Google Maps Photos Scraper

Extract photo records for a specific Google Maps business by business_id. This actor is built for local SEO audits, competitive research, storefront monitoring, travel and hospitality datasets, visual QA, and workflows that already discovered a place with a Google Maps Search, Advanced Search, Autocomplete, or Business Details actor.

Use it when you need Google Maps business photos as structured records with image URLs, dimensions, contributor metadata, posting age, and pagination data for downstream collection.

What It Does

• Looks up a single Google Maps business by business_id.
• Returns photo records with image URLs, photo identifiers, dimensions, contributor metadata, posting age, coordinates, ownership flags, likes, timestamps, and video thumbnails when Google exposes them.
• Saves each photo as a separate item in the default Apify dataset for easy export to JSON, CSV, Excel, or integrations.
• Saves the full Scrappa API response to the OUTPUT key-value store record, including photos, total, and nextPage.
• Supports cached responses for faster repeat runs and lower cost.
• Lets you control cache freshness with maximum_cache_age.
• Handles missing businesses gracefully with a structured success: false dataset item instead of a failed empty export.

Common Use Cases

• Build image datasets for restaurants, hotels, attractions, clinics, retail locations, and local service businesses.
• Monitor competitors for new storefront, menu, product, room, or venue photos.
• Enrich Google Maps lead lists with visual proof, gallery images, and location-level media.
• Audit franchise and multi-location brand profiles for missing, stale, or user-generated images.
• Power internal review workflows where teams need to inspect business photos outside Google Maps.
• Join search, business details, reviews, and photos data using the same business_id.

Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
business_id	string	Yes	Google Maps business identifier, typically in the 0x...:0x... format. Use a business_id returned by Scrappa Google Maps Search, Advanced Search, Autocomplete, Business Details, Reviews, or another Google Maps discovery workflow.
use_cache	boolean	No	Use cached data when available. Defaults to true. Set to false when you need the freshest available photo list.
maximum_cache_age	integer	No	Maximum allowed cache age in seconds. Defaults to 3600. Set to 0 to always request fresh data when cache is enabled.

Example Input

Googleplex example:

{
  "business_id": "0x808fba02425dad8f:0x6c296c66619367e0",
  "use_cache": true,
  "maximum_cache_age": 3600
}

Output

The actor saves each photo as a separate dataset item when photos are found. Fields vary by what Google Maps exposes for the business, but each item can include:

• photo_id
• photo_url
• photo_url_large
• width
• height
• contributor_name
• contributor_url
• posted_at
• latitude
• longitude
• video_thumbnail_url
• photo_index
• source
• author
• published_at
• is_owner
• likes

The full response is also stored in the key-value store under OUTPUT:

{
  "photos": [
    {
      "photo_id": "AF1QipExamplePhotoId",
      "photo_url": "https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/example=w408-h306-k-no",
      "photo_url_large": "https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/example=w1200-h900-k-no",
      "width": 4032,
      "height": 2268,
      "contributor_name": "Example Local Guide",
      "contributor_url": "https://www.google.com/maps/contrib/example",
      "posted_at": "7 months ago"
    }
  ],
  "total": 1,
  "nextPage": "CAESBkVnSUl..."
}

Example Dataset Item

{
  "photo_id": "AF1QipExamplePhotoId",
  "photo_url": "https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/example=w408-h306-k-no",
  "photo_url_large": "https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/example=w1200-h900-k-no",
  "width": 4032,
  "height": 2268,
  "contributor_name": "Example Local Guide",
  "contributor_url": "https://www.google.com/maps/contrib/example",
  "posted_at": "7 months ago"
}

When a business cannot be found, the actor returns a structured dataset item:

{
  "success": false,
  "business_id": "0x0000000000000000:0x0000000000000000",
  "error": "Business not found"
}

Caching Behavior

Cache is enabled by default because photo collections are often reused across audits, enrichment jobs, and repeat exports.

• Leave use_cache as true for faster repeat runs and lower-cost workflows.
• Set maximum_cache_age to the maximum age you will accept, in seconds. The default is 3600 seconds.
• Set maximum_cache_age to 0 when cache is enabled but you want the freshest available response.
• Set use_cache to false when you are checking for newly added or recently removed Google Maps photos.

Recommended Workflow

1. Run Google Maps Search, Advanced Search, or Business Details to collect business_id values.
2. Run this actor once per target business_id.
3. Export dataset items to your data warehouse, local SEO audit, visual review queue, or media monitoring pipeline.
4. Store business_id with every photo record so you can join photos back to business details, reviews, ratings, categories, and location data.

Tips For Better Results

• Use exact business_id values from recent Google Maps discovery runs.
• Keep use_cache enabled for recurring audits, deduplication, and large enrichment jobs.
• Disable cache only for freshness-sensitive checks, such as monitoring whether a competitor added new photos this week.
• Use photo_url_large when you need higher-resolution images and photo_url for lightweight previews.
• Expect fields to vary by business because Google Maps does not expose the same metadata for every photo.

Scale With Scrappa API

This actor is a good fit for Apify workflows, scheduled jobs, exports, and no-code integrations. For larger Google Maps photo pipelines, direct API access through Scrappa can support higher-throughput enrichment, tighter backend integration, and coordinated use of related endpoints such as Google Maps Search, Business Details, Reviews, and Photos.

If you are collecting photos across thousands of businesses or running recurring location-monitoring jobs, use this actor for Apify-native automation and Scrappa direct API access when you need more control over batching, retries, and downstream data delivery.

Pricing

$0.30 per 1,000 results. No Google Maps API key required.