CKAN Open Data Exporter: Government Datasets & Files

Search and download open data from any CKAN portal (catalog.data.gov, data.gov.uk, the EU Open Data Portal, and thousands of national, state, and city catalogs worldwide) to Excel, CSV, JSON, or XML. No API key, no coding.

Two ways to use it

1. Find datasets by keyword. Enter a portal and a search term (e.g. "air quality") and get a clean list of matching datasets, each with its title, organization, description, tags, and direct file-download links.

2. Export data rows. Have a specific resource ID? Get its actual data rows exported and paginated automatically, with duplicate rows filtered out.

What data you get

Search mode — one item per dataset:

Field	Description
title	Human-readable dataset title
name	The dataset's URL slug on the portal
organization	Publishing organization (e.g. "Environment Agency")
notes	Dataset description (first 500 characters)
tags	List of the dataset's tags
resources	List of downloadable files: name, format (CSV, XLSX, GeoJSON, ...), and direct url
metadata_modified	When the dataset metadata was last updated
datasetUrl	Link to the dataset's page on the portal

Resource mode — one item per data record, with every column the portal's DataStore holds for that resource.

Example output (search mode)

{
  "title": "Air Quality Monitoring Sites",
  "name": "air-quality-monitoring-sites",
  "organization": "Environment Agency",
  "notes": "Locations and details of air quality monitoring sites...",
  "tags": ["air-quality", "environment"],
  "resources": [
    { "name": "Sites 2024", "format": "CSV", "url": "https://.../sites-2024.csv" }
  ],
  "metadata_modified": "2025-11-02T09:14:31.000Z",
  "datasetUrl": "https://data.gov.uk/dataset/air-quality-monitoring-sites"
}

How to run it in the Apify Console

1. Open the Actor and click Try for free / Start.
2. Enter the portal host in CKAN portal domain (e.g. data.gov.uk or catalog.data.gov).
3. Either type a Dataset search query (to list datasets), or paste a Resource ID (to export that resource's rows). Provide one or the other.
4. Optionally set Max items to cap how many datasets or rows you collect.
5. Click Start. When the run finishes, open the Storage tab and export the results as Excel, CSV, JSON, or XML — or fetch them via the Apify API for automated pipelines.

Example input

{
  "ckanDomain": "data.gov.uk",
  "query": "air quality",
  "maxItems": 200
}

Input settings

Field	Required	Description
CKAN portal domain (ckanDomain)	Yes	Portal host, e.g. data.gov.uk, catalog.data.gov, data.europa.eu
Dataset search query (query)	One of the two	Keyword search; returns dataset metadata and file links
Resource ID (resourceId)	One of the two	DataStore resource ID; returns the actual data rows
Max items (maxItems)	No (default 1000)	Stop after this many datasets (query mode) or rows (resource mode)

Great for

• Discovering and harvesting public datasets at scale
• Researchers, analysts, and journalists pulling government data
• Building data catalogs and pipelines without writing API code
• Feeding open data into dashboards, spreadsheets, and AI workflows

Limitations (good to know)

• Row export needs the DataStore. Exporting rows by Resource ID works only when the portal has its DataStore enabled for that resource. If it isn't, use search mode to get the dataset's metadata plus its direct file-download links instead.
• Dataset descriptions in search mode are truncated to 500 characters.
• Results depend entirely on the portal you target: coverage, freshness, and search quality vary between portals.

Data licensing and attribution

Datasets on CKAN portals are published under each dataset's own license (Open Government Licence, CC-BY, public domain, and others). Check the license shown on the dataset's portal page (the datasetUrl in the results) and attribute the publisher as that license requires.

FAQ

Where do I find a Resource ID? Open the dataset on its CKAN portal and click a specific data file (resource). The resource ID is the UUID in the resource page's URL, and portals with the DataStore enabled show it in the resource's "Data API" panel.

Which portals does this work with? Any portal running CKAN — that includes catalog.data.gov (US), data.gov.uk (UK), data.europa.eu (EU), and thousands of national, regional, and city open-data sites.

Can I export the whole result set? Yes. Pagination is automatic; just raise Max items to cover the full dataset or result list.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

This Actor works as a tool for AI agents via the Apify MCP server. Add it to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible assistant with this server URL:

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=doggo/ckan-opendata-exporter

Then just ask something like "Search data.gov for air quality datasets and export their download links" — the agent fills in the input, runs the Actor, and reads the results from the dataset. Standard pay-per-result pricing applies to the calling account.