Apple Podcasts search discovery

Keyword search is the lowest-friction way to find public shows in Apple Podcasts. Apple Podcasts Scraper uses the official iTunes Search API. No proxy is required. A public RSS feed does not search the Apple directory; search is for discovery when you have a topic, not a feed URL.

Open Apple Podcasts Scraper on Apify

Search versus charts, reviews, and RSS

Use this guide when the job is finding shows by keyword. Use chartRequests or Apple Podcasts Chart Scraper for storefront ranks. Use Apple Podcasts Reviews Scraper after you have collection IDs. Use RSS & Atom Feed Extractor when you already have publisher feed URLs.

Search (searchTerm) Charts Reviews
You have A topic A storefront / market Collection IDs
Primary actor Apple Podcasts Scraper Scraper chartRequests or Chart Scraper Reviews Scraper
rank Null on search rows Set on chart rows Not a rank tool

What a search row contains

Search results are source-linked dataset items. Sample rowType is podcast_search_result. Documented fields include:

This Actor does not document genre filters, review text, or pagination beyond limit.

Search input

Set searchTerm. At least one of searchTerm, chartRequests, or lookupIds is required. country is the ISO storefront for the search (default us). limit is the maximum number of podcasts returned (1–200; default 50). Keep the first run small.

{
  "searchTerm": "founder podcast",
  "country": "us",
  "limit": 10,
  "includeEpisodes": false
}

Set includeEpisodes true only when recent episode context materially helps the workflow. After a search run, pass collection IDs into a watchlist refresh for recurring lookups.

Run a search on Apify

What does an Apple Podcasts search row contain?

Search results are source-linked dataset items. Sample rowType is podcast_search_result. Documented fields include collectionId, showName, publisher, country, sourceUrl, and fetchedAt. rank is null on search rows; rank belongs to chart requests. See dataset fields.

Does keyword search return rank or reviews?

No. rank is null on search rows. This Actor does not document genre filters, review text, or pagination beyond limit. For official rankings use chartRequests or Apple Podcasts Chart Scraper. For public ratings on IDs you already have, use Apple Podcasts Reviews Scraper.

How do I search more than one country?

Search and lookup use a single default country per run (ISO storefront, default us). There is no country array on search. To compare markets, run once per storefront and keep country on the output rows. Charts can request several storefronts in one run because chartRequests is an array. See charts and search by country.

What should I do after I have collection IDs?

Pass collection IDs into a watchlist refresh (lookupIds) for recurring lookups. Use those IDs as podcastIds on Reviews Scraper if you need public ratings. A public RSS feed does not search the Apple directory; see RSS feed vs iTunes Search and the outreach shortlist workflow.

How to run it

  1. Open Apple Podcasts Scraper, then the Actor on the Apify Store.
  2. Enter a searchTerm and a country. Prefill examples use a small limit (for example 3 or 10).
  3. Leave includeEpisodes false until the show list is useful.
  4. Review the default dataset. Use delivery: "webhook" and webhookUrl after the payload shape is approved (Slack, Discord, Zapier, or any HTTP endpoint). Use dryRun to test without dataset writes or webhooks.

Billing is pay-per-event: Actor start plus one result event per default-dataset item. The published Store price is $0.005 per Actor start and $10.00 per 1,000 dataset results ($0.01 per row).

From $10 per 1,000 results

Open Apple Podcasts Scraper on Apify

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