Downloading App Store Reviews Using App Store Connect API

How to Download App Store Reviews with the App Store Connect API automatically

App Store Logo

Introduction

Why App Store Reviews Are Important

In today’s competitive app market, user feedback is crucial for the success of any application. App Store reviews provide valuable insights into user satisfaction, app performance, and potential areas for improvement. By analyzing these reviews, developers and product managers can gain a better understanding of what users like and dislike, leading to more informed decisions on feature updates, bug fixes, and overall app enhancement. Positive reviews can boost an app’s visibility and credibility while addressing negative feedback can prevent user churn and improve user retention.

Examining Reviews in App Store Connect One by One Is Not an Easy Task

While App Store Connect provides a platform for developers to manage their app submissions, sales, and user feedback, manually examining each review can be a daunting task, especially for apps with a large user base. Sorting through hundreds or thousands of reviews to identify trends or critical issues can be time-consuming and inefficient. This is where automating the process using the App Store Connect API becomes invaluable. By programmatically retrieving and analyzing reviews, developers can save time and focus on what truly matters — enhancing their app based on user feedback.

Getting Started with the App Store Connect API

AppStoreConnect has good API documentation to explain how can you authenticate and list all the reviews. In this article, we will combine those informations and will have simple scripts to manage this process easily.

To begin downloading App Store reviews using the App Store Connect API, you will need to set up a few prerequisites and follow some steps. This guide will walk you through the process, ensuring you can efficiently retrieve and manage your app reviews. You can get your review in JSON and CSV formats using this article. Even you can export CSV to an Excel Spreadsheet and investigate reviews easily.

Step 1: Set Up Your App Store Connect API Key

First, you need to generate an API key in your App Store Connect account. This key will allow you to authenticate and interact with the App Store Connect API.

1. Log in to App Store Connect: Visit App Store Connect and log in with your Apple ID.
2. Navigate to Users and Access: In the main dashboard, go to “Users and Access.”
3. Create API Key: Under the “Integrations” tab, click on the “+” button to create a new API key. Provide a name for your key, assign the necessary roles (such as Developer), and click “Generate.” Download the key file and note down the key ID, issuer ID, and private key. You can’t reach the private key after that, so save it in a secure place.

App Store Connect API Keys

Step 2: Install Dependencies

In this article, we will use 2 python scripts to achieve our goal. That’s why we need to install some python dependencies to connect with App Store Connect API. Here’s a basic setup using Python:

pip install requests jwt python-csv

If you have only Python3 installation on your Mac, like I do, you can use pip3.

pip3 install requests jwt python-csv

This will install our Request and JWT dependencies.

If you have only the python3 installation on your device, you may use python3 command instead of python, pip3 instead of pip.

Step 3: Generate a JWT Token

The App Store Connect API requires JWT (JSON Web Token) for authentication. Here’s how you can generate a JWT token using Python:

You can download and run the gist I shared above in your terminal to obtain the JWT token.

 python JWTTokenGeneratorForAppStoreConnect.py

Remember that JWT will expire in 20 minutes. You need to regenerate once it is expired.

Step 4: Make API Requests to Retrieve Reviews

Now that you have your JWT token, you can use it to make requests to the App Store Connect API and download app reviews. Here’s an example of how to do this:

Once you run the gist above with python DownloadAppStoreReviews.py it will ask you the following arguments in this order:

• App Id: App Id in the App Store connect.
• JWT token: JWT token you will get from the previous script.
• Download all: Downloading all of the reviews or just the first pagination.
• Export format: This script can export reviews in JSON and CSV formats.

AppId can be easily obtained from App Store Connect. Once you open your app details you can see the App ID in the link.

How to get App Id

Keep in mind that downloading all the reviews can take time regarding your App Review count and your internet connection. We have more than 34K reviews in the AutoScout24 application so it takes about 5–6 minutes to download all of them 🙂. I also add a nice progress print for you to see the progress.

Conclusion

Downloading App Store reviews using the App Store Connect API simplifies the process of managing user feedback. By automating review retrieval, developers and product managers can efficiently analyze user sentiment, identify common issues, and prioritize enhancements. This approach not only saves time but also empowers developers and product managers to make data-driven decisions to improve their app’s quality and user satisfaction.