OpenAlex Scholarly Works Scraper — Search & Filter
Pricing
from $3.00 / 1,000 scholarly work records
Search OpenAlex scholarly works by topic, date, type, citations, author, institution, source, and open-access status. Returns one compact, traceable work record per dataset item for literature reviews and bibliometric research. API-backed metadata only; it does not download full text.
You can access the OpenAlex Scholarly Works Scraper — Search & Filter programmatically from your own applications by using the Apify API. You can also choose the language preference from below. To use the Apify API, you’ll need an Apify account and your API token, found in API & Integrations in Apify Console.
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Get a free key at https://openalex.org/settings/api and paste it here, for example 'oa_live_xxx'. This is a secret field and is not included in output records. It is not a DOI or an Apify API token." }, "searchQuery": { "title": "Scholarly search query", "maxLength": 500, "type": "string", "description": "Free-text search across OpenAlex work titles, abstracts, and other indexed text. Enter a topic such as 'machine learning in healthcare'; it defaults to 'machine learning'. Set exactSearch=true for unstemmed matching. This is not a DOI lookup or a raw OpenAlex filter expression.", "default": "machine learning" }, "exactSearch": { "title": "Use exact search", "type": "boolean", "description": "Use this to search without OpenAlex stemming, for example exactSearch=true with searchQuery='surgery'. It defaults to false for broader discovery. This only changes the search parameter and does not make the title an exact phrase match unless the query itself uses quotes.", "default": false }, "advancedFilter": { "title": "Advanced OpenAlex filter", "maxLength": 1000, "type": "string", "description": "Optional OpenAlex filter expression appended to structured filters, for example 'type:article,has_abstract:true'. Use documented OpenAlex field names and comma-separated AND conditions. It defaults to empty. This is not a SQL WHERE clause and must not include api_key.", "default": "" }, "publicationYearFrom": { "title": "Publication year from", "minimum": 1, "maximum": 2100, "type": "integer", "description": "Return works published in or after this year, for example 2020. Leave empty to disable the lower bound. Combine with publicationYearTo for a closed range. This is a publication-year filter, not a citation date." }, "publicationYearTo": { "title": "Publication year to", "minimum": 1, "maximum": 2100, "type": "integer", "description": "Return works published in or before this year, for example 2024. Leave empty to disable the upper bound. It must be greater than or equal to publicationYearFrom. This is a publication-year filter, not a crawl cutoff." }, "workTypes": { "title": "Work types", "type": "array", "description": "Limit results to OpenAlex work types such as article, book, dataset, dissertation, preprint, report, or review. Enter a list such as ['article','review']; values are combined as OR within the type filter. This is not a journal or subject category.", "items": { "type": "string" }, "default": [] }, "openAccessOnly": { "title": "Open access only", "type": "boolean", "description": "Set true to keep only works OpenAlex marks as open access. It defaults to false. Open-access status is metadata and may not guarantee that a readable full-text file is available. This is not a license-rights determination.", "default": false }, "minCitations": { "title": "Minimum citation count", "minimum": 0, "maximum": 1000000000, "type": "integer", "description": "Keep works with at least this OpenAlex cited_by_count, for example 50. Leave empty to include all citation counts. Counts reflect OpenAlex metadata and can change over time. This is not a quality or peer-review score." }, "authorId": { "title": "OpenAlex author ID", "type": "string", "description": "Filter to works linked to one OpenAlex author, using 'A5023888391' or its full URL 'https://openalex.org/A5023888391'. Leave empty to disable. This is an OpenAlex ID, not an ORCID or author name search.", "default": "" }, "institutionId": { "title": "OpenAlex institution ID", "type": "string", "description": "Filter to works associated with one OpenAlex institution, using 'I27837315' or its full URL. Leave empty to disable. This is an OpenAlex institution ID, not a free-text university name.", "default": "" }, "sourceId": { "title": "OpenAlex source ID", "type": "string", "description": "Filter to works with a location associated with one OpenAlex source ID, such as 'S137773608'. Leave empty to disable. This is an OpenAlex source or journal ID, not an ISSN.", "default": "" }, "countryCode": { "title": "Institution country code", "type": "string", "description": "Filter to works with an author institution in a two-letter country code such as 'us' or 'gb'. Leave empty to disable. Values are sent lowercase to OpenAlex. This is not the work language or publisher country.", "default": "" }, "hasAbstract": { "title": "Require an indexed abstract", "type": "boolean", "description": "Set true to keep only works with an abstract indexed by OpenAlex; set false to require no abstract; leave empty to ignore abstract availability. It defaults to empty. This checks metadata availability, not full-text access." }, "sort": { "title": "Result sort", "enum": [ "relevance", "citedByCount", "-citedByCount", "publicationDate", "-publicationDate" ], "type": "string", "description": "Choose result ordering: relevance, citedByCount, or publicationDate; citations and publication date accept a leading '-' for descending order. It defaults to relevance for search and newest publication date for filter-only requests. This is not a custom sort expression.", "default": "relevance" }, "maxResults": { "title": "Maximum works", "minimum": 1, "maximum": 1000, "type": "integer", "description": "Maximum number of schema-valid work records to store, from 1 to 1,000. It defaults to 25. The actor uses cursor pagination and stops at this cap; it does not download the entire OpenAlex catalog. This is a record cap, not an API page size.", "default": 25 }, "perPage": { "title": "OpenAlex results per page", "minimum": 1, "maximum": 100, "type": "integer", "description": "Number of works requested from OpenAlex per API page, from 1 to 100. It defaults to 100 for efficient cursor pagination. Smaller values can reduce response size. This is not the maximum number of output records.", "default": 100 }, "responseFormat": { "title": "Response format", "enum": [ "concise", "detailed" ], "type": "string", "description": "Choose concise for smaller AI-agent records or detailed for abstracts and fuller author/institution context. It defaults to detailed. Both formats use the same stable field names and output schema. This does not change OpenAlex matching or citation counts.", "default": "detailed" }, "contactEmail": { "title": "Contact email for OpenAlex polite pool", "type": "string", "description": "Optional email address sent as the OpenAlex mailto parameter to identify your requests. Enter a normal address such as 'research@example.org'. It defaults to empty. This is not an API key or a notification destination used by Apify.", "default": "" } } }, "runsResponseSchema": { "type": "object", "properties": { "data": { "type": "object", "properties": { "id": { "type": "string" }, "actId": { "type": "string" }, "userId": { "type": "string" }, "startedAt": { "type": "string", "format": "date-time", "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z" }, "finishedAt": { "type": "string", "format": "date-time", "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z" }, "status": { "type": "string", "example": "READY" }, "meta": { "type": "object", "properties": { "origin": { "type": "string", "example": "API" }, "userAgent": { "type": "string" } } }, "stats": { "type": "object", "properties": { "inputBodyLen": { "type": "integer", "example": 2000 }, "rebootCount": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "restartCount": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "resurrectCount": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "computeUnits": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 } } }, "options": { "type": "object", "properties": { "build": { "type": "string", "example": "latest" }, "timeoutSecs": { "type": "integer", "example": 300 }, "memoryMbytes": { "type": "integer", "example": 1024 }, "diskMbytes": { "type": "integer", "example": 2048 } } }, "buildId": { "type": "string" }, "defaultKeyValueStoreId": { "type": "string" }, "defaultDatasetId": { "type": "string" }, "defaultRequestQueueId": { "type": "string" }, "buildNumber": { "type": "string", "example": "1.0.0" }, "containerUrl": { "type": "string" }, "usage": { "type": "object", "properties": { "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 1 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_SERPS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 } } }, "usageTotalUsd": { "type": "number", "example": 0.00005 }, "usageUsd": { "type": "object", "properties": { "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": { "type": "number", "example": 0.00005 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_SERPS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 } } } } } } } } }}OpenAPI is a standard for designing and describing RESTful APIs, allowing developers to define API structure, endpoints, and data formats in a machine-readable way. 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