How to Use the Chrome Extension Review Extractor

Before you start

• Awareness of safe usage:
  • Extracting too many reviews at once can cause Google to block the extraction.
  • Keep runs small, especially with popular extensions that have thousands of reviews.

Step 1: Provide your extension URLs

You must provide at least one Chrome extension URL. You can do this in three ways:

1. Paste a single Chrome extension URL.
2. Provide a Google Sheet with Chrome extension URLs (make sure it’s shared with “Anyone with the link”).
   → If you’re using a spreadsheet, the Phantom defaults to the first column (A). To use a different column, enter the column’s header name in the field “Name of column containing reviews URLs.”
3. Upload a CSV file with Chrome extension URL (CSV upload is only available on paid plans).

Step 2: Configure how many extensions and reviews to extract

1. Number of extensions to process per launch (optional):
   • Set how many Chrome extensions you want the Phantom to process in each run.
   • Default = 2. If you leave this field empty, the Phantom will default to scraping 2 extensions per launch.
   • Keep this small for safety, extracting reviews for 3+ extensions with very large review volumes in one launch is not recommended.
2. Number of reviews to extract per extension (optional):
   • Default = all reviews available.
   • You can set a smaller number if you only want recent reviews.
3. Sort by (optional):
   • Choose how you want the reviews to be ordered before extraction:
     • Recent → Extract reviews starting with the newest ones first.
     • Helpful → Extract reviews based on Google’s “most helpful” ranking.
   • If left empty, the Phantom will use Recent by default.

Advanced settings (dropdown in setup)

• Format JSON with flat formatting (optional):
  • Enabled by default.
  • It formats your JSON results so each review is on its own line, which makes the file easier to read and work with in other tools.
  • If you’d rather keep the standard nested JSON structure, untick this box.

Result file settings (dropdown in setup)

1. Name your results file (optional)

   • You can customize the file name.

     If you rename the file between launches, the Phantom will create a new results file and start processing inputs from scratch.

2. Fields to keep (optional)
   • Export only the fields you care about by listing them (comma-separated).
     Example: profileUrl, job, location.
   • This generates a second CSV file with just those fields.
   • Learn more in our guide: Customize how your Phantom results files are saved.

Step 3: Select launch frequency

Choose how often the Phantom should run:

1. Launch manually: Start the Phantom yourself whenever you need.
2. Launch once at a specific time: schedule a one-time run at a set date and time.
3. Launch repeatedly: schedule regular runs (e.g. once per day, several times during working hours).
4. Launch after another Phantom: chain automations together so this Phantom starts right after another finishes.
5. Advanced scheduling: customize the exact minutes, hours, days, or months when the Phantom should run.

→ For a complete walkthrough of scheduling options, see our guide to scheduling Phantoms automatically.

Step 4 (Optional): Advanced settings

Advanced settings are available if you want to fine-tune how your Phantom runs, but by default they’re already optimized for most use cases.

We recommend leaving them as they are unless a guide specifically instructs you to change something.

→ For a detailed overview of all advanced options (like execution limits, retries, email notifications, proxies, webhooks, and file management), see our Advanced settings guide.

Launch and results

When you’re ready:

1. Click Launch to start your Phantom.
2. Once it finishes, open the Results tab in the Phantom console to see the data collected.
3. Download your results as a CSV or JSON file.

→ To learn how to export your data to Google Sheets, integrate with other tools, or reuse it in more automations, check our Access and Export your Phantom Results guide.

Export and input limits on the Free plan
If you’re on the Free plan or Free trial, some features are limited:
- CSV exports include only the first 10 rows of results.
- CSV download links (for dynamic viewing in Google Sheets or integrations) are not available.
- JSON exports are not available.
- CSV upload as an input method is not supported.
To unlock all features, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.

What you give (Input) and What you get (Output)

This section gives you a detailed breakdown of everything you need to provide to run this Phantom, and everything you’ll receive once it completes.

What you give (Input)

What you get (Output)

Tips and troubleshooting

Common pitfalls

• Using a private spreadsheet (make sure it’s set to “Anyone with the link”).
• Too many reviews at once → extracting large extensions with tens of thousands of reviews in a single launch can lead to blocking or failed runs. Keep the batch size small and use repeated launches.
• No reviewer contact details → This Phantom extracts review content, but it does not collect the personal contact details of the people leaving those reviews.

If you run into errors or account issues

• Check how to troubleshoot your phantom using Logs.
• Browse the Fix Issues & Troubleshoot Errors section for solutions to common problems.
• Review our Automation Rate Limits by Platform guide.
• Check our Best Practices for Social Media Automation guide.

Suggested automations

After extracting Chrome extension reviews, you can:

• Analyze reviews at scale → Use the AI Advanced Enricher to interpret comments, detect sentiment, and identify common themes.
• Explore related business data → Combine with Google Maps Search to Contact Data to find business contact information for outreach or competitor research.