Apify Google Maps Photo Download

Bulk Google Maps Photo Download, One Row Per Photo

Every photo a place has on Google Maps, as structured rows: full-size URL, thumbnail, gallery position, and a stable ID you can dedupe on.

When to use this skill

• The user wants to "download google maps photos" for a business, or for many businesses at once.
• They need imagery for a directory, listings site, travel app, or training dataset.
• They want a "google maps images api" or "place photos api" they can call from code.
• They already have Google Maps URLs or place identifiers and want the galleries behind them.

Not for: Street View and 360 panoramas (use the companion apify-google-street-view-api skill), place details like ratings and hours (johnvc/google-maps-places-api), or review text (johnvc/google-maps-contributor-reviews-api). See references/actor-index.md.

What you get

One dataset row per photo. result_type separates the row kinds:

• image (full-size URL) and thumbnail (smaller preview of the same shot)
• position, where it sits in the place's gallery
• photo_id, stable across runs, which is what makes scheduled refreshes cheap
• data_id and place_title, the place the photo belongs to
• category_id when a gallery filter was applied
• one place_summary row per place with photos_returned, pages_fetched, and place_categories

It does not return captions, EXIF, contributor names, or upload dates.

Prerequisites

• Apify account (sign up at https://apify.com?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=awesomeskills).
• Authentication via apify login, or an APIFY_TOKEN environment variable (Apify Console, Settings, Integrations).

The Actor

• Store page: https://apify.com/johnvc/google-maps-photos-api?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=awesomeskills
• Actor ID: johnvc/google-maps-photos-api
• Pricing: pay per event; see the cost section below and references/gotchas.md for live-price commands.

Run it with the Apify CLI

One place by name:

apify actors call "johnvc/google-maps-photos-api" -i '{"searchTerm":"Mozart Coffee Roasters, Austin TX","maxPlacesPerSearch":1,"maxPhotosPerPlace":20}' \
  --json \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-google-maps-photo-download \
  2>/dev/null

Sweep a category across a city:

apify actors call "johnvc/google-maps-photos-api" -i '{"searchTerm":"coffee shops in Austin, TX","maxPlacesPerSearch":10,"maxPhotosPerPlace":20}' \
  --json \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-google-maps-photo-download \
  2>/dev/null

Skip the search charge with URLs you already hold:

apify actors call "johnvc/google-maps-photos-api" -i '{"placeUrls":["https://www.google.com/maps/place/..."],"maxPhotosPerPlace":40}' \
  --json \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-google-maps-photo-download \
  2>/dev/null

Confirm live pricing and the input schema before a large batch:

apify actors info "johnvc/google-maps-photos-api" --json \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-google-maps-photo-download \
  2>/dev/null

Every call carries the three flags this repo expects: --json, --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-google-maps-photo-download, and 2>/dev/null.

Run it from Claude or another AI agent (MCP)

The Actor is MCP-ready. Add the hosted server URL:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=actors,docs,johnvc/google-maps-photos-api

Then ask, for example: "Download every photo for the three highest-rated ramen places in Austin and list the full-size URLs." MCP setup docs: https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp

Workflow

1. Pick the cheapest way in. A Google Maps URL or a place identifier costs nothing to resolve; a searchTerm adds one search charge.
2. Bound the sweep with maxPlacesPerSearch (default 3, max 20) and the depth with maxPhotosPerPlace (default 20).
3. Run, then split rows on result_type: photo, place_summary, error.
4. Store photo_id alongside each image. On the next run, skip IDs you already hold.
5. Re-host anything you plan to display; the Google-hosted URLs can rotate.

Inputs

• searchTerm (string): a place name, or a category plus a city
• searchTerms (array): several searches in one run
• placeUrls (array): Google Maps URLs, parsed locally at no API cost
• dataId / dataIds (string, array): place identifiers you already hold
• maxPlacesPerSearch (integer, default 3, max 20): how wide a search sweeps
• maxPhotosPerPlace (integer, default 20, max 1000): how deep per place
• photoCategory (enum all, latest, videos, by_owner, street_view, menu, food_and_drink, vibe, default all)
• categoryId (string): a venue-specific section ID taken from a place_summary row
• hl (string, default en): interface language

Cost

Billing is pay per event, plus a negligible platform fee per dataset row. Prices below are the BRONZE tier at the time of writing; confirm live prices with the info command above.

• About $0.0015 per photo returned.
• About $0.012 per search term, and nothing when you pass URLs or identifiers instead.
• About $0.001 to start a run.
• A 10-place sweep at 20 photos each is about $0.32.

Suggested confirmation thresholds: warn the user over about $5; get explicit confirmation over about $20. Present cost as "around $X", never a guarantee.

Honest limits

• Gallery size varies enormously, from a handful at a small office to several hundred at a busy restaurant. Photos arrive in blocks of twenty.
• menu, food_and_drink, and vibe exist only on food and drink venues; the other five categories work anywhere.
• No captions, EXIF, contributor names, or upload dates, so there is no way to filter by when a photo was taken.
• No historical imagery. This returns the current gallery, not what the place looked like years ago.
• Image URLs are Google-hosted and can rotate, so hotlinking them long term is unreliable.

Troubleshooting

• Fewer photos than maxPhotosPerPlace: the place has that many, and photos_returned on the summary row confirms it.
• A category returns nothing: it is probably food-venue only. Read place_categories on the summary row to see what that place actually offers.
• Search matched the wrong place: add the city and state to searchTerm, or pass the Google Maps URL directly.
• An error row: clean failure, stated plainly; retry once before investigating.

See references/gotchas.md for cost guardrails and error recovery, and references/actor-index.md for the Actor routing table.

Related Actors

• Google Maps Places API: https://apify.com/johnvc/google-maps-places-api?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=awesomeskills
• Google Maps Contributor Reviews API: https://apify.com/johnvc/google-maps-contributor-reviews-api?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=awesomeskills
• Google Maps Directions API: https://apify.com/johnvc/google-maps-directions-api?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=awesomeskills
• Apple Maps API: https://apify.com/johnvc/apple-maps-api?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=awesomeskills