ThriftBooks Scraper

Scrape used book listings from ThriftBooks.com — the largest online used books marketplace with millions of titles starting from $3. Extract title, author, format, condition, price, original price, ISBN, rating, description, publisher, and more.

What can this actor do?

• Search books by keyword, title, or author name
• Browse by category — Fiction, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Romance, Children's, and 20+ more
• Get full book details for any specific ThriftBooks URL

Use cases

• Price monitoring for used books
• Used book inventory research
• Academic book sourcing and comparison
• Building book recommendation datasets
• Author bibliography research

Input

Field	Type	Description
mode	Select	searchBooks, browseCategory, or getBookDetails
query	String	Keyword/title/author to search (for searchBooks)
category	Select	Category to browse (for browseCategory)
bookUrl	String	Full ThriftBooks URL (for getBookDetails)
maxItems	Integer	Maximum books to return (1–500, default 50)

Output

Each record contains:

Field	Type	Description
title	String	Book title
author	String	Author name
format	String	Paperback, Hardcover, Mass Market, Audio CD, etc.
condition	String	New, Like New, Very Good, Good, Acceptable
price	Number	Current ThriftBooks price (USD)
originalPrice	Number	Original list price (USD)
rating	Number	Average star rating (0–5)
ratingCount	Integer	Number of customer ratings
isbn	String	ISBN-10 or ISBN-13
description	String	Book description/summary
category	String	Book category
publishYear	Integer	Year of publication
publisher	String	Publisher name
pageCount	Integer	Number of pages
imageUrl	String	Cover image URL
url	String	ThriftBooks book page URL
scrapedAt	String	ISO 8601 timestamp of when the record was scraped

Sample output

{
  "title": "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone",
  "author": "J.K. Rowling",
  "format": "Paperback",
  "condition": "Good",
  "price": 3.79,
  "originalPrice": 12.99,
  "rating": 4.82,
  "ratingCount": 9999,
  "isbn": "9780439708180",
  "description": "Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts...",
  "category": "Fantasy",
  "publishYear": 1999,
  "publisher": "Scholastic",
  "pageCount": 309,
  "imageUrl": "https://i.thriftbooks.com/api/imagehandler/l/ABC.jpeg",
  "url": "https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/harry-potter-and-the-sorcerers-stone_j-k-rowling/245835/",
  "scrapedAt": "2025-05-23T12:00:00+00:00"
}

Available categories

Fiction, Mystery & Thriller, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Romance, Children's Books, Teen & Young Adult, Self-Help, Biographies & Memoirs, History, Business & Investing, Cooking, Health & Wellness, Travel, Arts & Photography, Religion, Politics, Humor, Comics, Sports, Technology, Science, Education, Law, Large Print, Collectibles, ThriftBooks Deals.

Data source

All data is scraped from publicly accessible pages on ThriftBooks.com. No authentication or login is required.

FAQ

Does this actor require login? No. ThriftBooks product pages are publicly accessible without any account.

How many books can I scrape? Up to 500 books per run. Use the maxItems parameter to control the limit.

Does this actor support pagination? Yes. Category browse pages contain 100–200 book links per page. The actor fetches individual book detail pages for complete metadata.

What formats are available? Paperback, Hardcover, Mass Market Paperback, Audio CD, Audio Cassette, Spiral-bound, Board book, and more — depending on what ThriftBooks lists for each title.

What conditions are available? New, Like New, Very Good, Good, and Acceptable — with pricing varying by condition.