Apple Podcasts Scraper — iTunes Search, Episodes & RSS | from $0.50/1K

Built for podcast-app developers, content marketers, and lead-gen teams that need structured Apple Podcasts data — show metadata, episode lists from RSS, genre filters, and country selection — via the official iTunes API. No auth, no proxy, zero COGS.

Scrape Apple Podcasts metadata via the official iTunes Search and Lookup APIs — no authentication, no proxies, zero COGS. Optionally retrieve episodes directly from each podcast's RSS feed.

What you can scrape

• Podcast metadata — title, author, genre, episode count, artwork, feed URL, iTunes URL, release date
• Episodes (optional) — title, GUID, publish date, duration, description, audio file URL from the podcast's RSS feed

Use cases

• Podcast directory and competitive research
• Lead generation (find podcasts by topic, contact via feed)
• Content monitoring — track episode counts, new releases
• App development — build podcast apps with rich metadata

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
searchTerms	string[]	["technology"]	Keywords to search Apple Podcasts
podcastIds	string[]	—	Numeric iTunes podcast IDs for direct lookup
country	string	"us"	Two-letter country code (us, gb, de, fr, jp…)
maxItems	integer	50	Max total podcasts to return (0 = no limit)
includeEpisodes	boolean	false	Also fetch episodes from RSS feed
maxEpisodesPerPodcast	integer	20	Max episodes per podcast (0 = all)
maxSearchResults	integer	50	Max search results per term (iTunes cap: 200)

Finding a podcast ID

Look at the Apple Podcasts URL: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/name/id**470624027** — the number after id is the podcast ID.

Output schema

Every row in the dataset has these fields:

Field	Type	Description
record_type	string	"podcast" or "episode"
podcast_id	string	Numeric iTunes podcast ID
title	string	Podcast or episode title
artist	string	Author / creator name
genre	string	Primary genre (Technology, True Crime, etc.)
genres	string[]	All genres
episode_count	integer|null	Total episodes (podcast rows only)
rating	float|null	Average user rating (where available)
rating_count	integer|null	Number of ratings
country	string	Input country code
feed_url	string|null	RSS feed URL
artwork_url	string|null	600×600 artwork image
release_date	string|null	ISO 8601 UTC — latest episode release
itunes_url	string|null	Apple Podcasts browse URL
episode_guid	string|null	Episode GUID (episode rows only)
pub_date_raw	string|null	Episode publish date (RFC 2822)
duration	string|null	Episode duration HH:MM:SS
episode_desc	string|null	Episode description (first 2000 chars)
enclosure_url	string|null	Episode audio file URL
parse_confidence	float	0.0–1.0 data quality score
warnings	string[]	List of any missing/unexpected fields
scraped_at	string	ISO 8601 UTC scrape timestamp

Pricing

Pay per result — each podcast row or episode row = 1 billable event: from $0.50 per 1,000 records.

Volume	Cost
100 podcasts	~$0.05
1,000 podcasts	~$0.50
1,000 podcasts + 20 episodes each = 21,000 rows	~$10.50

---

FAQ

Do I need a proxy or API key? No. The iTunes Search and Lookup APIs are public Apple endpoints — no authentication or proxy required.

What output formats are available? JSON, CSV, and Excel — downloadable from the Apify dataset UI or via the REST API.

Can I schedule this to run automatically? Yes. Use Apify's scheduler to monitor new episodes or track podcast rankings on a daily schedule, with webhook delivery to your pipeline.

Why are rating and rating_count null for most podcasts? This is expected Apple API behavior — Apple does not expose ratings in the Search API for most podcasts. This is not a bug in the scraper.

Why this scraper beats the rest

• Official APIs only — iTunes Search + Lookup APIs are Apple's own public endpoints. Zero DOM fragility, no CAPTCHA risk, no proxy required.
• parse_confidence field — every record includes a quality score + warning list so you know exactly what data arrived intact. No competitor offers this.
• Episodes via RSS — optional one-click episode mode pulls title, duration, description, and audio URL directly from the podcast's own RSS feed.
• Batch-ready — search multiple terms + direct IDs in one run, deduped automatically.
• Multi-country — switch the country field to get local storefronts (gb, de, fr, jp, au…).

Technical notes

• iTunes Search API limit: 200 results per query.
• averageUserRating and userRatingCount are often null for podcasts in Apple's API — this is expected Apple behaviour, not a bug.
• RSS episode fetch adds one HTTP request per podcast. For large batches with includeEpisodes=true, runtime increases proportionally.
• Not affiliated with Apple Inc.

Example output

{
  "record_type": "podcast",
  "podcast_id": "470624027",
  "title": "TED Tech",
  "artist": "TED Tech",
  "genre": "Technology",
  "genres": ["Technology", "Podcasts"],
  "episode_count": 268,
  "rating": null,
  "rating_count": null,
  "country": "us",
  "feed_url": "https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/...",
  "artwork_url": "https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/.../600x600bb.jpg",
  "release_date": "2026-05-29T04:00:00Z",
  "itunes_url": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ted-tech/id470624027",
  "episode_guid": null,
  "pub_date_raw": null,
  "duration": null,
  "episode_desc": null,
  "enclosure_url": null,
  "parse_confidence": 1.0,
  "warnings": [],
  "scraped_at": "2026-05-31T12:00:00Z"
}

---

Use with AI agents (MCP)

This actor is available as an MCP tool for Claude, GPT-4, and other AI agents that support the Model Context Protocol:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=bovi/podcast-scraper

Search Apple Podcasts by keyword or look up shows by iTunes ID — ideal for AI podcast discovery assistants, content monitoring bots, and lead-gen pipelines targeting podcasters by niche.

---

vs. competitors

	This actor	Typical podcast scraper
Data source	Official iTunes API + RSS	HTML / unofficial APIs
Episode content (RSS)	✓ (includeEpisodes toggle)	Rarely
Country targeting	✓	Usually US-only
parse_confidence	✓	No
Proxy needed	No	Often required
Price	from $0.50/1K	$2–5/1K

Integrations

Built for podcast-app developers and content marketers sourcing show metadata and episode feeds by genre and country — the JSON/dataset output drops into the tools you already run, no glue code:

• n8n / Make / Zapier — trigger a run or pipe every new dataset item into 500+ apps (Google Sheets, Airtable, Slack, HubSpot, your database) with no code: n8n, Make, Zapier.
• Webhooks — fire your own endpoint the moment a run finishes, to push results straight into your pipeline (docs).
• MCP server — expose this actor as a tool to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client so an AI agent can pull this data mid-conversation (guide).
• API & SDKs — fetch the dataset as JSON, CSV, or Excel through the Apify REST API or the Python / JS SDKs.

See all Apify integrations.