Google Maps Popular Times & Live Busyness Scraper

Google Maps Place Data & Popular Times (When Available)

Get reliable Google Maps place data — name, address, category, phone, website, rating, open/closed status, coordinates and local time — and, when Google serves it to an anonymous page, the hourly Popular Times chart and live busyness reading. Google often serves signed-out sessions a limited view that omits Popular Times; the actor then returns an honest basic record (dataStatus: "limited_view", popularTimesAvailable: false) instead of failing or inventing busyness. Works with Google Maps place URLs, search links or Google Place IDs, in any country, with no API key and no login.

At a glance

What is Google Maps Popular Times?

Popular Times is the bar chart Google Maps shows on a place's page to indicate how busy it usually is at each hour of each day. Google builds it from aggregated, anonymised location data and expresses each hour as a percentage of that place's typical peak (100 = as busy as it gets). While a place is open, Google often adds a live reading that compares how busy it is right now with how busy it usually is at this hour.

Google withholds the chart from the limited view it serves to signed-out sessions (the same view that removes reviews, photos, price range, nearby places and Q&A). This actor does not bypass that gate: it returns the place's basic data with an explicit limited_view status, and only emits Popular Times when Google actually renders them.

What does this scraper extract?

• Basic place data for every resolved place — name, stable identity, address, coordinates, local time, category, phone, website, rating, review count and open/closed status, even when Google serves its limited view
• Per-day hourly busyness (0–100%) for every day Google charts — a full week in one request, when a full render is available
• Live vs usual (when Google publishes them) — Google's live percentage (currentBusyness) next to its usual percentage for the same hour (usualBusyness), plus the chart day and hour the reading belongs to
• Live label (when Google publishes it) — Google's wording such as "Not too busy", "Less busy than usual" or "As busy as it gets"
• Open / closed status — whether the listing is operating, temporarily closed or permanently closed, plus Google's open-now line (e.g. "Open · Closes 11 PM")
• Typical time spent when Google shows it (e.g. "People typically spend 30 min to 1 hour here")
• Business name and a stable place identity — featureId / cid (and the canonical ChIJ… placeId when Google shows it) for every place, including places given as search links or short links, so readings from different runs can be joined
• Listing details — category, address, latitude/longitude, phone, website, rating and review count
• Local time of each reading — the place's time zone, the local date and hour of the scrape, and Google's usual value for that hour from the chart (also when there is no live reading)
• Live vs usual, ready to compare — liveToUsualRatio and liveMinusUsual, plus liveReadingStatus explaining why a live reading is missing (closed now, open but no live data, permanently closed…)
• Newest reviews and closure mentions (optional) — the newest Google reviews with exact dates, flagged when they say the place is closing or closed ("final weekend", "it was closed", "permanently closed", in 11 languages)
• Run-to-run monitoring (optional) — with a monitoring key, each record compares the reading with the place's earlier readings: low-activity streaks, recent vs earlier live/usual ratio, listing status changes, Popular Times removed or changed, review-count change and new closure mentions. Limited-view readings are stored as basic readings and are not reported as a removed chart
• Every input accounted for — each place is returned, or (when enabled) reported as an unavailable-place record with the reason; inputs that turn out to be the same place as an earlier input are returned once, and every outcome (including such duplicates) is counted in a run summary

Use cases

• Place enrichment and lead lists — get name, address, category, phone, website, rating and open status for a list of Google Maps places, regardless of whether Popular Times render
• Foot-traffic monitoring — when Google serves Popular Times, track live busyness against the usual level across a fixed list of restaurants or stores
• Closure detection and early warning — find restaurants that have stopped operating while Google still lists them as open: closure mentions in the newest reviews, live readings that stay far below usual or are missing during listed opening hours, Popular Times that disappear, and listings that turn "Temporarily closed" / "Permanently closed"
• Site selection and competitor research — compare busy hours of competing locations when the chart is available
• Staffing and operations — plan shifts, deliveries and field visits around quiet and peak hours
• Travel and "when to go" apps — recommend the best time to visit restaurants and attractions
• Research and dashboards — build time series of busyness by city, category or chain

How to scrape Google Maps place data and Popular Times

1. Collect your places — copy place URLs from Google Maps or use Google Place IDs (ChIJ…).
2. Paste them into Place URLs or Google Place IDs and pick the Google Maps language.
3. Set speed and retries (optional) — places in parallel, attempts per place, time limit per place, and whether to output unavailable places.
4. Turn on closure monitoring (optional) — include the newest reviews and set a monitoring key.
5. Run and download the results as JSON, CSV or Excel, or open the Live monitoring or Closure signals view. Use a schedule with the same monitoring key to repeat the list and build a time series.

Input

Input examples

One place by URL

{
  "placeUrls": [
    "https://www.google.com/maps/place/McDonald%27s/@40.7577297,-73.9853627,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x89c2597777397641:0x4387a82ee10d3e3b!8m2!3d40.7577297!4d-73.9853627!16s%2Fg%2F11fld77pvs"
  ]
}

Places by Google Place ID

{
  "placeIds": ["ChIJaXQRs6lZwokRY6EFpJnhNNE", "ChIJabtoT7hlwokRLECK0SW3_8I"]
}

Live monitoring list (large, recurring) — run with 8 GB of memory:

{
  "placeIds": ["ChIJaXQRs6lZwokRY6EFpJnhNNE", "ChIJabtoT7hlwokRLECK0SW3_8I"],
  "maxConcurrency": 6,
  "maxAttemptsPerPlace": 6,
  "includeFailedPlaces": true
}

Closure monitoring (scheduled several times a week)

{
  "placeIds": ["ChIJaXQRs6lZwokRY6EFpJnhNNE", "ChIJabtoT7hlwokRLECK0SW3_8I"],
  "includeLatestReviews": true,
  "latestReviewsCount": 10,
  "monitoringKey": "vancouver-restaurants",
  "includeFailedPlaces": true
}

Localized labels

{
  "placeIds": ["ChIJaXQRs6lZwokRY6EFpJnhNNE"],
  "language": "es"
}

Output

One record per place. A real record for an open place with a live reading (with includeLatestReviews; chart and review lists shortened):

{
  "recordType": "popularTimes",
  "businessName": "Café de Flore",
  "featureId": "0x47e671d781fb9dab:0x18bba6dd45e173ff",
  "cid": "1782201546845549567",
  "googleMapsUrl": "https://www.google.com/maps?cid=1782201546845549567",
  "placeUrl": "https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=Cafe+de+Flore+Paris",
  "category": "Coffee shop",
  "address": "172 Bd Saint-Germain, 75006 Paris, France",
  "latitude": 48.8541588,
  "longitude": 2.3326046,
  "timezone": "Europe/Paris",
  "phone": "+33145485526",
  "website": "https://cafedeflore.fr/",
  "rating": 3.9,
  "reviewCount": 14535,
  "businessStatus": "OPERATIONAL",
  "openStatusText": "Open · Closes 1:30 AM",
  "isOpenNow": true,
  "liveReadingStatus": "live",
  "currentBusyness": 18,
  "usualBusyness": 21,
  "liveToUsualRatio": 0.86,
  "liveMinusUsual": -3,
  "currentBusynessLevel": "Not busy",
  "currentBusynessText": "Currently 18% busy, usually 21% busy.",
  "currentBusynessDay": "friday",
  "currentBusynessHour": 8,
  "observedAtLocal": "2026-10-09T08:06:10+02:00",
  "observedLocalDay": "friday",
  "observedLocalHour": 8,
  "usualBusynessAtObservedHour": 21,
  "popularTimesHasData": true,
  "popularTimesAvailable": true,
  "dataStatus": "full",
  "popularTimesSignature": "fe878c8c86fc16e5",
  "popularTimes": {
    "friday": [
      {
        "hour": 6,
        "busyness": 0
      },
      {
        "hour": 7,
        "busyness": 13
      },
      {
        "hour": 8,
        "busyness": 21
      },
      {
        "hour": 9,
        "busyness": 31
      },
      {
        "hour": 10,
        "busyness": 40
      },
      "..."
    ],
    "saturday": [
      "..."
    ]
  },
  "closureMentionCount": 0,
  "latestReviewAt": "2026-10-09T03:58:59+00:00",
  "daysSinceLatestReview": 0,
  "latestReviews": [
    {
      "publishedAt": "2026-10-08T22:56:12+00:00",
      "publishedAtText": "7 hours ago",
      "rating": 5,
      "text": "Ironic place with very good service and food.",
      "originalText": "Lugar irónico con muy buen servicio y comida."
    },
    "..."
  ],
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=Cafe+de+Flore+Paris",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-09T06:06:09.536970+00:00"
}

Fields Google does not show for a place are omitted — no null values appear in the dataset.

Limited view (Google sign-in required)

When Google serves its anonymous limited view, the place is still returned as a normal basic record. Only fields Google actually rendered are included; Popular Times are absent rather than estimated:

{
  "recordType": "popularTimes",
  "businessName": "McDonald's",
  "featureId": "0x89c2597777397641:0x4387a82ee10d3e3b",
  "placeUrl": "https://www.google.com/maps/place/McDonald%27s/@40.7577297,-73.9853627,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x89c2597777397641:0x4387a82ee10d3e3b!8m2!3d40.7577297!4d-73.9853627",
  "category": "Fast food restaurant",
  "address": "1560 Broadway, New York, NY 10036, United States",
  "latitude": 40.7577297,
  "longitude": -73.9853627,
  "timezone": "America/New_York",
  "phone": "+1 212-555-0100",
  "website": "https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us.html",
  "rating": 4.2,
  "reviewCount": 34567,
  "businessStatus": "OPERATIONAL",
  "openStatusText": "Open · Closes 11 PM",
  "isOpenNow": true,
  "observedAtLocal": "2026-10-24T09:15:00-04:00",
  "observedLocalDay": "saturday",
  "observedLocalHour": 9,
  "popularTimesHasData": false,
  "popularTimesAvailable": false,
  "dataStatus": "limited_view",
  "limitedViewReason": "google_signin_required",
  "liveReadingStatus": "limitedView",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.google.com/maps/place/McDonald%27s/@40.7577297,-73.9853627,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x89c2597777397641:0x4387a82ee10d3e3b!8m2!3d40.7577297!4d-73.9853627",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-24T13:15:00+00:00"
}

dataStatus tells you which path produced the record:

Unavailable places

A limited view that still resolves to a place is not an unavailable place: it is emitted as a normal basic record (see above). With includeFailedPlaces enabled, only places for which no place data could be resolved produce a failed record like this. It carries the Place ID or feature ID from your input when the input contains one, and has no attempts when the place was never started:

{
  "recordType": "failed",
  "placeId": "ChIJaXQRs6lZwokRY6EFpJnhNNE",
  "placeUrl": "https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=ChIJaXQRs6lZwokRY6EFpJnhNNE&query_place_id=ChIJaXQRs6lZwokRY6EFpJnhNNE",
  "failureReason": "notResolved",
  "attempts": 2,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-07T13:25:40+00:00"
}

Output fields

Hourly busyness format

Each day in popularTimes is an array of {hour, busyness} pairs: hour is 0–23 in the place's local time and busyness is 0–100 relative to that place's peak. Each day follows Google's chart, which runs from early morning through the small hours of the next day (for example 4 AM to 3 AM), so late-night hours appear at the end of the day they belong to. Hours with no data are omitted, and days for which Google shows no data (usually days the place is closed) are omitted.

The chart slot for the current hour always holds Google's usual value; the live reading is only in currentBusyness. In the example above, the Friday 8 AM slot holds 21 (the usual level) while currentBusyness is 18.

Place identity

A canonical ChIJ… token is reported as placeId and a legacy 0x…:0x… token as featureId; a legacy token is never relabelled as a Place ID. Google exposes a canonical Place ID for some places and only the legacy token (or neither) for others, so placeId is legitimately absent on many place records — the actor never invents or back-fills it. Records for unavailable places carry the identity contained in your own input.

Run summary

Every run stores a RUN_SUMMARY record in its key-value store with: places requested, records produced, places without popular times, duplicates, failures by reason, attempts, attempts that used a proxy, places not started because of the time limit, parallelism and run duration (plus places whose newest reviews could not be read, and the monitoring store name, when those options are on).

Closure monitoring

Google can keep a restaurant listed as open for a while after it stops trading, and diners often notice first, writing reviews such as "It was closed, looked permanently." or "Went on final weekend". This actor collects those signals, together with changes in live busyness and listing status, so you can review the places that need a closer look.

Recommended setup

1. Use stable inputs: Place IDs or place URLs (search links also work; every record carries a stable featureId / cid).
2. Turn on includeLatestReviews and set a monitoringKey (one key per list).
3. Schedule the actor several times a week at the same local hours, including each place's usual busy hours (see popularTimes) — a quiet reading at a quiet hour says little.
4. Enable includeFailedPlaces so every place appears in every run.
5. Review the Closure signals view, or filter on monitoring.signals.

Monitoring summary (monitoring)

Busy hours only. A low or missing reading at an hour the place is usually quiet says little (2% live when the usual level is 10% is noise; 2% when it is usually 79% is not). Streaks and medians therefore use only readings taken when Google's usual level for that hour is at least minUsualBusyness (default 30%). Readings at quiet hours are kept in the history but neither extend nor break a streak.

Reading the signals

• Sudden collapse: lowActivityStreak or openWithoutLiveDataStreak at the place's usual busy hours, often together with closure mentions.
• Gradual decline: belowBaseline over several weeks of readings at consistent hours, with a slowing reviewCountChange.
• Confirmed by Google: statusChanged / closedOnGoogle, usually with popularTimesRemoved (Google drops the chart from closed listings).

These are indicators to investigate, not proof: Popular Times comes from Google's aggregated location data, not visitor counts, single readings swing widely, and closure mentions are matched by phrase (each flagged review keeps the matched closurePhrase and its text so you can check it).

The history is kept in a key-value store named popular-times-monitor-<your key> in your Apify account (up to 500 readings per place). Avoid running two runs with the same key at the same time.

Speed at scale

Measured in October 2026 on 100 restaurants in 20 cities without proxies:

Each place also waits for Google to settle its place link (for a stable ID) and reads the listing details, which adds to the time per place above. includeLatestReviews adds one small request per place after the place is scraped; it never makes a place fail. These requests are paced (at most one every 2 seconds) and, if Google ever limits them, paused for two minutes rather than retried; RUN_SUMMARY counts places whose reviews could not be read (latestReviewsUnavailable) and such pauses (latestReviewsBlocked). monitoringKey adds two key-value store operations per place.

FAQ

What is the difference between currentBusyness and usualBusyness?

currentBusyness is Google's live reading at the moment of the scrape; usualBusyness is Google's usual level for the same hour, shown beside it. Both are read verbatim from Google — the actor never estimates or interpolates.

Why is Popular Times missing from my record?

Google serves its limited view of Maps to signed-out sessions (a sign-in gate). That view keeps the place heading and basic listing facts but removes Popular Times, reviews, photos, price range, nearby places and Q&A. The actor does not sign in or bypass this gate. A resolved place is returned as a normal basic record with dataStatus: "limited_view", popularTimesAvailable: false, limitedViewReason: "google_signin_required" and popularTimesHasData: false; no busyness is invented. Run again later or from a different network if you need to catch a full render. A limited view is not counted as a failed place.

Why is currentBusyness sometimes missing?

Google only shows live data while the place is open and has enough recent visits, and places without a Popular Times chart never have one. liveReadingStatus tells you which case applies; limitedView means Google withheld the module from an anonymous session.

What happens to live data when a business is closed?

When the listing shows the place as closed (outside listed hours, temporarily or permanently closed), Google normally shows no live reading and the field is omitted. isOpenNow, openStatusText and businessStatus tell you what the listing says.

Why can a closed business still show a small live percentage?

Google states that live busyness comes from aggregated, anonymised location data and does not publish its model. Staff, neighbouring businesses in the same building, deliveries or passers-by can plausibly produce small readings, especially in dense areas. Treat low single-digit readings as "near the floor", not as proof of customers.

How do I detect a drop in activity at a location?

Set a monitoringKey and run the same list on a schedule at consistent local hours. Each record then reports lowActivityStreak, openNoLiveDataStreak and the recent vs earlier median of liveToUsualRatio, with plain signals when they cross their thresholds. Sustained low ratios, or live readings that are repeatedly missing during listed opening hours, are stronger signals than any single value. Google's usual profile is a multi-month average, so it lags real change.

Can it find restaurants that closed but are still listed as open?

It surfaces the evidence: newest reviews that mention a closure (closureMentionCount, closurePhrase), missing or very low live readings during listed opening hours, Popular Times that disappear, and status changes between runs. Treat these as reasons to check a place, not as proof.

Why did a place's Popular Times disappear?

Check dataStatus first. limited_view means Google withheld the module from that anonymous session, not that the place has no Popular Times; the chart may return on another run. A full render (dataStatus: "full") can genuinely lose its chart when Google marks the listing temporarily or permanently closed or when the place has too little recent visit data. With a monitoringKey, the summary reports popularTimesRemoved only for a full render that no longer has a chart, not for a limited view.

Which phrases count as a closure mention?

Specific phrases that state a closure, such as "permanently closed", "it was closed", "out of business", "final weekend", "shame you're closing" or "will miss this place", in all 11 supported languages; Google's own translation is checked too. A bare "closed" (as in "closed on Mondays") does not count. Each flagged review keeps closurePhrase and its text.

Where is the monitoring history stored?

In your own Apify account, in a key-value store named popular-times-monitor-<your key> (the key is lowercased, other characters become hyphens, and the full name is cut to 63 characters). Delete the store to start the history again.

How stable is the usual profile between runs?

The weekly profile is Google's long-run average, so it normally stays the same between runs and only shifts when Google updates it; popularTimesSignature changes when that happens. The live reading, by contrast, can move a lot from hour to hour.

Which places have Popular Times data?

Restaurants, cafés, bars, retail stores, gyms, grocery stores and major attractions can have them, but availability now depends on what Google serves to the anonymous session as well as on the place itself. Small businesses, services without foot traffic and very new listings often have no chart. A limited_view record is not evidence either way; only dataStatus: "no_popular_times" from a full render is.

Which input should I use for reliable monitoring?

Use Place IDs (placeIds) or the full place URL copied from Google Maps. Search links (/maps/search/?api=1&query=…) work too, and the record then carries the place's stable featureId and cid for joining runs. A query with the name and street address opens the place directly. When a query matches several places, Google shows a list: the actor opens the listed place whose full name appears in your query (e.g. "ICHIRAN Shibuya" for "Ichiran Shibuya Tokyo"; for duplicate listings at one address, the one with the most reviews), and reports branches of a chain at different addresses as unavailable (notResolved) rather than guessing — add the street address to such queries. A short name-plus-map-position URL can be ambiguous when several places share a name, and Google leaves permanently closed places out of its search results, so such places can only be reached by their Place ID or full place URL. An input that cannot be matched to exactly one place is reported as unavailable (notResolved) rather than guessed.

Can it handle thousands of places on a schedule?

Yes. Raise maxConcurrency (6 with 8 GB of memory is recommended for large lists) and set a run timeout long enough for your list; see Speed at scale. The actor stops starting new places shortly before the run's time limit, counts them in RUN_SUMMARY and, with includeFailedPlaces, outputs a notStarted record for each. Split very large lists into several runs and schedule them at consistent local times.

What if none of my places can be retrieved?

If a run produces no place records and at least one place failed, the run is marked as failed with a status message saying whether the inputs could not be matched to a place or no place data could be retrieved. A limited view that resolves to a place is a normal basic record, so a run made only of limited-view places still succeeds. With includeFailedPlaces on, the failed records are still in the dataset.

Can I limit retries for places that fail?

Yes. maxAttemptsPerPlace and placeTimeoutSecs cap the effort per place, "No proxy" avoids all proxy usage, and inputs that do not resolve to a place stop after two tries. Enable includeFailedPlaces to get a record for every unavailable place.

Do I need a proxy, cookies or a Google API key?

No. Places are fetched directly first; by default only the last two attempts for a hard-to-reach place use Apify residential proxies. No cookies, Google account or API key are needed. Because the actor stays signed out, Google may serve the limited view; basic place data is still returned and Popular Times are emitted only when Google actually renders them.

Is a live label without a percentage still captured?

Yes. When Google states the live level only in words (e.g. "Currently as busy as it gets"), you get the wording in currentBusynessText and currentBusyness is omitted rather than guessed.

Why is typicalTimeSpent often missing?

Google shows visit duration only for some places, and rarely for restaurants. The actor only outputs the text Google displays.

Which languages are supported?

English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Arabic and Russian. Labels are accepted only when their localized meaning is recognized; otherwise the field is omitted.

Does this use the Google Places API?

No. It reads the same public Google Maps page you see in your browser, so no API key, billing account or quota is needed.

Data source

Public Google Maps web pages (google.com/maps). You are responsible for using the extracted data lawfully and in line with Google's terms.