Google Sheets Import & Export: Dataset to Sheet, Sheet to JSON

Google Sheets Import & Export moves data between Apify datasets and Google Sheets in both directions. Export any scraper's results to a Google Sheet (append new rows or replace everything, with header merging and deduplication), or import a Google Sheet tab or range into a dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel. There's no OAuth pop-up and no Google login: you share your sheet with our service account email once, and it just works on schedules and integrations.

Try it free: Apify's free plan ($5/month credit) covers hundreds of thousands of rows a month.

When to use: an AI agent or pipeline needs to put rows into a Google Sheet, or read a sheet as JSON. No OAuth. Input: a sheet URL plus a dataset ID or JSON rows, e.g. {"spreadsheet":"https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/<ID>/edit","rawData":[{"name":"A"}]}. Output: rows written to the sheet (summary in OUTPUT), or one JSON row per sheet row when operation is "read". $0.01 per 1,000 rows.

What can Google Sheets Import & Export do?

• 📤 Export a dataset to Google Sheets. Send the output of any actor run (Google Maps, Amazon, jobs, sitemaps…) to a sheet. Nested fields are flattened (address.city) and arrays are joined, stored as JSON or expanded.
• ➕ Append or replace. Append adds rows under your existing data and adds any new columns to the header. Replace overwrites the tab, and the old rows are cleared only after the new data is written, so a failed run never leaves you with an empty sheet.
• 🧹 Deduplicate. Skip rows whose url, id or any other columns already exist in the sheet. That makes daily scheduled exports safe to re-run, and skipped rows are free.
• 📥 Import a sheet into a dataset. Read a whole tab or an A1 range (A1:F500, B:D) with formatted or raw values, a header row or column letters, and optional dedup. Use it to feed URLs, keywords or product IDs into other actors.
• 🔐 Sheet lock. A spreadsheet shared with our service account can only be used by your Apify account. On first use the actor tags the sheet with your account ID (hidden metadata only our Google project can see), so nobody else can read or write it through this actor, even with the URL.
• 🛡️ Reliable by design. Automatic retries with backoff on Google rate limits (429) and 5xx errors, grid auto-resize, 10M-cell and 50k-characters-per-cell checks, and clear error messages that tell you exactly what to fix.

How to export an Apify dataset to Google Sheets (step by step)

1. Open your Google Sheet and click Share. Paste sheets-tool@apify-tools-512508.iam.gserviceaccount.com, choose Editor, untick Notify people, and click Share.
2. Copy the sheet's URL from the address bar.
3. In this actor, choose Operation: Write, paste the URL, and paste the Dataset ID (open any run → Storage → Dataset ID).
4. Pick Append or Replace, and optionally add Deduplicate by columns such as url.
5. Click Start. The rows appear in your sheet within seconds, and the run's OUTPUT tells you how many rows were written and how many duplicates were skipped.

To import a sheet: do step 1 (Editor is recommended, Viewer also works for reading), choose Operation: Read, paste the URL, and optionally set a tab and a range. Then download the dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel, or use it via the API.

Prefer your own Google credentials? Create a service account in your Google Cloud project, enable the Sheets and Drive APIs, and paste its JSON key into Your own service account key (a secret, encrypted input). Then share the sheet with your service account's email instead.

How much does it cost?

This actor uses pay-per-event pricing: $0.01 per 1,000 rows read or written, plus $0.00005 per run start. Duplicates that are skipped and failed runs cost nothing for rows. There are no monthly fees.

Rows per run	Price
1,000	$0.01
100,000	$1.00
1,000,000	$10.00

A daily export of 2,000 new rows costs about $0.60 a month. You can set a maximum cost per run, and the actor stops cleanly when it reaches it.

Input example

Export a dataset, appending only rows with new URLs:

{
  "operation": "write",
  "spreadsheet": "https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AbC.../edit#gid=0",
  "sheetName": "Leads",
  "datasetId": "WkzbQMuFYuamGv3YF",
  "writeMode": "append",
  "deduplicateBy": ["url"]
}

Import a range:

{
  "operation": "read",
  "spreadsheet": "https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AbC.../edit",
  "sheetName": "Keywords",
  "range": "A1:C500"
}

Output example

Read operation, one dataset item per row (keys come from your header row):

{ "sku": "A-001", "name": "Blue mug", "price": "12.5", "inStock": "TRUE" }

Every run also stores a summary in the key-value store record OUTPUT:

{
  "operation": "write",
  "spreadsheetUrl": "https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AbC.../edit",
  "sheetName": "Leads",
  "writeMode": "append",
  "inputRows": 250,
  "rowsWritten": 212,
  "duplicatesSkipped": 38,
  "columns": ["title", "url", "price", "address.city"]
}

Use cases

• Live lead lists: run a Google Maps or contact scraper daily and append only new businesses to your team's sheet.
• Price and stock tracking: append each day's prices to a log tab, or replace a "current prices" tab.
• Inputs from a sheet: keep keywords, URLs or ASINs in a sheet that non-technical teammates edit, and read them at the start of a workflow.
• Reporting: keep Looker Studio dashboards and pivot tables fed from scraped data.
• Backups: copy a sheet into a dataset on a schedule (versioned JSON/CSV exports).

Use with AI agents (MCP, ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, n8n)

AI agents can find and run this Actor through the Apify MCP server. Add it to Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code or any MCP client:

{"mcpServers":{"apify":{"url":"https://mcp.apify.com?tools=swillz/google-sheets-import-export"}}}

Or run it locally: npx -y @apify/actors-mcp-server --tools swillz/google-sheets-import-export with APIFY_TOKEN set. In n8n or Make, use the Apify node with Actor swillz/google-sheets-import-export.

Example prompts:

• "Run the Workday scraper for NVIDIA and put the jobs in my Google Sheet"
• "Read my leads sheet and enrich each domain"
• "Append these 50 rows to the "Leads" tab and skip duplicate emails"

Minimal input:

{"spreadsheet": "https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/<ID>/edit", "datasetId": "<datasetId from the previous run>"}

Keep it fast: operation defaults to "write". The sheet must be shared with sheets-tool@apify-tools-512508.iam.gserviceaccount.com first: if you get a permission error, ask the user to share the sheet with that email, then run again.

Cap the cost: pass maxTotalChargeUsd ("Maximum cost per run") when you call the Actor. The run stops cleanly at the cap, keeps the results so far, and says why in the status message and the OUTPUT record.

Integrations & API

• After another actor finishes: in that actor's Integrations tab, add Run an actor → this actor, with input {"operation":"write","spreadsheet":"…","datasetId":"{{resource.defaultDatasetId}}","writeMode":"append","deduplicateBy":["url"]}. Every run then lands in your sheet automatically.
• Schedules: run imports and exports hourly, daily or weekly from Apify Schedules.
• Make, n8n and Zapier: use the official Apify app or node, pick Run actor → swillz/google-sheets-import-export.
• API and clients: start runs from the Apify API or the Python and JavaScript clients, and read the OUTPUT record for the result.
• AI agents (MCP): https://mcp.apify.com?tools=swillz/google-sheets-import-export.

Google Sheets Import & Export vs alternatives

	This actor	Typical Sheets actors
Authorization	Share with one email, works on schedules	OAuth token that expires or needs a first interactive run
Append + new columns	Header auto-merged	Often fails or misaligns columns
Deduplication	Against existing sheet rows	Within the run only, or none
Replace safety	Old data cleared after the new data is written	Clear first (empty sheet on failure)
Access control	Sheet lock to your Apify account	–
Price	$0.01 per 1,000 rows	Free to $5 per 1,000

FAQ

Is my data safe? The actor only opens spreadsheets you explicitly share with the service account, and the sheet lock stops other Apify accounts from using a sheet you shared. You can revoke access at any time by removing the email in Google Sheets → Share. Want full control? Use your own service account key.

Why does it say "Can't open spreadsheet"? The sheet isn't shared with sheets-tool@apify-tools-512508.iam.gserviceaccount.com, or it's shared as Viewer and you're writing. Share it as Editor, and double-check the URL.

"Locked to another Apify account"? Someone else's Apify account used this sheet through the actor first. Make a copy of the sheet, or use your own service account key.

Limits? Google Sheets allows 10 million cells per spreadsheet and 50,000 characters per cell. The actor checks both before writing and truncates over-long cells with a warning. Large exports are written in chunks with automatic retries.

Formulas? By default values are written as RAW text, so scraped text starting with = can't run as a formula. Choose USER_ENTERED if you want Google to parse formulas, dates and numbers.

Need a feature or found a bug? Open an issue on the Issues tab. We usually reply within a day.

Related tools

More tools from the same developer, built to work together:

• Career Site Jobs Scraper: jobs from Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workable and Recruitee boards, with salary fields, as a jobs API or CSV.
• Workday Jobs Scraper: every job from any myworkdayjobs.com career site, past the 2,000-result cap.
• Company Website Enrichment: turn a list of domains into company name, emails, phones, social links and tech stack.
• XML Sitemap URL Extractor & Sitemap to CSV: every URL from a website's sitemap, with lastmod, HTTP status and new-page monitoring.

Popular workflows

• Hiring-signal leads: scrape open roles with Career Site Jobs Scraper, enrich each hiring company's domain with Company Website Enrichment, and append new rows daily with this Actor.
• Enterprise hiring tracker: pull Workday jobs with Workday Jobs Scraper, add company contacts with Company Website Enrichment, and keep a live sheet with this Actor.

Source code: https://github.com/williamjin02/apify-actors/tree/main/actors/google-sheets-import-export