iTunes Podcast Discovery — Find Podcasts by Topic

Discover podcasts by keyword using the free iTunes Search API. Get podcast names, publishers, RSS feed URLs, episode counts, genres, artwork URLs, and Apple Podcasts links. Search across the Apple Podcasts directory with regional filtering. No authentication required.

What It Does

This actor queries the iTunes Search API to find podcasts matching your keywords. It returns structured data including the podcast name, publisher/artist, RSS feed URL (for downstream use with transcript scrapers or episode extractors), total episode count, release date, artwork URL, Apple Podcasts link, and primary genre.

This is a discovery tool — it finds podcasts by topic. For extracting episode transcripts from a specific podcast's RSS feed, pair it with the Podcast Transcript Scraper actor.

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
searchQuery	string	Yes	—	Keywords to search for (e.g. "true crime", "tech news", "data science", "startup")
maxResults	integer	No	20	Maximum number of podcasts to return (1–200)
country	string	No	US	ISO country code for regional results (e.g. US, GB, CA, AU)

Output Fields

Field	Type	Description
trackName	string	Podcast name
artistName	string	Publisher/author name
feedUrl	string	RSS feed URL (use with transcript scrapers)
trackCount	integer	Total number of episodes
releaseDate	string	Most recent episode release date (ISO)
artworkUrl600	string	Cover art image URL (600×600px)
collectionViewUrl	string	Apple Podcasts link
primaryGenreName	string	Primary genre (e.g. "Technology", "Business")
trackId	integer	iTunes track ID

Use Cases

• Podcast directory building — Create curated podcast directories by topic
• Content research — Find podcasts in your industry for guest appearances or outreach
• Market analysis — Discover trending podcast genres and top publishers
• Lead generation — Find podcast hosts and publishers for outreach campaigns
• RSS feed discovery — Get RSS feed URLs for downstream processing (transcripts, episode lists)
• Competitive intelligence — Track podcast landscape in your niche across regions

How It Works

The actor sends a GET request to https://itunes.apple.com/search with your search query, media=podcast, and optional country code. Apple returns JSON directly — no browser, no authentication, no bot detection risk. Results are pushed to the dataset as structured records.

Example Usage

Input:

{
    "searchQuery": "artificial intelligence",
    "maxResults": 10,
    "country": "US"
}

Sample Output:

{
    "trackName": "The AI Podcast",
    "artistName": "NVIDIA",
    "feedUrl": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/theaipodcast",
    "trackCount": 145,
    "releaseDate": "2026-07-01T12:00:00Z",
    "artworkUrl600": "https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/...",
    "collectionViewUrl": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ai-podcast/id1234567890",
    "primaryGenreName": "Technology",
    "trackId": 1234567890
}

Pricing

Pay-per-event pricing. You only pay for what you use — a small start cost plus a per-result fee. See the Apify Store listing for current rates.

Tips

• Use specific genre keywords ("true crime", "entrepreneurship") rather than broad terms ("podcast") for better results
• Try different country codes to discover regional podcasts that may not appear in the US catalog
• The feedUrl field is the most valuable output — it lets you crawl episode lists and transcripts via RSS
• Combine with the Podcast Transcript Scraper actor for full episode transcript extraction