[BUG] 'appId': None in some apps even if it's existing in browser

[liranjp]

Library version
1.2.7

Describe the bug
The 'appId' (and also the url) doesn't get returned for the most popular app returned from the webpage. For example some specific search like (amazon/whatsapp) will have a webpage that the main app is (amazon shopping / whatsapp messanger) but for those the appid/url are none.
Rest of the apps in the page returned fine. This happens only when the webpage looks like the following:

This won't happen when you search some generic search query like the following:

Code

from google_play_scraper import search

def get_app_details():
    query = "whatsapp"   # 🔍 Hardcoded query
    max_results = 30

    print(f"🔍 Searching Google Play Store for: {query}")

    results = search(query, lang='en', country='us', n_hits=max_results)

    apps = []
    for app in results:
        title = app.get('title', 'Unknown')
        category = app.get('genre', 'Unknown')

        # Some versions return appId, some return url only
        app_id = app.get('appId')
        url = app.get('url')

        # Try to reconstruct missing data
        if not app_id and url and "id=" in url:
            app_id = url.split("id=")[-1]
        elif not app_id and 'https://play.google.com' not in str(url):
            # Some versions return a partial path instead of full URL
            if isinstance(url, str) and "id=" in url:
                app_id = url.split("id=")[-1]

        # If still missing, try guessing from title (not ideal but fallback)
        if not app_id:
            app_id = "Unknown"

        # Construct URL if missing
        if not url or url == "None" or not isinstance(url, str):
            if app_id != "Unknown":
                url = f"https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id={app_id}"
            else:
                url = "Unknown"

        apps.append((title, app_id, category, url))

    # Print results
    print("\n📱 Apps Found:")
    for title, app_id, category, url in apps:
        print(f"- {title}\n  ID: {app_id}\n  Category: {category}\n  URL: {url}\n")

    return apps


if __name__ == "__main__":
    get_app_details()

Expected behavior
it should return the appid/url just like any other app
Additional context

[sfischerw]

I can confirm this bug as well 😯

Library version

• Library version: 1.2.6 (though requirements.txt specifies 1.2.7)
• Using the library via a Flask API endpoint

Describe the bug

1. The first search result always has appId: None regardless of the search query
2. This is consistently the most relevant/primary result (the app I am actually searching for)
3. The subsequent results (positions 1-18) have valid appIds

Impact:

• If searching for a specific app and selecting only that app, 0 apps are retrieved
• If selecting multiple apps, the count is correct but the first app is missing from results

Expected Behavior:

• All apps returned from search() should have valid appId values
• The first/featured app should return a proper appId (e.g., "com.therealreal.app", "com.whatnot_mobile") just like the other results

[mrbuslov]

Hello gentlemen
I fixed this issue and created my pr, so you can install my version of forked library - #239
#239

It works for me like this:

from google_play_scraper import search

result = search(
    "Colorwood Sort Puzzle Game",
    lang="en",  # defaults to 'en'
    country="us",  # defaults to 'us'
    n_hits=3  # defaults to 30 (= Google's maximum)
)
print([i['appId'] for i in result])

[liranjp]

@mrbuslov fantastic!

could you please elaborate how to use the fork mode?
is this correct:

pip uninstall google-play-scraper -y
pip install git+https://github.com/mrbuslov/google-play-scraper.git@fix/app-id-is-empty --break-system-packages

[mrbuslov]

@liranjp yes, that's correct!
Did it work for you?

[liranjp]

@liranjp yes, that's correct! Did it work for you?

@mrbuslov Currently did this on QA env. seems to be working. will let the QA team do their work and then do the same on our production env.

Hopefully we will not deal with more issues like this in the near future :)

[AjaXsb]

close issue