play-store-scraper-ng

Modern, typed Google Play Store scraper client for Python. Fetch app details, search results, top lists, reviews, and search suggestions with a clean API and Pydantic models.

Based on and inspired by the original work at https://github.com/facundoolano/google-play-scraper, reworked with type hints, Pydantic models, and a simpler client API.

Features

• Simple high-level client: GooglePlayClient
• Typed data models for responses via Pydantic: AppDetails, AppOverview, Review
• Search apps, fetch app details, list collections, reviews with pagination, and query suggestions
• Locale and country support (e.g., hl=en, gl=us)
• Optional throttling, proxy support, and SSL verification control
• Python 3.11+

Installation

Install from PyPI:

pip install play-store-scraper-ng

Requires Python 3.11 or newer.

Quickstart

from google_play_scraper import GooglePlayClient

client = GooglePlayClient(country="us", lang="en")

# Fetch app details by ID
details = client.app("com.whatsapp")
print(details.title, details.score, details.installs)

# Search apps
results = client.search("todo list", num=10)
for app in results:
    print(app.title, app.score)

Async Usage

The client also supports async usage with httpx. Async methods are prefixed with 'a' (e.g., app -> aapp). All synchronous methods have an asynchronous equivalent.

import asyncio
from google_play_scraper import GooglePlayClient, Sort, Collection, Category

async def main():
    client = GooglePlayClient()

    # Async app details
    details = await client.aapp("com.whatsapp")
    print(f"App: {details.title}, Score: {details.score}")

    # Async search
    results = await client.asearch("photo editor", num=5)
    for app in results:
        print(f"Search result: {app.title}")

    # Async list
    top_free_games = await client.alist(
        collection=Collection.TOP_FREE,
        category=Category.GAME,
        num=10
    )
    for app in top_free_games:
        print(f"Top game: {app.title}")

    # Async reviews
    reviews, _ = await client.areviews("com.burbn.instagram", sort=Sort.NEWEST, num=5)
    for r in reviews:
        print(f"Review by {r.user_name}: {r.text[:50]}...")

    # Async suggestions
    suggestions = await client.asuggest("video")
    print(f"Suggestions for 'video': {suggestions}")


if __name__ == "__main__":
    asyncio.run(main())

Usage

Client initialization

from google_play_scraper import GooglePlayClient

client = GooglePlayClient(
    country="us",                 # default country code for requests
    lang="en",                    # default language for responses
    proxies={"https": "http://host:port"},  # optional proxies for requests.Session
    throttle_requests_per_second=2,            # optional rate limit
    verify_ssl=True               # set to False to skip SSL verification (not recommended)
)

Parameters may be overridden per-call where supported (see below).

Get app details

from google_play_scraper import GooglePlayClient

client = GooglePlayClient()
app = client.app("com.spotify.music", lang="en", country="us")

print(app.title)
print(app.score, app.score_text)
print(app.price, app.currency)
print(app.developer, app.developer_email)
print(app.installs, app.min_installs, app.max_installs)
print(app.updated)
print(app.screenshots[:3])

Returns an AppDetails model (extends AppOverview).

Search

from google_play_scraper import GooglePlayClient

client = GooglePlayClient()
apps = client.search("timer", num=20, price="all", lang="en", country="us")
for a in apps:
    # a is AppOverview
    print(a.app_id, a.title, a.score)

price can be one of: "all" (default), "free", "paid".

List collections

from google_play_scraper import GooglePlayClient, Collection, Category, Age

client = GooglePlayClient()

top_free_tools = client.list(
    collection=Collection.TOP_FREE,
    category=Category.TOOLS,
    num=50,
    lang="en",
    country="us",
)

for app in top_free_tools:
    print(app.title, app.score)

See google_play_scraper.constants for available Category, Collection, and Age values.

Reviews with pagination

from google_play_scraper import GooglePlayClient, Sort

client = GooglePlayClient()

reviews, next_token = client.reviews(
    app_id="com.whatsapp",
    sort=Sort.NEWEST,     # or Sort.RATING / Sort.HELPFULNESS
    num=100,              # number of reviews to fetch (up to a server-side limit)
    lang="en",
    country="us",
)

client.reviews returns a tuple of (reviews: list[Review], next_token: str | None). To request the next page, pass the token to the next call:

from google_play_scraper import GooglePlayClient

client = GooglePlayClient()
reviews, next_token = client.reviews("com.whatsapp", num=100)
if next_token:
    more_reviews, next_token = client.reviews("com.whatsapp", num=100, pagination_token=next_token)

Search suggestions

from google_play_scraper import GooglePlayClient

client = GooglePlayClient()
suggestions = client.suggest("photo ed")
print(suggestions)

Data models

All return types are validated Pydantic models that are easy to consume and serialize.

• AppOverview: minimal data used in lists/search (e.g., title, app_id, score, icon, developer)
• AppDetails: extends AppOverview with rich metadata (e.g., description, installs, histogram, price, genre, screenshots, updated)
• Review: normalized review entry (score, text, user_name, thumbs_up, dates, developer reply info)

See google_play_scraper/models.py for full fields.

Constants

Import enums to control listing and sorting:

from google_play_scraper import Category, Collection, Sort, Age

Error handling

Common exceptions:

• AppNotFound: App ID does not exist or could not be parsed
• ParsingError: Unexpected response structure
• QuotaExceeded: Rate-limited or temporarily blocked by Google
• GooglePlayError: Base class for library errors

Handle errors explicitly:

from google_play_scraper import GooglePlayClient
from google_play_scraper import AppNotFound, GooglePlayError

client = GooglePlayClient()
try:
    app = client.app("com.nonexistent.app")
except AppNotFound:
    print("App not found")
except GooglePlayError as e:
    print("General error:", e)

Configuration, proxies, and rate limiting

• Locale/country: set defaults via GooglePlayClient(country=..., lang=...) and override per call
• Rate limiting: throttle_requests_per_second to avoid temporary blocking
• Proxies: pass a requests-style proxies dict (e.g., { "http": "http://host:port", "https": "http://host:port" })
• SSL: set verify_ssl=False only for troubleshooting

Best practices and Notes

• Use conservative throttle_requests_per_second and caching when scraping at scale
• Respect Google Play Terms of Service and robots.txt. This library is for educational and research purposes; use responsibly
• API responses and page structures can change without notice; pin versions and add monitoring

Examples and demos

See the demo/ directory for runnable examples.

Sync demos:

• demo/sync/demo_app.py — fetch app details
• demo/sync/demo_search.py — search apps
• demo/sync/demo_list.py — list collections and categories
• demo/sync/demo_reviews.py — fetch reviews with pagination
• demo/sync/demo_suggest.py — query suggestions

Async demos:

• demo/async/demo_app.py — fetch app details
• demo/async/demo_search.py — search apps
• demo/async/demo_list.py — list collections and categories
• demo/async/demo_reviews.py — fetch reviews with pagination
• demo/async/demo_suggest.py — query suggestions

Run with:

python -m demo.sync.demo_app
python -m demo.async.demo_app

Links

• PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/play-store-scraper-ng/
• Source: https://github.com/RankoR/google-play-scraper
• Issues: https://github.com/RankoR/google-play-scraper/issues

Contributing

PRs and issues are welcome! Please run tests locally before submitting changes.

License

MIT License. See LICENSE.