Extract

Convert protected pages into structured data. The value is protected page access + extraction, not generic LLM parsing.

Methods

zenrows extract <url>                              # extract=auto (default), any prepared domain
zenrows extract <url> --autoparse                  # deprecated general-purpose Autoparse (any domain)
zenrows extract <url> --css '{"title":"h1","price":".price"}'   # selector map
zenrows extract <url> --outputs emails,links       # built-in output filters → JSON
zenrows extract <url> --output markdown            # Markdown conversion
zenrows extract <url> --validate                   # fail if not valid JSON

When to use which

• Extract (extract=auto, default): richest fields; works on any prepared domain (you can prepare one yourself, see below).
• Autoparse (deprecated): only with --autoparse. Never automatic; do not build new work on it.
• CSS: you know the exact fields/selectors and want determinism.
• Markdown/plaintext: feed clean content to an LLM yourself.

REQS007: prepare the domain, then extract again

extract=auto works on any prepared domain, and you can prepare one yourself. When Extract refuses a page with 403 REQS007, zenrows extract says which of three cases it is and prints the next step. It never retries with Autoparse.

Preparing a domain:

zenrows extract https://www.example.com/products/a  # 1. fails: EXTRACT_DOMAIN_NOT_PREPARED
zenrows extract prepare example.com \
  --url https://www.example.com/products/a \
  --url https://www.example.com/products/b \
  --url https://www.example.com/products/c --wait
                                                    # 2. prepare it and wait until ready (a few minutes)
zenrows extract https://www.example.com/products/a  # 3. extract again

• --url: 1 to 5 real pages you want to extract. One works; we recommend 3 or more of the same page type (e.g. 3 product pages), because Extract compares pages of one type to check the fields it found and fill in fields one page is missing. Several page types can share the 5 (e.g. 3 product pages + 2 search-result pages). With fewer than 3 the command prints a tip on stderr; it is never an error.
• Without --wait the command returns at once; then check about every 30 seconds with zenrows extract prepare status example.com until it says ready. --wait polls at the same pace.
• The domain is the host: shop.example.com and example.com are prepared separately, and a leading www. is dropped.
• Preparing takes a few minutes and costs no credits. Each new domain uses one slot of the account's monthly allowance; prepare status shows used / limit / remaining.
• EXTRACT_PREPARE_OUT_OF_ALLOWANCE: no slots left this month; use --css. EXTRACT_PREPARE_UNAVAILABLE: retry in a few minutes; do not loop. prepare sends each request once: --retries does not apply to it. A failed status prints the next step for its failure code and says whether the attempt used an allowance slot.
• A domain that is already prepared answers ready at once (already_prepared) and uses no slot: run the extract. If it then fails with EXTRACT_PAGE_NOT_RECOGNISED, follow that row of the table, not prepare.

Rules

• Validate on a single page before scaling across many URLs.
• Check empty in --json output: true means every field came back null or empty, so the result is not data.
• If a field is missing, switch to --css with explicit selectors. Auto mode already renders JS when the target needs it, so reach for --manual --js-render only after auto mode has returned an incomplete page: it costs several times a basic call ([[cost-control]]) and it makes the escalation yours.

See [[protected-fetch]] for retrieval semantics.