YouTube Channel Scraper (Official API) — All Videos & Stats

Bring your own free YouTube API key. Get any channel's stats (subscribers, total views, video count, country) and every upload with views, likes, comments, duration and tags, from @handles, channel URLs or IDs via the official YouTube Data API v3. $0.40 per 1,000 videos.

Bring your own free YouTube API key and export any YouTube channel and all its videos from the official YouTube Data API v3, with no scraping and no blocks. Paste channel URLs (youtube.com/@handle, /channel/UC…, /user/name), @handles or channel IDs.

• One channel row per channel: title, @handle, description, country, subscriber count, total views, video count, created date, uploads playlist ID, avatar and topic categories.
• One row per video: the channel's uploads newest first, each with title, description, published date, duration, views, likes and comment count, tags, category, thumbnails, live status and made-for-kids flag.

Set maxVideosPerChannel (0 gives channel stats only), publishedAfter to get only recent uploads (paging stops at older videos, which saves quota), and turn off includeShorts to drop Shorts. Use it for influencer vetting, competitor channel tracking, content audits and YouTube analytics dashboards. $0.50 per 1,000 channels and $0.40 per 1,000 videos. The same code also does video lookups, search and comments through the mode field.

Get your free API key (about 60 seconds, no billing account)

1. Open the Google Cloud Console and sign in with any Google account. Create a project (top bar → New project).
2. Go to APIs & Services → Library, search for YouTube Data API v3 and click Enable.
3. Go to APIs & Services → Credentials → Create credentials → API key and copy the key (it starts with AIza).
4. Paste it into the YouTube API key field of this actor and run. The field is a secret input: Apify stores it encrypted, and the actor never logs it or writes it to the output.

You do not need to add a billing account. Each Google Cloud project gets 10,000 free quota units per day, which reset at midnight Pacific Time. If you restrict the key, allow YouTube Data API v3 and leave out HTTP-referrer or IP restrictions, because Apify runs on changing server IPs.

How far your free quota goes

Mode	API calls	Quota units	Rows per day on 10,000 units
videos	videos.list (50 IDs per call)	1 per 50 videos	about 500,000 videos
channel	channels.list + playlistItems.list + videos.list	1 per channel + about 2 per 50 videos	about 250,000 videos
comments	commentThreads.list (100 per call), comments.list for long reply threads	1 per 100 comments	about 1,000,000 comments
search	search.list (50 per page) + videos.list	101 per page of 50	about 100 pages (5,000 results)

Search is the expensive call: YouTube charges 100 units per page. The run log shows an estimate before any call is made. If your key runs out (a 403 quotaExceeded error), the actor stops cleanly with a clear message, keeps the rows already delivered, and does not charge for the failed call. It never retries against an exhausted quota.

Official API only, and your data stays yours

• All data comes from the official YouTube Data API v3 (https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/) using your own key and quota. Nothing is scraped from youtube.com, and there are no proxies, cookies or logins.
• We never hold, share or pool API keys, and no default key is built in. ActorForge sells the API client; the data is fetched under your key.
• ActorForge keeps no copy of API data after the run. Rows go only to your run's dataset, which belongs to you. YouTube's Developer Policies require stored API data to be refreshed or deleted at least every 30 days, so set a retention period on your datasets or re-run to refresh them. Statistics such as view counts change constantly anyway.
• By using this actor you also agree to the YouTube Terms of Service. Google's handling of API requests is covered by the Google Privacy Policy. You can review or revoke your key at any time in the Google Cloud Console, and revoke API access for your Google account at Google security settings.

This actor uses YouTube API Services. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by YouTube or Google.

📘 Step-by-step guide: How to Get YouTube Data With the Official API (Free Key, No Code)

What data does it return?

Every run outputs clean, schema-validated rows like these:

type	title	handle	country	subscriberCount	videoCount	viewCount	publishedAt	channelTitle	durationSec	likeCount	commentCount	isShort
channel	Google for Developers	@googledevelopers	US	2680000	6118	362848729	2007-08-23T00:34:43Z
video	🧰 Builders building with Gemini Audio					3118	2026-10-16T21:00:00Z	Google for Developers	64	111	5	true
video	🎵 Turning motion into music with Gemini					7754	2026-10-16T16:00:00Z	Google for Developers	32	138	3	true

How much does it cost?

Transparent pay-per-event pricing — you only pay for what you get, and the actor always respects your run budget: set a maximum total charge and it stops cleanly at the cap instead of overrunning.

Event	Price	Charged	Worked example
video-result	$0.0004	per video row delivered (full details and stats)	1,000 videos = $0.40 (streamers/youtube-scraper: $4.00 per 1,000)
channel-result	$0.0005	per channel row delivered (stats, country, uploads playlist)	100 channels = $0.05; their videos are video-result rows
comment-result	$0.0005	per comment or reply row delivered (author fields stripped)	10,000 comments = $5.00 (streamers/youtube-comments-scraper: $20)
search-page	$0.002	per search page of up to 50 results that returned rows (search mode; it costs 100 of your quota units)	50 search results = $0.002 + 50 × $0.0004 = $0.022
apify-actor-start	$0.00005	per run per GB of memory (platform start fee)	One run at 256 MB = $0.0000125

Input options

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
apiKey	string	no	—	Required. Your own free YouTube Data API v3 key (starts with AIza). Get one in about a minute: console.cloud.google.com → create a project → APIs & Services → Library → enable "YouTube Data API v3" → Credentials → Create credentials → API key. No billing account is needed, and the free quota is 10,000 units per day. The key is stored encrypted by Apify, used only for this run's calls to googleapis.com, and never logged or written to the output.
mode	string	no	"channel"	videos: details and stats for video URLs/IDs (1 quota unit per 50 videos). search: YouTube search results, enriched with full video details (100 units per page of 50). channel: channel stats plus every upload (about 2 units per 50 videos). comments: comments on videos, author names stripped (1 unit per 100 comments).
channels	array	no	[]	Channel URLs (youtube.com/@handle, /channel/UC…, /user/name), @handles or channel IDs (UC…), for channel mode. Each gives one channel row plus its uploads.
maxVideosPerChannel	integer	no	100	Newest uploads per channel (channel mode). 0 = channel row only. Every 50 videos cost about 2 quota units.
publishedAfter	string	no	""	Optional date (YYYY-MM-DD). In search mode, filters results; in channel mode, only uploads on or after it (and paging stops at older videos, saving quota).
includeShorts	boolean	no	true	Channel mode. The API does not flag Shorts, so this uses a heuristic (3 minutes or less, not live): turning it off also drops regular videos that short.
videoUrls	array	no	—	Videos for the videos and comments modes: watch URLs, youtu.be links, Shorts, embed or live URLs, or bare 11-character IDs. Duplicates are removed. videos.list takes 50 IDs per call.
searchQueries	array	no	[]	One or more search terms (search mode). Each page of up to 50 results costs 100 of your 10,000 daily quota units, so a full key's day is about 100 pages (5,000 results).
maxResultsPerQuery	integer	no	50	Search results per query (search mode). YouTube returns at most about 500 per query. Each 50 = one search page (100 quota units).
order	string	no	"relevance"	search.list order (search mode).
searchType	string	no	"video"	video: video rows with full details. channel: channel rows with subscriber, video and view counts (search mode).
publishedBefore	string	no	""	Optional date (YYYY-MM-DD) for search mode.
regionCode	string	no	""	Optional 2-letter country code (US, GB, DE …): search results available in that country (search mode).
relevanceLanguage	string	no	""	Optional ISO 639-1 language code (en, es, de …): results most relevant to that language (search mode).
videoDuration	string	no	"any"	Filter search results by duration (search mode, videos only). short < 4 min, medium 4–20 min, long > 20 min.
maxCommentsPerVideo	integer	no	100	Top-level comments per video (comments mode). Replies are not counted here; they are capped separately by Max replies per comment. 100 top-level comments per quota unit.
includeReplies	boolean	no	false	Also return replies (comments mode), up to Max replies per comment per thread. Each reply is its own comment-result row, linked by parentId.
maxRepliesPerComment	integer	no	20	With Include replies on: at most this many replies per top-level comment (comments mode), so one huge thread cannot eat the run. 0 = no replies. Up to 5 replies come free with the thread call; more cost 1 quota unit per 100.
commentOrder	string	no	"time"	time: newest first. relevance: YouTube's top comments.
searchTerms	string	no	""	Optional keyword filter applied by YouTube to the comments (comments mode).

Limits & honest notes

• You need your own free YouTube Data API v3 key (see the 4-step guide above). Without one the run stops at once with instructions, and nothing is charged.
• Quota is per Google Cloud project: 10,000 units/day for free. Unit costs: videos.list, channels.list, playlistItems.list, commentThreads.list and comments.list cost 1 unit each, and search.list costs 100. A quotaExceeded error stops the run cleanly; rows already delivered are kept, and the failed call is free.
• Only public data the API returns for an API key: no private or unlisted-by-ID-only details, no dislike counts (removed by YouTube), no revenue, no watch time, and no subscriber lists. Channels that hide their subscriber count give subscriberCount: null.
• Like counts that the creator hides come back as null. Counts are YouTube's own; subscriber counts are rounded by YouTube to 3 significant figures.
• Free rows (type error) cover invalid inputs, videos and channels that are not found, private or deleted, and videos with comments disabled.
• You must refresh or delete stored API data within 30 days (YouTube Developer Policies III.E.4). We keep nothing after the run.
• The run's spend limit is respected: each page of rows is charged before it is delivered, and the run stops cleanly at the cap.
• The uploads list contains public videos only. A channel with no public uploads gives the channel row and no videos. Custom /c/name URLs are resolved as the @handle with the same name; if that fails, paste the @handle or channel ID instead.
• isShort is a heuristic (3 minutes or less and not live), because the API does not flag Shorts. Turning includeShorts off also drops regular videos of 3 minutes or less.

Related ActorForge actors

• YouTube Scraper (Official API) — Videos, Search & Stats — video details, YouTube search and stats by URL or keyword with the same key
• YouTube Comments Scraper (Official API) — No Usernames — comments and replies for any video, with commenter identities stripped
• Learn more: How to Get YouTube Data With the Official API (Free Key, No Code)

Changelog

• 2026-10-20 — Initial release: official YouTube Data API v3 client with your own key. Videos (50 per call), search with filters and enrichment, channel stats plus uploads pagination (@handle, ID, /user/ and /c/ URLs), comments and replies with author fields stripped, clean quota-exceeded stop, and pay-per-event billing.

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