google-play-scraper

The google-play-scraper is a Node.js module designed to scrape application data from the Google Play store.

Note: The maintainer is no longer actively maintaining this project except for reviewing community PRs. The parser may break if Google Play's layout changes.

To avoid redundant network requests to Google Play, you can use the memoized function. This returns a store object that caches results for each method.

By default, each method caches up to 1000 values with a 5-minute expiration. You can customize the cache behavior using options supported by the memoizee module (e.g., maxAge).

import {memoized as m} from "google-play-scraper"; // cache with default options
const memoized = m(); // cache with customized options
const memoizedCustom = m({ maxAge: 1000 * 60 }); // cache with customized options

// first call will hit google play and cache the results
memoized.developer({devId: "DxCo Games"}).then(console.log);

// second call will return cached results
memoized.developer({devId: "DxCo Games"}).then(console.log);

Making too many requests in a short period (especially when using fullDetail) can trigger Google Play's throttling limits, resulting in 503 errors or IP bans.

To prevent this, you can pass a throttle property to any scraper method. This property defines the maximum number of requests allowed per second. Once the limit is reached, subsequent requests are held until the next second begins.

import gplay from "google-play-scraper";

// the following method will perform batches of 10 requests per second
gplay.search({term: 'panda', throttle: 10}).then(console.log);

Install the google-play-scraper module using npm to scrape application data from the Google Play store.

npm install google-play-scraper

Use the search() method to find applications based on a search term.

Options:

• term (required): The search query.
• num (optional): Number of apps to retrieve. Defaults to 20, max is 250.
• lang (optional): Two-letter language code. Defaults to 'en'.
• country (optional): Two-letter country code. Defaults to 'us'.
• fullDetail (optional): If true, fetches full details for every result. Defaults to false.
• price (optional): Filter by price. Values: 'all', 'free', or 'paid'. Defaults to 'all'.

import gplay from "google-play-scraper";

gplay.search({
    term: "panda",
    num: 2
  }).then(console.log, console.log);

Use the similar() method to find a list of applications similar to a specified one.

Options:

• appId (required): The Google Play ID of the target application.
• lang (optional): Two-letter language code. Defaults to 'en'.
• country (optional): Two-letter country code. Defaults to 'us'.
• fullDetail (optional): If true, fetches full details for every similar app. Defaults to false.

import gplay from "google-play-scraper";

gplay.similar({appId: "com.dxco.pandavszombies"}).then(console.log);

Use the permissions() method to retrieve the list of permissions an application has access to.

Options:

• appId (required): The Google Play ID of the application.
• lang (optional): Two-letter language code. Defaults to 'en'.
• country (optional): Two-letter country code. Defaults to 'us'.
• short (optional): If true, returns only the permission names as strings instead of permission/description objects. Defaults to false.

import gplay from "google-play-scraper";

gplay.permissions({appId: "com.dxco.pandavszombies"}).then(console.log);

Use the datasafety() method to retrieve an application's data safety information, including data shared, data collected, security practices, and the privacy policy URL.

Options:

• appId (required): The Google Play ID of the application.
• lang (optional): Two-letter language code. Defaults to 'en'.

import gplay from "google-play-scraper";

gplay.datasafety({appId: "com.dxco.pandavszombies"}).then(console.log);

Use the app() method to fetch full details for a specific Google Play application.

Options:

• appId (required): The Google Play ID (e.g., the ?id= parameter from the URL).
• lang (optional): Two-letter language code. Defaults to 'en'.
• country (optional): Two-letter country code. Defaults to 'us'. Useful for apps available only in specific regions.

import gplay from "google-play-scraper";

gplay.app({appId: 'com.google.android.apps.translate'})
  .then(console.log, console.log);

Use the categories() method to retrieve a full list of categories available in the Google Play dropdown menu.

import gplay from "google-play-scraper";

gplay.categories().then(console.log);