Podcast Scraper: Apple Podcasts Search, Charts & RSS Episodes

Get podcasts and their episodes as clean structured data. Search Apple Podcasts by keyword, look up shows by Apple Podcasts link or id, pull Apple's Top Shows chart for any country, or give any RSS feed URL. Every podcast row has name, publisher, RSS feed URL, genres, episode count, artwork, explicit flag, language, last release date and (optionally) the Apple star rating. With episodes on, the actor reads each show's public RSS feed and returns its newest episodes: title, publish date, duration, audio file URL, description, season and episode numbers, GUID.

It uses the documented iTunes Search API, Apple's public chart feeds and each publisher's own RSS feed. No browser, no proxy, no login or API key. Two prices: $0.90 per 1,000 podcasts and $0.40 per 1,000 episodes (lower on paid Apify plans), no start fee.

What you can do with it

• Podcast guest booking and PR outreach lists: find every show on a topic with its publisher, website, genres and how recently it published.
• Ad sales and sponsorship research: pull the Top Shows chart per country and see category, size (episode count) and rating.
• Transcription and AI pipelines: get direct audio URLs, durations and descriptions for the newest episodes of a list of shows (and transcriptUrl when the publisher provides one).
• Monitoring: run on a schedule with episodesSince to collect only new episodes from the shows you follow.
• Market and content research: compare publishing cadence, episode length and topics across a niche.

Input

Field	What it does
searchTerms	Keywords, one per line (true crime, startup interviews).
podcasts	Apple Podcasts links, Apple ids, or any public RSS feed URL.
chartCountries	Add Apple's Top Shows chart for these countries (us, gb, de...); chartLimit = how many (max 100).
country	Apple store country for search and id lookups. Default us.
maxResultsPerSearch	Podcasts per search term (max 200). Default 20.
maxPodcasts	Hard cap on podcast rows for the run (caps cost).
includeEpisodes	Read each show's RSS feed for episodes and feed details. Default on.
maxEpisodesPerPodcast	Newest N episodes per show. Default 10; 0 = feed details only.
episodesSince	Only episodes published on or after this date (YYYY-MM-DD).
episodeKeywords	Keep only episodes whose title or description contains one of these words.
includeRating	Add the Apple star rating and rating count (one extra page load per show).
includeOwnerContact	Add the owner name and email the publisher lists in its own feed (ownerName, ownerEmail). Default on; needs episodes on.

Example:

{ "searchTerms": ["artificial intelligence"], "chartCountries": ["us"], "chartLimit": 50,
  "maxEpisodesPerPodcast": 5, "episodesSince": "2026-09-01", "includeRating": true }

Output

One dataset, two row types (type). Use the Podcasts or Episodes view, or filter on type.

Podcast:

{
  "type": "podcast",
  "podcastId": "1200361736",
  "name": "The Daily",
  "author": "The New York Times",
  "feedUrl": "https://feeds.simplecast.com/Sl5CSM3S",
  "appleUrl": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily/id1200361736",
  "primaryGenre": "Daily News",
  "genres": ["Daily News", "News"],
  "episodeCount": 2750,
  "lastReleaseDate": "2026-10-15T09:52:00Z",
  "explicit": false,
  "contentAdvisoryRating": "Clean",
  "country": "USA",
  "artworkUrl": "https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/.../600x600bb.jpg",
  "language": "en",
  "description": "This is what the news should sound like. ...",
  "website": "https://www.nytimes.com/the-daily",
  "showType": "episodic",
  "feedEpisodeCount": 65,
  "lastEpisodeDate": "2026-10-15T09:52:16Z",
  "ownerName": "The New York Times",
  "ownerEmail": "...@nytimes.com",
  "rating": 4.3,
  "ratingCount": 105934,
  "feedError": null,
  "source": "lookup",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-15T22:54:21Z"
}

Episode:

{
  "type": "episode",
  "podcastId": "1200361736",
  "podcastName": "The Daily",
  "title": "The Republican Strategy to Salvage the Midterms",
  "guid": "db93ab61-641a-4cb8-9067-6b5498c8b8d5",
  "publishedAt": "2026-10-15T09:52:16Z",
  "durationSeconds": 2030,
  "audioUrl": "https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/.../default.mp3",
  "audioType": "audio/mpeg",
  "audioSizeBytes": 32490640,
  "seasonNumber": null,
  "episodeNumber": null,
  "episodeType": "full",
  "explicit": false,
  "link": "https://www.nytimes.com/the-daily",
  "imageUrl": "https://image.simplecastcdn.com/...jpg",
  "transcriptUrl": null,
  "description": "With Republicans trailing in the polls, ...",
  "feedUrl": "https://feeds.simplecast.com/Sl5CSM3S",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-15T22:54:21Z"
}

Search rows also carry searchTerm and searchRank; chart rows carry chartCountry and chartRank. episodeCount is Apple's count; feedEpisodeCount is how many episodes the RSS feed currently lists (many publishers keep only the latest ones in the feed).

How to use

1. Enter search terms, Apple links/ids or feed URLs, and/or chart countries.
2. Choose how many episodes per show you want (or switch episodes off for directory data only).
3. Run, then download the dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel, or connect it to Sheets, Make, Zapier or your own code through the Apify API.

Pricing

Pay per result, no start fee:

Plan	Podcast (podcast-scraped)	Episode (episode-scraped)
Free	$0.90 / 1,000	$0.40 / 1,000
Bronze	$0.80 / 1,000	$0.35 / 1,000
Silver	$0.60 / 1,000	$0.28 / 1,000
Gold	$0.45 / 1,000	$0.20 / 1,000
Platinum	$0.30 / 1,000	$0.15 / 1,000
Diamond	$0.20 / 1,000	$0.10 / 1,000

The rating and feed details are part of the podcast row and cost nothing extra. maxPodcasts, maxEpisodesPerPodcast, episodesSince and episodeKeywords apply before you are charged. A run that finds no podcast at all (no search hits, unknown ids, unreadable feeds) fails with a clear message instead of returning an empty dataset.

Limits and notes

• Apple's search returns at most 200 shows per term and asks for about 20 requests a minute, so the actor paces its Apple calls (about 3 seconds apart); chart and id lookups are batched, so this matters only for many search terms.
• Apple's Top Shows chart goes up to 100 per country; Apple does not publish one for every country.
• Episodes come from each publisher's RSS feed, newest first. Some feeds list only recent episodes. Shows without a public feed (Apple-exclusive or subscriber-only) get a feedError and no episodes; a feed that can't be read or parsed is recorded in feedError and does not fail the run.
• Audio URLs point at the publisher's host (often through tracking redirects). This actor does not download or transcribe audio.
• ownerName/ownerEmail are what the publisher lists in its own public feed for podcast directories (often a network or hosting-platform forwarding address). They can identify a person: use them under the privacy and anti-spam rules that apply to you (GDPR, CAN-SPAM), or turn the option off.
• Independent tool, not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple. Apple Podcasts is a trademark of Apple Inc. Podcast content belongs to its publishers; respect their rights when reusing descriptions, artwork or audio.