pymal

Python access to MyAnimeList data. Objects are lazy-loading: MAL is only contacted when you first access a property.

Docs: https://varyg1001.github.io/pymal/

Install

The package is published as pymal-ng; the import name is pymal.

pip install pymal-ng      # or: uv add pymal-ng

Requires Python 3.11–3.14.

Quick start

from pymal.anime import Anime

a = Anime(52991)          # no network call yet
print(a.title)            # first access fetches from MAL
print(a.score, a.episodes)
print(a.genres)

With an account (private lists, add/update/delete entries). MAL's website login has a captcha, so pymal can't log in with a password; there are two ways:

from pymal.account import Account

account = Account("your-username")

# 1. The official API (stable; everything works). Create an app once at
#    https://myanimelist.net/apiconfig and log in once; tokens are saved and refreshed.
account.authorize("your-client-id")

# 2. Experimental: the cookies of your browser (status, score and progress only).
account.login_with_cookie("cookies.txt")     # an export of your browser's cookies

for entry in account.animes:
    print(entry.title, entry.my_score)
entry = Anime(1887).add(account)             # add to the list (Plan to Watch)
entry.my_score = 9
entry.update()

Anime, manga, search, seasons and anyone's public list need no login. See the account docs for the details and limits.

Also available: Manga, Seasons/Season, and search via SearchAnimesProvider / SearchMangasProvider. See the tutorial and API reference.

Development

git clone https://github.com/varyg1001/pymal
cd pymal
uv sync

uv run pytest                                     # offline tests; live account tests skip
MAL_USERNAME=you MAL_SESSIONID=cookies.txt uv run pytest      # include live account tests
# or MAL_CLIENT_ID=… MAL_ACCESS_TOKEN=…  (see docs/testing.md)

See docs/changelog.md for release history.

Credits

Originally created by tomer gelber and Aur Saraf (pymal-developers/pymal).

The 1.0 revival was done mostly with AI, to fix breakage from outdated dependencies and MAL's HTML changes.

License

BSD 3-Clause — see LICENSE.