AppGrab

One friendly CLI to search and bulk-download Android APKs (Google Play / APKPure / F-Droid / Huawei) and iOS IPAs (Apple App Store).

AppGrab wraps apkeep and ipatool behind a single, self-bootstrapping Python script. Point it at a search term and it grabs everything for you.

$ ./appgrab.py search "dubai rest" -p ios
→ Searching the App Store for "dubai rest" (limit=10) ...

   1. ae.gov.dubailand.selfregistration               Dubai REST (v7.2.1)
   2. com.deg.mdubai                                  DubaiNow (v14.6.30)
   3. com.bayut.bayutapp                              Bayut – UAE Property Search (v16.1.4)
   ...

Download all 10 apps to '.'? [y/N] y
→ Downloading 10 apps from the App Store (parallel=4) ...
✓ All downloads complete. Files in: /Users/you/apps

Features

• Two platforms, one tool — Android (.apk) and iOS (.ipa) with a single -p android|ios switch.
• Search or direct download — search a store and bulk-grab every result, or download a single app by id.
• Automatic fallback — if the Google Play / APKPure source can't provide an app (missing there, geo-restricted, or no credentials), AppGrab retries it from Huawei AppGallery.
• Cross-platform — works on macOS, Ubuntu/Debian, Arch Linux (and other brew / apt / pacman / dnf / zypper distros).
• Zero setup — the installer installs apkeep, ipatool and the Python env up front; anything still missing is detected and installed on first run with your permission. Re-run anytime with appgrab install-deps.
• uv or venv — uses PEP 723 inline metadata with uv, and falls back to a private virtualenv if uv isn't installed.
• No auth for free sources — Android defaults to APKPure; iOS only needs your own App Store account login.
• Pretty output — colored, script-friendly progress, and Ctrl+C exits cleanly without a traceback.

Requirements

• Python 3.9+
• uv (recommended, optional — otherwise a venv is created)

Everything else is installed on demand. AppGrab always asks before installing anything, and picks a strategy that works on your OS:

Dependency	Needed for	How AppGrab installs it
google-play-scraper	Android search	isolated uv env, else a private venv
apkeep	Android downloads	prebuilt binary (Linux), Homebrew, or cargo install apkeep
ipatool	iOS	prebuilt binary (macOS/Linux), Homebrew, or go install
Rust/cargo	only if building apkeep	brew / apt / pacman / dnf, else rustup
Go	only if building ipatool	brew / apt / pacman / dnf

Prebuilt binaries are downloaded straight from the official GitHub releases (with SHA-256 verification when the project publishes one), so most users never need a compiler.

Supported platforms

• macOS (Intel & Apple Silicon)
• Ubuntu / Debian (and derivatives)
• Arch Linux (and derivatives)
• Other Linux with dnf/zypper/Homebrew

Pass -y / --yes (or set APPGRAB_YES=1) to auto-accept every prompt — handy for unattended installs and CI.

Install

One-line installer (recommended)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iamhsouna/appgrab/main/install.sh | bash

Then run appgrab --help. The installer prefers an isolated uv tool install, falls back to pipx, then to dropping the single script in ~/.local/bin.

The installer also adds ~/.local/bin to your PATH (in your shell's profile) and installs every runtime dependency up front — the Python env with google-play-scraper, plus apkeep and ipatool — so the tools are ready immediately. Set APPGRAB_NO_MODIFY_PATH=1 to skip the PATH edit or APPGRAB_SKIP_DEPS=1 to skip the dependency install. You can install (or repair) dependencies at any time:

appgrab install-deps                # both platforms
appgrab install-deps --android-only # only apkeep
appgrab install-deps --ios-only     # only ipatool

Private repo? raw.githubusercontent.com needs a token. Use the uv one-liner below instead (Git uses your stored credentials), or run gh api repos/iamhsouna/appgrab/contents/install.sh -H "Accept: application/vnd.github.raw" | bash.

uv one-liner

uv tool install "git+https://github.com/iamhsouna/appgrab"

Manual / from a clone

git clone https://github.com/iamhsouna/appgrab.git
cd appgrab
./install.sh          # or: ./appgrab.py --help

Run it without installing anything (uses uv for an ephemeral env):

uv run appgrab.py --help

Usage

appgrab <command> [options]

Commands:
  setup         Configure credentials (Google Play AAS token or App Store login)
  search        Search a store and download all results
  download      Download a single app by bundle/app id
  install-deps  Install all runtime dependencies (Python env, apkeep, ipatool)
  update        Update AppGrab to the latest version

Common options:

Flag	Description
-p, --platform {android,ios}	Target platform (default: android)
-o, --output DIR	Output directory (default: .)
-r, --parallel N	Parallel downloads (default: 4)
--limit N	Max search results (default: 10)
-y, --yes	Auto-accept install/download prompts (APPGRAB_YES=1 also works)
--dry-run	List results without downloading
-s, --source	Android source: apk-pure, google-play, f-droid, huawei-app-gallery
--fallback / --no-fallback	Android: fall back to Huawei AppGallery when the chosen source can't provide an app (default: on)
--purchase / --no-purchase	iOS: acquire a license if required (default: on)

Android

# Search Google Play and download every result from the free APKPure source
./appgrab.py search "whatsapp"

# Only list results
./appgrab.py search "whatsapp" --dry-run

# Download a single app
./appgrab.py download com.whatsapp -o ./apks

# Use a different source
./appgrab.py search "fdroid" -s f-droid

Google Play source needs a Google email + AAS token:

./appgrab.py setup            # prompts for email + AAS token
./appgrab.py download com.whatsapp -s google-play

Huawei AppGallery fallback is on by default for the apk-pure and google-play sources: any app they can't provide is automatically retried from Huawei AppGallery (useful for region-specific apps). Disable it with --no-fallback:

./appgrab.py search "whatsapp" -s google-play --no-fallback

iOS

# One-time App Store sign-in (wraps `ipatool auth login`)
./appgrab.py setup -p ios

# Search the App Store
./appgrab.py search "dubai rest" -p ios

# Download a single app by bundle id (or numeric app id)
./appgrab.py download ae.gov.dubailand.selfregistration -p ios -o ./ipas

Downloads are saved as {bundleID}_{appID}_{version}.ipa.

Updating

Update in place — no need to re-run the installer:

appgrab update           # update to the latest version
appgrab update --check   # just report whether an update is available
appgrab --version        # show the installed version

appgrab update detects how it was installed and does the right thing:

Installation	What update runs
git clone	git pull --ff-only
uv tool install	uv tool upgrade appgrab (falls back to reinstall)
pipx install	pipx install --force git+…
single-file in ~/.local/bin	re-downloads the latest appgrab.py

For a private repo, updating needs GitHub auth: have gh auth login done, or set GITHUB_TOKEN.

How it works

1. appgrab.py carries inline PEP 723 metadata listing its Python dependency.
2. On first Android search, if google-play-scraper is missing the script asks, then re-executes itself under uv run (preferred) or a private venv at ~/.cache/appgrab/venv.
3. Missing native tools are detected by OS/architecture. AppGrab asks before installing anything, then tries, in order: a prebuilt GitHub release binary → the system package manager (brew / apt / pacman / dnf / zypper) → building from source with cargo / go (installing that toolchain too, if you agree).
4. Installed binaries land in ~/.local/bin (or ~/.cargo/bin / ~/go/bin), which AppGrab adds to PATH for the current session.
5. Search + download is delegated to the native tool, with JSON output parsed by AppGrab.

Config for the Google Play source is stored at ~/.config/appgrab/config.json (mode 0600).

Disclaimer

Download only apps you have the right to download, and respect the terms of service of Google Play, the Apple App Store, and the upstream tools. Use at your own risk.

License

MIT