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It is not easy to find good apps. Is it possible with some other app website to only search within apps (list apps) that have at least 500k downloads and at least 10k reviews?

Something like make the Play store a database of app names with columns for reviewcount and downloadcount and do SQL commands with where clauses?

user12363
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8 Answers8

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I created this.

It's an advanced Google Play search engine, I wanted to create that a long time ago. Now, it's done

Since Google doesn't have an API for Play search, I use an open source scraper.

Almost all app specs can be filtered and sorted.

I hope you'll like it, and please let me know if you find any bug or have any feature request.

It's open source : KPlaysearch

Reddy Lutonadio
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KaKi87
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  • Search mask looks good (if you want some more ideas, here's my limited search, just based on the ~14k apps in my lists). Good job! – Izzy Apr 28 '19 at 21:21
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    Confirmed, at this very moment it works, thanks! Cleaning up comments then. // Good job! Upvoted, and already mentioned in my (German) Android eBook (in the new version just released a week ago :) – Izzy May 10 '19 at 21:04
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    I created an awesome list of free, ad-free and in-app-free apps for Android if that can help some of you ^^ – KaKi87 May 22 '19 at 15:34
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    Simply watch out for the apps with a star in my app lists for those. And definitely avoid those having "monitor icons" (or too big "numbers", aka "permissions", next to their names) :) But thanks! – Izzy May 22 '19 at 18:00
  • You shouldn't recommend people to avoid apps because of permissions count, because it's not always all right or all wrong : more permissions also means more features, so better user experience. I agree that permissions can sometimes reduce safety and privacy, but that's too much stereotyped today. – KaKi87 May 23 '19 at 20:21
  • Why not? A flashlight app requiring more than 2 permissions does something one wouldn't expect from it. And if there's another one coming with 2 or less but offering the very same features, this helps you chosing. I agree it's not "just numbers" – which is why you can check the details by clicking the app's name. (but as this is not a forum, let's not discuss this in depth here. Be welcome in chat :) – Izzy May 23 '19 at 20:43
  • I wish this also had a "min price" field. I have some credit left that I need to spend... – Michael Oct 16 '19 at 02:54
  • Here are better options : 1. Wait to have no choice but to pay an app — 2. Donate for an app you love — 3. Pay for an app you may have cracked but actually worth paying. Spending to spend is wrong and the shops are already efficient enough for that. – KaKi87 Oct 17 '19 at 05:57
  • Hi kaki, i need filter rating too + category – KingRider Apr 05 '22 at 19:44
  • You can filter by category and sort by rating. – KaKi87 Apr 06 '22 at 21:23
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I also created a similar application (http://play.gqqnbig.me/) to KaKi87's. Source code is at https://github.com/gqqnbig/advanced-play-search

enter image description here

Gqqnbig
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    Hey, you should update this with a checkbox that discriminates between PAID apps. Basically you want to mirror the categories that google has. Sometimes I want to find the best paid apps or free apps. – Tom May 30 '20 at 05:18
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    It would be nice if it had a filter of download numbers similar to rating. Eg 10000+, 100000+, 500000+, etc – LuxZg Jul 20 '22 at 13:42
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Since Google (and other search engines) index the web version of Play Store, a massive database of every element of the Play Store has been created and searching it is totally free!

On Google, you can refine web searches like using - to exclude words from the search, or .. for range search, etc.

As an example, to search for free apps that don't contain ads and in-app purchases: site:play.google.com/store/apps/details -"Contains ads" -"in-app purchases" -Buy Free

Andrew T.
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jortony
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    Unfortunately, Google sometimes returns other localized versions of the Play Store (like Germany, Espanol, French, etc. as shown on the URL with &hl=), and since different localization uses different keywords (e.g. "Contiene anuncios" instead of "Contain ads"), it might be hard to sort out the real result. – Andrew T. Mar 03 '19 at 07:09
  • that page claims I can put a dollar sign in front of a number to search for a price, but when I do this it only returns results with that number which aren't prices! I wish there was a way to search for a specific price for (for instance > $4.99 and < $5.25) – Michael Oct 16 '19 at 02:58
  • As mentioned before it's still not best, I tried a variant: site:play.google.com/store/apps/details/ -"Contains ads" -"in-app purchases" -Buy Free "1B+" "en_IE" "gl=US" but i still get manx duplicates and no way to sort and view in shorter list. Not only do languages play into, but also pagination. Unfortunately/details/ will also include /details?start=20 kind of pages . And adding this somehow skios many results (apps rhat should be there) : -inurl:start So not very useful :( – LuxZg Jul 20 '22 at 14:07
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App Finder is the most advanced search engine for Android apps.

It has 2,300,000+ apps indexed, with data for all 200+ countries/regions, many filters and search operators, and a very detailed result list with scalable screenshots.

For more information see the thread on XDA, and here. Available from Google Play here.

Disclosure: I am from Skyica LLC, the developer of App Finder

enter image description here

enter image description here

jake n
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Looks like what the OP is looking for can be done at AppBrain, using the &sort=popular URL parameter. See e.g. this example search for file sync: First result page mosly holds apps with 10k+ downloads with a good "internal rating" (they have their own "rating number" in addition to the playstore rating). Checking some, they seem to have 10k+ ratings on GPlay as well. Additional filtering is possible for free/paid, new/updated, app2sd, reduced price.

Though not being exactly what was asked for, I guess it's pretty close. Another good result list can be obtained with the &sort=highest-rated variant, which seems to sort by playstore rating: "file sync" by rating.

Izzy
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Couple of ways you could fine tune or eliminate this:

  1. Select the option to view English (or whatever your native language is) results only. I think this is in your search preferences; you may have to view the desktop version of the results page to get it.

  2. When viewing a page that seems to be from your locale, look at the & hl= and following text in the URL. Copy this to the clipboard. Then go back to the search results page and add inurl: then paste what you just copied immediately to the right of the : (colon). Make sure there aren't any spaces between the colon (:) and what you just pasted.

Darryl Goss
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This isn't another website, but https://github.com/sk1122/App-Searcher-and-Keyword-Seacher is a Django project which provides the software needed to self-host a website which does roughly what is needed.

Its models include reviews and ratings.

Besides Django, its scraper depends on requests and bs4. I don't see any other dependencies.

End Anti-Semitic Hate
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jayvdb
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You can use the pub: token to search for apps from a specific publisher. Maybe there are other supported tokens, I don't know.

Specify the full and exact publisher name, no quotes needed. It works both in the Play app and website, e.g:

pub:Dieter Thiess

WinTakeAll
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