How to get Google Images search results with an API (Python, Node or no code)

#webscraping #javascript #python #api

Google has no public API for Google Images search results. If you need images for a topic in bulk, with their full-size URLs, dimensions and source pages (for a mood board, a dataset, or to monitor where a product photo appears), saving them one by one from the browser doesn't scale.

This tutorial uses Google Images Scraper, an Apify actor I built. For each search it returns the full-size image URL, width and height, thumbnail, title, source page and website, at about 100 images per page. It has size, type and date filters, works for any country, and has an only-new mode for scheduled runs. The full examples are on GitHub: auto-actor/google-images-scraper.

What people use it for

Collecting reference or mood-board images for a topic, with source pages for attribution.
Monitoring where a product or brand image appears across the web, daily with onlyNew: true.
Building image datasets with dimensions to filter by size.

Input

{"queries": ["red sneakers"], "maxResultsPerQuery": 100, "country": "us"}

Field	What it does
`queries`	Searches, written the way you would type them into Google.
`maxResultsPerQuery`	The most images to return for each search (Google serves about 100 per page).
`country`	Two-letter country code Google searches from, e.g. `us`, `gb`, `de`.
`language`	Interface language code, e.g. `en`, `de`.
`imageSize`	`any`, `large`, `medium` or `icon`.
`imageType`	`any`, `photo`, `clipart`, `lineart` or `animated`.
`timeRange`	`any`, `day`, `week`, `month` or `year`.
`safeSearch`	Keep Google SafeSearch on.
`onlyNew`	Skip images already returned by earlier runs (remembered for 90 days in the `google-images-seen` store of your account). Ideal for schedules.
`debug`	Save raw HTML for debugging.

Python

"""Run Google Images Scraper on Apify and print the results.

    pip install apify-client
    export APIFY_TOKEN=...   # Apify Console -> Settings -> Integrations
    python example.py
"""
import os

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient(os.environ["APIFY_TOKEN"])

run = client.actor("daedal_quintuplet/google-images-scraper").call(
    run_input={
        "queries": [
            "red sneakers"
        ],
        "maxResultsPerQuery": 100,
        "country": "us"
    }
)

images = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items()
for image in images:
    print(image["position"], image["title"], image["imageUrl"], f'{image["imageWidth"]}x{image["imageHeight"]}')

Node.js

// Run Google Images Scraper on Apify and print the results.
//
//   npm install apify-client
//   APIFY_TOKEN=... node example.js     (token: Apify Console -> Settings -> Integrations)

const { ApifyClient } = require('apify-client');

async function main() {
    const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });

    const run = await client.actor('daedal_quintuplet/google-images-scraper').call({
        "queries": [
            "red sneakers"
        ],
        "maxResultsPerQuery": 100,
        "country": "us"
    });

    const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
    for (const image of items) {
        console.log(image.position, image.title, image.imageUrl, `${image.imageWidth}x${image.imageHeight}`);
    }
}

main().catch((err) => {
    console.error(err);
    process.exit(1);
});

No code: one HTTP request

Works from n8n, Make, Zapier or curl:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/daedal_quintuplet~google-images-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"queries": ["red sneakers"], "maxResultsPerQuery": 100, "country": "us"}'

What you get

One row per image:

Field	Meaning
`query`	The query that found it
`position`	Rank in the results
`imageId`	Google's image id
`title`	Title Google shows
`imageUrl`	Full-size image URL
`imageWidth`	Full-size width in pixels
`imageHeight`	Full-size height in pixels
`thumbnailUrl`	Google's thumbnail
`thumbnailWidth`	Thumbnail width
`thumbnailHeight`	Thumbnail height
`contentUrl`	The page the image appears on
`origin`	Website domain
`source`	Website name
`fileSize`	File size when Google shows it
`country`	Country searched from
`scrapedAt`	When it was scraped

Notes

Images belong to their owners; check the source page's licence before reusing one.
Google serves about 100 images per page; use several specific queries for more.

Price

$0.0021 per image ($2.10 per 1,000), paid per result, with no monthly fee. A 100-image search costs about $0.21. Apify's free plan includes $5 of usage a month, which is enough to try it.

Links: Store page · GitHub examples

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