App Reviews - Python script to retrieve App Store reviews and save them to a CSV file

AppReviews

#!/usr/bin/env python

try:
    # For Python 3.0 and later
    from urllib.request import urlopen
except ImportError:
    # Fall back to Python 2's urllib2
    from urllib2 import urlopen

import json
import time

def getJson(url):
    response = urlopen(url)
    data = str(response.read())
    return json.loads(data)

def getReviews(appID, page=1):
	url = 'https://itunes.apple.com/rss/customerreviews/id=%s/page=%d/sortby=mostrecent/json' % (appID, page)
	data = getJson(url).get('feed')
	if data.get('entry') == None:
		getReviews(appID, page+1)
		return

	for entry in data.get('entry'):
		if entry.get('im:name'): continue
		
		review_id = entry.get('id').get('label')
		title = entry.get('title').get('label')
		author = entry.get('author').get('name').get('label')
		author_url = entry.get('author').get('uri').get('label')
		version = entry.get('im:version').get('label')
		rating = entry.get('im:rating').get('label')
		review = entry.get('content').get('label')	
		vote_count = entry.get('im:voteCount').get('label')

		csvData = [review_id, title.replace('"', '""'), author, author_url, version, rating, review.replace('"', '""'), vote_count]

		print '"'+'","'.join(csvData)+'"'

	getReviews(appID, page+1)

csvTitles = ['review_id', 'title', 'author', 'author_url', 'version', 'rating', 'review', 'vote_count']
print ','.join(csvTitles)
getReviews(<app store id>)

Here is my version of the code in case you might need. Instead of returning a csv_data, I am returning a list of dictionaries containing the reviews:

import pprint
import time
import typing

import requests


def is_error_response(http_response, seconds_to_sleep: float = 1) -> bool:
    """
    Returns False if status_code is 503 (system unavailable) or 200 (success),
    otherwise it will return True (failed). This function should be used
    after calling the commands requests.post() and requests.get().

    :param http_response:
        The response object returned from requests.post or requests.get.
    :param seconds_to_sleep:
        The sleep time used if the status_code is 503. This is used to not
        overwhelm the service since it is unavailable.
    """
    if http_response.status_code == 503:
        time.sleep(seconds_to_sleep)
        return False

    return http_response.status_code != 200


def get_json(url) -> typing.Union[dict, None]:
    """
    Returns json response if any. Returns None if no json found.

    :param url:
        The url go get the json from.
    """
    response = requests.get(url)
    if is_error_response(response):
        return None
    json_response = response.json()
    return json_response


def get_reviews(app_id, page=1) -> typing.List[dict]:
    """
    Returns a list of dictionaries with each dictionary being one review. 
    
    :param app_id:
        The app_id you are searching. 
    :param page:
        The page id to start the loop. Once it reaches the final page + 1, the 
        app will return a non valid json, thus it will exit with the current 
        reviews. 
    """
    reviews: typing.List[dict] = [{}]

    while True:
        url = (f'https://itunes.apple.com/rss/customerreviews/id={app_id}/'
               f'page={page}/sortby=mostrecent/json')
        json = get_json(url)

        if not json:
            return reviews

        data_feed = json.get('feed')

        if not data_feed.get('entry'):
            get_reviews(app_id, page + 1)

        reviews += [
            {
                'review_id': entry.get('id').get('label'),
                'title': entry.get('title').get('label'),
                'author': entry.get('author').get('name').get('label'),
                'author_url': entry.get('author').get('uri').get('label'),
                'version': entry.get('im:version').get('label'),
                'rating': entry.get('im:rating').get('label'),
                'review': entry.get('content').get('label'),
                'vote_count': entry.get('im:voteCount').get('label')
            }
            for entry in data_feed.get('entry')
            if not entry.get('im:name')
        ]

        page += 1


reviews = get_reviews('appid')
print(len(reviews))
pprint.pprint(reviews)

Hi, I am getting the same data irrespective of page number. Please help

Special thanks to rigogsilva

Your script worked like a charm.
However I am also getting only limited reviews (500 reviews in particular) , the same over over and over again.
Should i do something different?

Thanks

can you tell us if we want to store it into wordpress website instead of CSV file

Hi rigogsilva,

This is not working for me. Can u help me to solve

Updated rigogsilva's code with the new URL:

import pprint
import time
import typing

import requests


def is_error_response(http_response, seconds_to_sleep: float = 1) -> bool:
    """
    Returns False if status_code is 503 (system unavailable) or 200 (success),
    otherwise it will return True (failed). This function should be used
    after calling the commands requests.post() and requests.get().

    :param http_response:
        The response object returned from requests.post or requests.get.
    :param seconds_to_sleep:
        The sleep time used if the status_code is 503. This is used to not
        overwhelm the service since it is unavailable.
    """
    if http_response.status_code == 503:
        time.sleep(seconds_to_sleep)
        return False

    return http_response.status_code != 200


def get_json(url) -> typing.Union[dict, None]:
    """
    Returns json response if any. Returns None if no json found.

    :param url:
        The url go get the json from.
    """
    response = requests.get(url)
    if is_error_response(response):
        return None
    json_response = response.json()
    return json_response


def get_reviews(app_id, page=1) -> typing.List[dict]:
    """
    Returns a list of dictionaries with each dictionary being one review. 
    
    :param app_id:
        The app_id you are searching. 
    :param page:
        The page id to start the loop. Once it reaches the final page + 1, the 
        app will return a non valid json, thus it will exit with the current 
        reviews. 
    """
    print(f'STARTED {page}')
    reviews: typing.List[dict] = [{}]

    while True:
        url = (f'https://itunes.apple.com/ru/rss/customerreviews/page={page}/id={app_id}/sortBy=mostRecent/json')
        json = get_json(url)

        if not json:
            return reviews

        data_feed = json.get('feed')

        try:
            if not data_feed.get('entry'):
                get_reviews(app_id, page + 1)


            reviews += [
                {
                    'review_id': entry.get('id').get('label'),
                    'title': entry.get('title').get('label'),
                    'author': entry.get('author').get('name').get('label'),
                    'author_url': entry.get('author').get('uri').get('label'),
                    'version': entry.get('im:version').get('label'),
                    'rating': entry.get('im:rating').get('label'),
                    'review': entry.get('content').get('label'),
                    'vote_count': entry.get('im:voteCount').get('label'),
                    'page': page
                }
                for entry in data_feed.get('entry')
                if not entry.get('im:name')
            ]
            page += 1
        except Exception:
            return reviews


reviews = get_reviews('1234567')
print(len(reviews))
pprint.pprint(reviews)

Can someone help, Its not going beyond 500 reviews.How to get all the reviews

500 is the max Apple stores, you'll need to pull them periodically over time if you want to build up your own dataset of reviews

Hi I'm getting this output:
STARTED 1
STARTED 2
STARTED 3
STARTED 4
STARTED 5
STARTED 6
STARTED 7
STARTED 8
STARTED 9
STARTED 10
STARTED 11
1
[{}]

What's wrong? can someone help?

@dvlmcr69 you should change the country field.

 url = (f'https://itunes.apple.com/------> ru <-------/rss/customerreviews/page={page}/id={app_id}/sortBy=mostRecent/json')

such as us, ko, ru, ca

Does this script have the same purpose as the app_store_scraper library?
I see that the return comes different.