Apple Podcasts Scraper

Apple Podcasts Scraper collects podcast shows and episodes from Apple Podcasts: search by keyword, pull the Apple Podcasts top charts for any country or category, or look up shows by URL or ID. You get each show's star rating and 1 to 5 star breakdown, genres, RSS feed URL and artwork, plus its newest episodes with dates, durations, descriptions and audio URLs. Built for chart tracking, podcast advertising research and transcription pipelines. No login, no API key.

What you get

Podcast rows (type: "podcast"):

• Apple podcast ID, title, artist and artist ID, Apple Podcasts URL, RSS feed URL, artwork
• Primary genre, genres and genre IDs, Apple's episode count, latest release date, explicit flag, content advisory rating, store country
• Ratings: average stars, number of ratings and the 5/4/3/2/1 star breakdown from the show's Apple Podcasts page
• From the RSS feed: description, language, website, copyright, feed author, feed type (episodic or serial), categories and the number of episodes the feed lists
• Source: chart country, chart genre and chart position, or the search term and position that found the show, so you can track rankings over time

Episode rows (type: "episode"), newest first:

• Podcast ID, podcast title and artist, episode GUID, title, publish date, duration in seconds
• Description (HTML cleaned to plain text), audio URL, file type and size
• Season and episode number, episode type, explicit flag, episode link and image

Use cases

• Podcast chart tracking: snapshot the top charts per country or category every day.
• Advertisers and agencies: find shows by topic and compare ratings and publishing cadence.
• Podcast directories and analytics: build a database of shows with feeds and episode metadata.
• Transcription and AI pipelines: get direct audio URLs to transcribe or summarize episodes.
• Competitor research for podcasters: see how often similar shows publish and how long their episodes run.

How to use

1. Open the Actor in Apify Console.
2. Add Search terms, Apple Podcasts show URLs or IDs, and/or Top chart countries such as us or gb. For a category chart, add a Chart genre ID.
3. Set the store country for search and lookups, the max podcasts per search or chart, and whether to include episodes and ratings.
4. Set Max results to cap the total number of podcasts plus episodes.
5. Click Start. Download the results as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read them through the Apify API.

Input example

{
  "searchTerms": ["true crime", "history"],
  "podcastUrls": ["https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dan-carlins-hardcore-history/id173001861"],
  "chartCountries": ["us", "gb"],
  "chartGenreId": "",
  "country": "us",
  "maxResultsPerSource": 20,
  "includeEpisodes": true,
  "maxEpisodesPerPodcast": 20,
  "includeRatings": true,
  "maxItems": 500
}

Chart genre IDs include 1301 Arts, 1303 Comedy, 1304 Education, 1321 Business, 1487 History, 1488 True Crime, 1489 News and 1545 Sports. Any Apple Podcasts genre ID works.

Output example

{
  "type": "podcast",
  "podcastId": 1322200189,
  "title": "Crime Junkie",
  "artist": "Audiochuck",
  "artistId": 1485045052,
  "url": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crime-junkie/id1322200189",
  "feedUrl": "https://feeds.simplecast.com/qm_9xx0g",
  "primaryGenre": "True Crime",
  "genres": ["True Crime"],
  "genreIds": ["1488"],
  "episodeCount": 531,
  "latestReleaseDate": "2026-09-28T07:00:00Z",
  "explicit": false,
  "contentAdvisoryRating": "Clean",
  "country": "USA",
  "artworkUrl": "https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/8c/35/04/8c350430-2fbf-98d0-0a25-00b76550ffeb/mza_13445204151221888086.jpg/600x600bb.jpg",
  "chartCountry": "us",
  "chartGenreId": null,
  "chartPosition": 2,
  "rating": { "average": 4.7, "count": 365253, "histogram": { "1": 14712, "2": 5104, "3": 7355, "4": 11851, "5": 326231 } },
  "description": "Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? …",
  "language": "en",
  "website": "https://audiochuck.com",
  "copyright": "Audio Chuck LLC",
  "feedAuthor": "Audiochuck",
  "feedType": "episodic",
  "categories": ["True Crime"],
  "feedEpisodeCount": 531
}

{
  "type": "episode",
  "podcastId": 173001861,
  "podcastTitle": "Dan Carlin's Hardcore History",
  "artist": "Dan Carlin",
  "guid": "http://traffic.libsyn.com/dancarlinhh/dchha74_Mania_for_Subjugation_IV.mp3",
  "title": "Show 74 - Mania for Subjugation IV",
  "publishedAt": "2026-07-31T18:02:23.000Z",
  "durationSeconds": 14480,
  "description": "The stage is set for an in-person showdown between Alexander and Persia's Great King. …",
  "audioUrl": "https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/dancarlinhh/dchha74_Mania_for_Subjugation_IV.mp3",
  "audioType": "audio/mpeg",
  "audioBytes": 179177054,
  "episodeNumber": 74,
  "season": null,
  "episodeType": null,
  "explicit": false,
  "link": "http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-74-mania-for-subjugation-iv",
  "imageUrl": "https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/8/2/6/b/826bd177b9d9350516c3140a3186d450/dchha74-Mania-for-Subjugation-square-3000x3000.jpg"
}

Pricing

You pay per result saved: each podcast row and each episode row. Error rows cost nothing. To pay for shows only, set includeEpisodes to false. Cap results with Max results, or set a maximum cost per run in Apify Console and the Actor stops cleanly when it reaches that limit.

FAQ

Is it legal to scrape Apple Podcasts? The Actor uses Apple's public iTunes Search and Lookup APIs, Apple's public top-chart feeds, each show's public Apple Podcasts page (for ratings) and the show's own public RSS feed (for episodes). It skips the owner and editor email fields in RSS feeds. You are responsible for using the data in line with Apple's terms, publishers' rights and the laws that apply to you.

Do I need a proxy? A datacenter proxy is enough. The default Apify Proxy spreads iTunes API rate limits across IPs, and the Actor keeps its request rate under Apple's throttling.

How many shows can I get? The overall top chart returns at most 100 shows per country, and category charts up to 200. iTunes search returns at most 200 shows per term.

How many episodes per show? Up to Max episodes per podcast, newest first, from the publisher's RSS feed. If the feed is unreachable or empty, the Actor falls back to Apple's episode lookup, which returns at most the latest 200 episodes and fewer fields.

Why does episodeCount differ from feedEpisodeCount? episodeCount is Apple's count. feedEpisodeCount is how many episodes the RSS feed lists right now. Some publishers keep only recent episodes in the feed, and some hide older ones from Apple.

Does it collect written reviews? No. You get the star rating, rating count and star breakdown only.

Why is rating missing for some shows? Ratings come from Apple's web page, and Apple doesn't show them for some new shows or in some stores.