# Ximalaya Scraper - Chinese Podcast & Audiobook Albums (`bovi/ximalaya-scraper`) Actor

Scrape audiobook, podcast and radio albums from Ximalaya (喜马拉雅), China's largest audio platform. Search by keyword or browse 28 categories. Get title, anchor, plays, episodes, subscribers, rating, price, tags and dates. No login needed.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/bovi/ximalaya-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Vitalii Bondarev](https://apify.com/bovi) (community)
- **Categories:** Social media, Marketing, Other
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $1.20 / 1,000 ximalaya scraper - chinese podcast & audiobook albums

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Ximalaya Scraper - Chinese Podcast & Audiobook Albums

Scrape audiobook, podcast, radio-drama and course albums from **Ximalaya (喜马拉雅, ximalaya.com)**, China's largest online audio platform. Search albums by keyword (Chinese or English) or browse any of the 28 top-level catalog categories, and get clean, structured album records. No login, no cookies, no browser - the actor reads the same public JSON endpoints that the ximalaya.com website uses.

### What it collects

For every album:

- **Identity**: album ID, album URL, title, tagline (custom title), short intro, cover image URL
- **Anchor (creator)**: anchor ID, nickname and profile URL
- **Category**: category ID and category name
- **Popularity**: total play count, number of episodes (tracks), subscriber count, comment count and user rating (0-10, search mode)
- **Monetization**: paid / free flag, VIP type, price model (per episode or whole album), price, discounted price and total price in CNY
- **Status & dates**: ongoing / finished, creation date, last update date, tags

Typical uses: market research of the Chinese audio and audiobook market, finding top creators in a niche, tracking pricing of paid audiobooks, content-gap analysis, and building lead lists of audio creators.

### Input

| Field | Type | Description | Default |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `searchQuery` | string | Keyword to search albums for, e.g. `三国` or `history`. Leave empty to browse a category. | - (prefill `三国`) |
| `category` | select | Category to browse when no keyword is given (audiobooks, history, kids, business, IT, music, ...). Up to 3,000 albums per category. | `youshengshu` (Audiobooks) |
| `sort` | select | `popular` (most played), `recent` (recently updated) or `relevance` (site default). | `popular` |
| `includeDetails` | boolean | Fetch each album's info endpoint to add price, subscribers, tags, intro and dates. One extra request per album. | `true` |
| `maxResults` | integer | Maximum number of albums to return. | `50` |
| `proxyConfiguration` | object | Optional proxy. The endpoints usually work without a proxy. | no proxy |

Example input:

```json
{
  "searchQuery": "三国",
  "sort": "popular",
  "includeDetails": true,
  "maxResults": 50
}
```

### Example output

```json
{
  "album_id": 76176854,
  "url": "https://www.ximalaya.com/album/76176854",
  "title": "大乾憨婿丨历史爆笑爽文丨多人有声剧丨紫襟监制",
  "subtitle": "再让我当驸马，我就要造反了！",
  "intro": "内容简介 历史系单身狗秦墨穿越大乾，成了秦国公家的憨子世子。...",
  "cover_image_url": "https://imagev2.xmcdn.com/storages/1310-audiofreehighqps/44/96/GKwRIMAIcrfFAA-uYgIweUvK.jpeg",
  "anchor_id": 1266964,
  "anchor_name": "有声的紫襟",
  "anchor_url": "https://www.ximalaya.com/zhubo/1266964",
  "category_id": 3,
  "category_title": "有声书",
  "play_count": 1223852059,
  "track_count": 2421,
  "subscribe_count": 479047,
  "comment_count": 16525,
  "score": 9.0,
  "is_paid": true,
  "serial_status": "finished",
  "vip_type": 2,
  "price_type": 1,
  "price": 0.15,
  "discounted_price": 0.15,
  "total_price": 353.25,
  "currency": "CNY",
  "tags": [],
  "created_at": "2023-05-24T03:29:33+00:00",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-24T07:07:00+00:00",
  "source": "ximalaya.com",
  "scraped_at": "2026-10-28T06:19:35.370080+00:00"
}
```

Notes: `comment_count` and `score` are only returned by the site's search endpoint, so they are empty in category mode. Price fields are filled for paid albums only. In category mode with `includeDetails` on, `created_at` / `updated_at` are plain dates (`YYYY-MM-DD`).

### Pricing

This actor uses **pay per result**: you pay only for the album records written to the dataset, at the price shown on the actor's Store page (per 1,000 results). Platform usage is minimal because the actor makes plain HTTP requests without a browser. Use `maxResults` to cap the cost of a run.

### Limits

- Category browsing is limited by the site to 3,000 albums per category; use several keywords to go deeper.
- Data is public catalog data only; no paid audio, no user accounts.

# Actor input Schema

## `searchQuery` (type: `string`):

Keyword to search albums for (Chinese or English), e.g. "三国" or "history". Leave empty to browse a category instead.

## `category` (type: `string`):

Catalog category to browse when no search keyword is given. The site exposes up to 3,000 albums per category.

## `sort` (type: `string`):

popular = most played first, recent = recently updated first, relevance = site default ranking.

## `includeDetails` (type: `boolean`):

Open each album's info endpoint to add price, subscriber count, tags, short intro and create/update dates. One extra request per album.

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of albums to return.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Optional proxy settings. The public endpoints usually work without a proxy; enable Apify Proxy if you get blocked.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "searchQuery": "三国",
  "category": "youshengshu",
  "sort": "popular",
  "includeDetails": true,
  "maxResults": 50,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ]
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

Dataset with the scraped records.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "searchQuery": "三国",
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true,
        "apifyProxyGroups": [
            "RESIDENTIAL"
        ]
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("bovi/ximalaya-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "searchQuery": "三国",
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": True,
        "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
    },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("bovi/ximalaya-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "searchQuery": "三国",
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ]
  }
}' |
apify call bovi/ximalaya-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,bovi/ximalaya-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/APphnZsd1PsgC69ze/builds/h2dCoZo6ZteIavBJK/openapi.json