# Apple App Store Scraper (search, app details, reviews, monitor) (`datahamster/apple-app-store-apps`) Actor

App Store scraper for iOS apps: search by keyword or pass app IDs and get one row per app with price, rating, rating count, version, size, genres, release dates and developer, plus App Store reviews with rating, version and date. Monitor mode alerts on price, version and rating changes.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/datahamster/apple-app-store-apps.md
- **Developed by:** [Viktor Dubnytskiy](https://apify.com/datahamster) (community)
- **Categories:** Other
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $1.00 / 1,000 result items

This Actor is paid per event and usage. You are charged both the fixed price for specific events and for Apify platform usage.

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

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
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.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## 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.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Apple App Store Scraper (search, app details, reviews, monitor)

Search the Apple App Store by keyword, or hand over app IDs and URLs, and get one flat row per app — price, rating, rating count, version, size, release dates, genres, minimum iOS, content rating, developer and description — plus the app's public customer reviews as their own rows. Search, details, reviews and change monitoring in one actor, one run, one dataset.

### What you get

**App rows** (`kind: "app"`): `id`, `url`, `appId`, `bundleId`, `name`, `developer`, `price`, `currency`, `isFree`, `averageRating`, `ratingCount`, `version`, `releasedAt`, `updatedAt`, `sizeBytes`, `genres`, `minOs`, `contentRating`, `description`, `iconUrl`, `query`, `rank`, `source`, `scrapedAt`.

**Review rows** (`kind: "review"`): `id`, `url`, `appId`, `appName`, `reviewId`, `title`, `text`, `rating`, `version`, `reviewedAt`, `scrapedAt`.

Reviews carry **no reviewer identity** — no nickname, no profile link, no reviewer ID. Only the review text, its star rating, the app version it was written against and the date.

### Example output

App row (`appIds: ["324684580"]`, storefront `us`):

| Field | Example value |
|---|---|
| `url` | `https://apps.apple.com/us/app/spotify-music-and-podcasts/id324684580` |
| `name` / `bundleId` | `Spotify: Music and Podcasts` / `com.spotify.client` |
| `developer` | `Spotify` |
| `price` / `currency` / `isFree` | `0.0` / `USD` / `true` |
| `averageRating` / `ratingCount` | `4.77395` / `42037741` |
| `version` / `updatedAt` | `9.1.80` / `2026-09-07T12:04:45Z` |
| `releasedAt` / `sizeBytes` | `2011-07-14T11:22:37Z` / `300476416` |
| `genres` / `minOs` / `contentRating` | `["Music", "Entertainment"]` / `16.1` / `12+` |

Review row from the same run:

| Field | Example value |
|---|---|
| `reviewId` / `rating` | `14537353039` / `4` |
| `title` | `Love it but there’s one thing..` |
| `text` | `Maybe I’m just missing something, but I’d like to see and option to select numerous songs from a playlist or Liked Songs list to remove at one time instead of having to individually remove. Otherwise, Spotify is the best!` |
| `version` / `reviewedAt` | `9.1.80` / `2026-09-11T07:57:53-07:00` |

Top of `searchTerms: ["meditation"]`:

| `rank` | `name` | `developer` | `averageRating` | `ratingCount` |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Insight Timer: Meditate, Sleep | Insight Network Inc | 4.89512 | 446184 |
| 2 | Headspace: Sleep & Meditation | Headspace Inc. | 4.84227 | 973857 |
| 3 | Calm | Calm.com | 4.7726 | 1980426 |

### Use cases

- **Keyword / ASO research** — pull the whole first page of a search term with ratings, rating counts and update dates, and see who actually owns the keyword.
- **Competitor tracking** — watch a list of app IDs and get an alert the moment a competitor ships a version, changes price or slips in rating.
- **Review mining** — collect up to 500 recent or most-helpful reviews per app per storefront and feed them into your own tagging or sentiment pipeline.
- **Market sizing** — rating counts, price and release dates for every app in a category keyword, in one CSV.

### How it works

1. **Search** — each keyword goes to Apple's public iTunes Search API (`entity=software`) for the storefront you chose, so the ranking and the fields are Apple's own, not a guess parsed off a page.
2. **Details** — each app ID goes to the public iTunes Lookup API. If a storefront has no record for an ID, the actor falls back to the server-rendered app page and reads its `SoftwareApplication` metadata.
3. **Reviews** — Apple's public customer-reviews feed, 50 per page, up to 10 pages (500 reviews) per app and storefront, sorted by most recent or most helpful.
4. **Monitor mode** — re-runs the same input and returns only apps and reviews that are new or changed since the previous run (apps compare version, price, rating and rating count; reviews compare rating and text), with optional webhook and Telegram alerts.

### Input

| Field | Meaning | Default |
|---|---|---|
| `searchTerms` | Keywords to search the store for | `["meditation"]` |
| `appIds` | App IDs or App Store URLs to scrape directly | empty |
| `country` | Storefront code (`us`, `gb`, `de`, `jp`, …) | `us` |
| `includeReviews` | Also return review rows | `true` |
| `maxReviewsPerApp` | Reviews per app (0-500) | `100` |
| `reviewSort` | `mostrecent` or `mosthelpful` | `mostrecent` |
| `maxAppsPerSearch` | Apps per search term (1-200) | `50` |
| `maxItems` | Stop after this many rows in total | `100` |
| `mode` | `scrape` or `monitor` (only new/changed since last run) | `scrape` |
| `monitorKey`, `webhookUrl`, `telegramBotToken`, `telegramChatId` | Monitor-mode state key and alert targets | empty |

### Pricing

| Event | Price |
|---|---|
| result | $0.001 per row ($1 per 1,000 apps or reviews) |
| monitor-check | $0.005 per monitor run |
| change | $0.001 per new/changed row |

You are charged only for rows actually pushed. A run that finds nothing pushes nothing and costs no result events. The actor needs no proxy, so there is no proxy surcharge either.

### Why this actor

- Search, app details, reviews and monitoring in one actor — no chaining two or three scrapers to get a keyword list with its reviews.
- Reads Apple's official public JSON endpoints, so fields are typed and complete instead of regexed off a page that changes every quarter.
- Any storefront: `country` switches price, currency, ratings and reviews together.
- No charge for empty runs, and the `RUN_SUMMARY` record explains an empty run instead of leaving you guessing.

### Limits

- Reviews come from Apple's public review feed, which serves at most **500 reviews per app per storefront** (10 pages × 50) and only those left in that storefront. Run several storefronts to widen the sample. The app page itself renders its reviews in the browser and carries none in its HTML, so there is no deeper source to fall back on.
- **Pace**: Apple rate-limits these endpoints at about 20 calls per minute, so the actor sends one request every 3 seconds. Budget roughly 15 minutes for 100 apps with reviews (about 3 requests per app), or well under a minute for a plain keyword search with `includeReviews: false`.
- Ratings are storefront-specific: `averageRating` and `ratingCount` for `us` are not the worldwide totals.
- `description` is truncated to 1,000 characters.
- No in-app purchase list, no download estimates, no chart positions — Apple publishes none of them.
- No reviewer names, reviewer profiles or any other person-level data, by design.

### FAQ

**Do I need a proxy?** No. The endpoints answer without one, and the actor runs on the `none` tier, so there is no proxy cost on top.

**Can I get more than 500 reviews for an app?** Not from Apple's public feed for one storefront. Running the same app across several storefronts (`us`, `gb`, `ca`, `au`, …) is the supported way to collect more.

**Why is `averageRating` different from what I see in the App Store app?** The store app shows your own storefront; set `country` to the same storefront and the numbers match.

**Does it return who wrote a review?** No. Nicknames, reviewer profile links and reviewer IDs are dropped before anything is written to the dataset.

### Changelog

- 0.1: initial release — keyword search, app details by ID or URL, customer reviews (recent / most helpful), app-page fallback for IDs missing from a storefront, monitor mode.

***

If this actor saved you time, a short review on its Store page genuinely helps other people find it. Found a bug or need a field that is missing? Open a ticket on the **Issues** tab.

# Actor input Schema

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Stop after this many results (you are charged only for pushed items)

## `mode` (type: `string`):

scrape = full results; monitor = only new/changed items since the previous run of this task

## `monitorKey` (type: `string`):

Optional state key when not running as a saved task

## `webhookUrl` (type: `string`):

POST a change summary here in monitor mode

## `telegramBotToken` (type: `string`):

Optional: bot token for monitor-mode change summaries

## `telegramChatId` (type: `string`):

Optional: chat id that receives monitor-mode summaries

## `searchTerms` (type: `array`):

Keywords to search the App Store for, one per line, e.g. "meditation", "budget tracker", "habit tracker". Each term returns up to 200 apps ranked as the store ranks them.

## `appIds` (type: `array`):

Apps to scrape directly: numeric IDs ("324684580") or App Store URLs ("https://apps.apple.com/us/app/spotify-music-and-podcasts/id324684580"). Can be combined with Search terms or used alone.

## `country` (type: `string`):

Two-letter storefront code, e.g. "us", "gb", "de", "jp". Price, currency, availability, ratings and reviews are all storefront-specific.

## `includeReviews` (type: `boolean`):

true = also return customer reviews for every app in the run (one extra row per review). false = app rows only. Example: true.

## `maxReviewsPerApp` (type: `integer`):

How many reviews to return per app, e.g. 100. Apple's public review feed serves 50 per page and 10 pages per storefront, so 500 is the hard ceiling; apps with fewer reviews return fewer rows.

## `reviewSort` (type: `string`):

Order Apple serves the reviews in. "mostrecent" is what you want for monitoring; "mosthelpful" surfaces the long-form complaints and praise.

## `maxAppsPerSearch` (type: `integer`):

How many apps to return per search term, e.g. 50. Apple caps a single search at 200 results.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "maxItems": 100,
  "mode": "scrape",
  "searchTerms": [
    "meditation"
  ],
  "appIds": [
    "324684580"
  ],
  "country": "us",
  "includeReviews": true,
  "maxReviewsPerApp": 100,
  "reviewSort": "mostrecent",
  "maxAppsPerSearch": 50
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

All pushed rows (dataset, JSON)

## `resultsTable` (type: `string`):

Dataset in the Console viewer

## `runSummary` (type: `string`):

RUN\_SUMMARY record

# 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 = {
    "searchTerms": [
        "meditation"
    ],
    "appIds": [
        "324684580"
    ],
    "country": "us"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("datahamster/apple-app-store-apps").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 = {
    "searchTerms": ["meditation"],
    "appIds": ["324684580"],
    "country": "us",
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("datahamster/apple-app-store-apps").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 '{
  "searchTerms": [
    "meditation"
  ],
  "appIds": [
    "324684580"
  ],
  "country": "us"
}' |
apify call datahamster/apple-app-store-apps --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,datahamster/apple-app-store-apps"
        }
    }
}
```

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/HeYJA4x2rCuNsx6pO/builds/CmZIVeYbvrJnWZlad/openapi.json