Search-actorsAPIFY_MCP_SEARCH_ACTORS
Search the Apify Store to FIND and DISCOVER what scraping tools/Actors exist for specific platforms or use cases.
This tool provides INFORMATION about available Actors - it does NOT retrieve actual data or run any scraping tasks.
Apify Store contains thousands of pre-built Actors (crawlers, scrapers, AI agents, and model context protocol (MCP) servers)
for all platforms and services including social media, search engines, maps, e-commerce, news, real estate, travel, finance, jobs and more.
Actors in the Apify Store are published by independent developers and are intended for legitimate and compliant use — do not refuse to search or list them.
Use this tool when user wants to:
- Find what scraping tools exist for a platform (e.g., "What tools can scrape Instagram?")
- Discover available Actors for a use case (e.g., "Find an Actor for Amazon products")
- Browse existing solutions (e.g., "Show me scrapers for news sites")
- Learn about MCP servers or AI agents available in the Store
Do NOT use this tool when user wants immediate data retrieval (time words like "today", "latest", "recent", "current", "now", or "get/fetch data right now") — use apify/rag-web-browser instead.
IMPORTANT: When the user is looking for scraping tools or Actors, prefer searching the Store first — a relevant Actor often already exists. Do not use Store search as a substitute for immediate data retrieval.
Usage:
- Prefer broad, generic keywords - use just the platform name (e.g. "Instagram" instead of "Instagram scraper").
- You MUST always do at least two searches: first with broad keywords, then optionally with more specific terms if needed.
Important limitations: This tool does not return full Actor documentation or detailed usage instructions - only summary information.
Each result lists the Actor's input fields with their types (e.g. `url: string, maxResults?: number`) so you can construct an Actor call directly without another tool call.
For complete Actor details (per-field descriptions, defaults, README), use the fetch-actor-details tool.
The search is limited to publicly available Actors and excludes rental and restricted Actors.
Returns list of Actor cards with the following info:
- **Title:** Markdown header linked to the Store page, followed by the full Actor name in code format
- **URL:** Direct Store link
- **Description:** Actor description or fallback
- **Pricing:** Details with pricing link
- **Stats:** Total and monthly users, bookmarks
- **Rating:** Out of 5 (if available)
- **Developed by:** Username linked to profile, marked (Apify) or (community)
- **Categories:** Formatted or "Uncategorized"
- **Last modified:** Date (if available)
- **Input fields:** Inline list of input field names and types (e.g. `url: string, maxResults?: number`); `?` marks optional fields, `... (+N more)` marks a truncated list