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Version: 3.1

Overview

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The Apify API client for Python is the official library to access the Apify REST API from your Python applications. It provides useful features like automatic retries and convenience functions that improve the experience of using the Apify API.

The client simplifies interaction with the Apify platform by providing:

  • Intuitive methods for working with Actors, Datasets, Key-value stores, and other Apify resources
  • Both synchronous and asynchronous interfaces for flexible integration
  • Built-in retries with exponential backoff for failed requests
  • Comprehensive API coverage with JSON encoding (UTF-8) for all requests and responses

Prerequisites

apify-client requires Python 3.11 or higher. Python is available for download on the official website. Check your current Python version by running:

python --version

Installation

The Apify client is available as the apify-client package on PyPI or on conda-forge.

pip install apify-client

For better request-body compression, opt in to brotli, which compresses better than gzip, especially for large payloads. Install the optional extra:

pip install "apify-client[brotli]"
Extras on conda-forge

Conda doesn't support optional extras. On conda-forge, install the brotli-python package directly alongside the client. It provides the same brotli module as the PyPI extra.

For details, see HTTP compression.

Quick example

The following example shows how to run an Actor and retrieve its results:

from apify_client import ApifyClientAsync

# You can find your API token at https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations.
TOKEN = 'MY-APIFY-TOKEN'


async def main() -> None:
    apify_client = ApifyClientAsync(TOKEN)

    # Start an Actor and wait for it to finish.
    actor_client = apify_client.actor('john-doe/my-cool-actor')
    call_result = await actor_client.call()

    if call_result is None:
        print('Actor run failed.')
        return

    # Fetch results from the Actor run's default dataset.
    dataset_client = apify_client.dataset(call_result.default_dataset_id)
    list_items_result = await dataset_client.list_items()
    print(f'Dataset: {list_items_result}')

You can find your API token in the Integrations section of Apify Console. See the Quick start guide for more details on authentication.