# Google Play Reviews Scraper (`lisbuenas/google-play-reviews-scraper`) Actor

- **URL**: https://apify.com/lisbuenas/google-play-reviews-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Felipe Lisboa](https://apify.com/lisbuenas) (community)
- **Stats:** 3 total users, 2 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per usage

This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have.

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

## 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

## Google Play Reviews Scraper

Scrape reviews from an app on the Google Play Store: rating, author, date, review text, thumbs-up count, app version and developer replies. Each review becomes one item in the Apify dataset.

### Features

- **Flexible input**: an app ID (`com.instagram.android`) or a Google Play URL.
- **Apify Unblocker**: uses the `UNBLOCKER` proxy group by default, with Chromium launched with `--ignore-certificate-errors` (required for the Unblocker to work).
- **Lazy-load pagination**: opens the "See all reviews" dialog and scrolls it, collecting each batch as Google loads it, until `maxReviews` is reached or no more reviews load.
- **Two data sources, merged**: Google's internal review RPC responses (exact timestamps, app version, avatar) and the rendered review cards.
- **Multi-selector resilience**: every field has several CSS selector strategies tried in order, each isolated in `try/catch`. Opening the dialog and scrolling also have fallbacks.
- **Incremental output**: reviews are saved as they load, so a failed or aborted run keeps what it collected. Progress is persisted across actor migrations.

### Input

| Field | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `appId` | string | **required** | `com.instagram.android` or `https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.instagram.android` |
| `maxReviews` | integer | `100` | Max reviews to collect. `0` = no limit. |
| `language` | string | `en` | Google Play language (`hl`) |
| `country` | string | `us` | Google Play country (`gl`) |
| `proxyConfiguration` | object | `{ "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": ["UNBLOCKER"] }` | Apify Proxy settings |

`language` and `country` override any `hl`/`gl` in an input URL. If you switch to a proxy group other than `UNBLOCKER`, the `--ignore-certificate-errors` flag is harmless and can stay.

```json
{
  "appId": "com.instagram.android",
  "maxReviews": 500,
  "language": "en",
  "country": "us"
}
```

### Output

```json
{
  "appId": "com.duolingo",
  "appName": "Duolingo: Language Lessons",
  "reviewId": "7d0465c3-ff61-4a92-8ba6-780b41e3fb5d",
  "author": "Rebekah Hicks",
  "authorAvatar": "https://play-lh.googleusercontent.com/a-/...",
  "rating": 3,
  "text": "I used to really love this app, but with each new update ...",
  "date": "2026-04-20T14:03:11.000Z",
  "dateText": null,
  "thumbsUp": 57,
  "developerReply": {
    "text": "Thanks for the feedback! ...",
    "date": "2026-04-21T09:00:00.000Z",
    "developer": null
  },
  "appVersion": "6.12.3",
  "url": "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.duolingo&hl=en&gl=us",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-15T17:16:52.802Z"
}
```

- `developerReply` is `null` when the developer hasn't replied.
- `date` is an ISO timestamp. Reviews in the first batch come from the rendered page, so their `date` has day precision, `dateText` holds the original text, and `authorAvatar` and `appVersion` are `null`. Later batches come from the RPC with exact timestamps.
- For non-English `language` values, `date` may be `null` for first-batch reviews; `dateText` always has the displayed date.
- An app that can't be found is saved as an item with `"#error": true`.

### How it works

1. Opens the app page and clicks "See all reviews" (several strategies, including a language-independent structural fallback).
2. Records every `batchexecute` response for the reviews RPC (`oCPfdb`) and parses its review arrays.
3. Each round, extracts the rendered review cards with the selector strategies in `DOM_STRATEGIES` (`src/main.js`), merges them with RPC data by review ID, and pushes new reviews.
4. Scrolls the dialog to trigger the next batch. It stops at `maxReviews`, or after several rounds with no new reviews.

To fix a field after a Google Play layout change, add a selector to its list in `DOM_STRATEGIES`.

### Run locally

```bash
npm install
npx playwright install chromium
mkdir -p storage/key_value_stores/default
echo '{"appId":"com.instagram.android","maxReviews":50,"proxyConfiguration":{"useApifyProxy":false}}' > storage/key_value_stores/default/INPUT.json
npm start
```

The UNBLOCKER group needs an Apify token (`APIFY_TOKEN`) with Unblocker access; the example above disables the proxy for a quick local test.

### Tech

Node.js 20, [Crawlee](https://crawlee.dev) `PlaywrightCrawler` (headless Chromium) and the [Apify SDK](https://docs.apify.com/sdk/js).

# Actor input Schema

## `appId` (type: `string`):

Google Play app ID (e.g. com.instagram.android) or app URL (e.g. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.instagram.android).

## `maxReviews` (type: `integer`):

Stop after this many reviews for each app. 0 means no limit (can take a long time for popular apps).

## `language` (type: `string`):

Google Play interface language (hl parameter), e.g. en, pt, es. Reviews are shown in this language where available.

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

Google Play country (gl parameter), e.g. us, br, gb.

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

Apify Proxy settings. Defaults to the Apify Unblocker (UNBLOCKER group).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "appId": "com.instagram.android",
  "maxReviews": 100,
  "language": "en",
  "country": "us",
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "UNBLOCKER"
    ]
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

No description

# 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 = {
    "appId": "com.instagram.android",
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true,
        "apifyProxyGroups": [
            "UNBLOCKER"
        ]
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("lisbuenas/google-play-reviews-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 = {
    "appId": "com.instagram.android",
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": True,
        "apifyProxyGroups": ["UNBLOCKER"],
    },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("lisbuenas/google-play-reviews-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 '{
  "appId": "com.instagram.android",
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "UNBLOCKER"
    ]
  }
}' |
apify call lisbuenas/google-play-reviews-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,lisbuenas/google-play-reviews-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/JNEqK5vjfWp6bHZZI/builds/UQNxl1Erdf5bhjlKt/openapi.json