images-scraper

Simple NPM package to scrape Google images using Puppeteer. The headless browser will behave as a 'normal' user and scrolls to the bottom of the page until there are enough results.

Please note that this is not an ideal approach to scrape images. It is only a demonstration to scrape images from Google. If you don't care about the source, it is probably better to use a different search engine with an API, such as Bing.

Installation

npm install images-scraper

Example

Give me the first 200 images of Banana's from Google (using headless browser)

var Scraper = require('images-scraper');

const google = new Scraper({
  puppeteer: {
    headless: true,
  },
});

(async () => {
  const results = await google.scrape('banana', 200);
  console.log('results', results);
})();

Results

node src/example.js

results [
  {
    url: 'https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/gettyimages-459761948.jpg?quality=85&crop=0px%2C74px%2C1024px%2C536px&resize=1200%2C628&strip',
    source: 'https://time.com/5730790/banana-panama-disease/',
    title: 'What We Can Learn From the Near-Extinction of Bananas | Time'
  },
  ...
]

Example 2 Using an array in a single browser instance (save resources)

Give me the first 200 images of the following array of strings from Google (using headless browser)

var Scraper = require('images-scraper');

const google = new Scraper({
  puppeteer: {
    headless: false,
  },
});

var fruits = ['banana', 'tomato', 'melon', 'strawberry'](async () => {
  const results = await google.scrape(fruits, 200);
  console.log('results', results);
})();

Results when using an array

node src/example.js

results[
  {
    query: '<Your query string>',
    images: [
      {
        url: 'https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/gettyimages-459761948.jpg?quality=85&crop=0px%2C74px%2C1024px%2C536px&resize=1200%2C628&strip',
        source: 'https://time.com/5730790/banana-panama-disease/',
        title: 'What We Can Learn From the Near-Extinction of Bananas | Time',
      },
    ],
  }
];

Options

There are multiple options that can be passed to the constructor.

var options = {
  userAgent: 'Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:64.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/64.0', // the user agent
  puppeteer: {}, // puppeteer options, for example, { headless: false }
  tbs: {  // every possible tbs search option, some examples and more info: http://jwebnet.net/advancedgooglesearch.html
    isz:  // options: l(arge), m(edium), i(cons), etc.
    itp:  // options: clipart, face, lineart, news, photo
    ic:   // options: color, gray, trans
    sur:  // options: fmc (commercial reuse with modification), fc (commercial reuse), fm (noncommercial reuse with modification), f (noncommercial reuse)
  },
  safe: false   // enable/disable safe search
};

Repl.it

Example to fork: https://repl.it/join/hylyxvxc-peterevers

Running this on Repl.it requires you to create a Bash repl instead of a NodeJS repl. Creating a Bash repl will provide you the Chromium dependency.

Heroku

To use this packages on Heroku, install https://elements.heroku.com/buildpacks/jontewks/puppeteer-heroku-buildpack . Then run.

npm config set puppeteer_download_host=https://npm.taobao.org/mirrors

And reinstall Puppeteer.

Debugging

Debugging can be done by disabling the headless browser and visually inspect the actions taken.

const google = new Scraper({
  puppeteer: {
    headless: false,
  },
});

Or by settings the environment variable LOG_LEVEL.

LOG_LEVEL=debug node src/example.js.

License

Copyright (c) 2021, Peter Evers [email protected]

Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.