodes from RSS feed
maxEpisodesPerPodcast	integer	20	Max episodes per podcast (0 = all)
maxSearchResults	integer	50	Max search results per term (iTunes cap: 200)

Finding a podcast ID

Look at the Apple Podcasts URL: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/name/id**470624027** — the number after id is the podcast ID.

Output schema

Every row in the dataset has these fields:

Field	Type	Description
record_type	string	"podcast" or "episode"
podcast_id	string	Numeric iTunes podcast ID
title	string	Podcast or episode title
artist	string	Author / creator name
genre	string	Primary genre (Technology, True Crime, etc.)
genres	string[]	All genres
episode_count	integer|null	Total episodes (podcast rows only)
rating	float|null	Average user rating (where available)
rating_count	integer|null	Number of ratings
country	string	Input country code
feed_url	string|null	RSS feed URL
artwork_url	string|null	600×600 artwork image
release_date	string|null	ISO 8601 UTC — latest episode release
itunes_url	string|null	Apple Podcasts browse URL
episode_guid	string|null	Episode GUID (episode rows only)
pub_date_raw	string|null	Episode publish date (RFC 2822)
duration	string|null	Episode duration HH:MM:SS
episode_desc	string|null	Episode description (first 2000 chars)
enclosure_url	string|null	Episode audio file URL
parse_confidence	float	0.0–1.0 data quality score
warnings	string[]	List of any missing/unexpected fields
scraped_at	string	ISO 8601 UTC scrape timestamp

Pricing

Pay per result — each podcast row or episode row = 1 billable event: from $0.50 per 1,000 records.

Volume	Cost
100 podcasts	~$0.05
1,000 podcasts	~$0.50
1,000 podcasts + 20 episodes each = 21,000 rows	~$10.50

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FAQ

Do I need a proxy or API key? No. The iTunes Search and Lookup APIs are public Apple endpoints — no authentication or proxy required.

What output formats are available? JSON, CSV, and Excel — downloadable from the Apify dataset UI or via the REST API.

Can I schedule this to run automatically? Yes. Use Apify's scheduler to monitor new episodes or track podcast rankings on a daily schedule, with webhook delivery to your pipeline.

Why are rating and rating_count null for most podcasts? This is expected Apple API behavior — Apple does not expose ratings in the Search API for most podcasts. This is not a bug in the scraper.

Why this scraper beats the rest

• Official APIs only — iTunes Search + Lookup APIs are Apple's own public endpoints. Zero DOM fragility, no CAPTCHA risk, no proxy required.
• parse_confidence field — every record includes a quality score + warning list so you know exactly what data arrived intact. No competitor offers this.
• Episodes via RSS — optional one-click episode mode pulls title, duration, description, and audio URL directly from the podcast's own RSS feed.
• Batch-ready — search multiple terms + direct IDs in one run, deduped automatically.
• Multi-country — switch the country field to get local storefronts (gb, de, fr, jp, au…).

Technical notes

• iTunes Search API limit: 200 results per query.
• averageUserRating and userRatingCount are often null for podcasts in Apple's API — this is expected Apple behaviour, not a bug.
• RSS episode fetch adds one HTTP request per podcast. For large batches with includeEpisodes=true, runtime increases proportionally.
• Not affiliated with Apple Inc.

Example output

{
  "record_type": "podcast",
  "podcast_id": "470624027",
  "title": "TED Tech",
  "artist": "TED Tech",
  "genre": "Technology",
  "genres": ["Technology", "Podcasts"],
  "episode_count": 268,
  "rating": null,
  "rating_count": null,
  "country": "us",
  "feed_url": "https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/...",
  "artwork_url": "https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/.../600x600bb.jpg",
  "release_date": "2026-05-29T04:00:00Z",
  "itunes_url": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ted-tech/id470624027",
  "episode_guid": null,
  "pub_date_raw": null,
  "duration": null,
  "episode_desc": null,
  "enclosure_url": null,
  "parse_confidence": 1.0,
  "warnings": [],
  "scraped_at": "2026-05-31T12:00:00Z"
}

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Use with AI agents (MCP)

This actor is available as an MCP tool for Claude, GPT-4, and other AI agents that support the Model Context Protocol:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=bovi/podcast-scraper

Search Apple Podcasts by keyword or look up shows by iTunes ID — ideal for AI podcast discovery assistants, content monitoring bots, and lead-gen pipelines targeting podcasters by niche.

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vs. competitors

	This actor	Typical podcast scraper
Data source	Official iTunes API + RSS	HTML / unofficial APIs
Episode content (RSS)	✓ (includeEpisodes toggle)	Rarely
Country targeting	✓	Usually US-only
parse_confidence	✓	No
Proxy needed	No	Often required
Price	from $0.50/1K	$2–5/1K

Integrations

Built for podcast-app developers and content marketers sourcing show metadata and episode feeds by genre and country — the JSON/dataset output drops into the tools you already run, no glue code:

• n8n / Make / Zapier — trigger a run or pipe every new dataset item into 500+ apps (Google Sheets, Airtable, Slack, HubSpot, your database) with no code: n8n, Make, Zapier.
• Webhooks — fire your own endpoint the moment a run finishes, to push results straight into your pipeline (docs).
• MCP server — expose this actor as a tool to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client so an AI agent can pull this data mid-conversation (guide).
• API & SDKs — fetch the dataset as JSON, CSV, or Excel through the Apify REST API or the Python / JS SDKs.

See all Apify integrations.

Use it from your existing tools

Use with Claude Desktop / Cursor / Cline (MCP)

Load this actor as a tool in your AI assistant. Call it directly from your AI assistant via the Apify MCP server — no Store browsing needed. Paste this into your MCP client config (e.g. claude_desktop_config.json) and restart the client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify-podcast-scraper": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@apify/actors-mcp-server",
        "--tools",
        "bovi/podcast-scraper"
      ],
      "env": {
        "APIFY_TOKEN": "YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN"
      }
    }
  }
}

Replace YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN with your own Apify API token (free at apify.com → Settings → Integrations). Curated to a handful of tools so the agent selects reliably.

Works with Clay

Run this actor as an HTTP enrichment step inside a Clay table:

• Method: POST
• URL: https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/bovi~podcast-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token={{apify_token}}
• Body (JSON): map your Clay columns to the actor input (see the Input section above), e.g. {"searchTerms": "{{clay_column}}"}

The run finishes synchronously and returns the dataset rows straight into your Clay table. It runs on Apify's cloud under your own token and usage. Synchronous runs must complete within 300 seconds.