YouTube Channel Search

This Apify Actor finds YouTube channels from one or more search terms.

It is designed for batch use: add search terms in the Apify UI, paste one term per line, or upload CSV/TXT files. The Actor processes multiple terms concurrently and writes one dataset item per discovered channel as soon as each page is processed.

Input

• searchTerms: list of terms in the Apify UI.
• searchTermsText: optional newline-separated or CSV-style text.
• searchTermsFiles: optional uploaded CSV/TXT files. CSV files can use a searchTerm, term, query, keyword, or keywords column; otherwise the first column is used.
• maxChannelsPerSearchTerm: 0 means first page only. Any positive value follows continuation pages until that many unique channels are found per term.
• maxConcurrency: number of search terms processed at the same time. Default is 5.
• useChannelSearchFilter: optional second pass. The Actor always discovers uploader channels from video search first; when this is enabled, it also runs YouTube's channel-only search as an addition.
• dedupeAcrossSearchTerms: optionally emit the same channel only once across the full run.

Output

Each dataset item includes normalized fields plus the raw source object from the result that exposed the channel:

• Search metadata: searchTerm, rank
• Discovery metadata: discoverySource, and for video discovery, sourceVideoId, sourceVideoTitle, sourceVideoUrl, sourceVideoPublishedTimeText, sourceVideoViewCountText
• Channel fields: channelId, title, url, handleText, subscriberCountText, subscriberCount, subscriberCountIsExact, videoCountText, videoCount, description, thumbnailUrl, badges
• Channel details are always fetched and added at the top level when available: descriptionPreview, microformatDescription, keywords, tags, externalId, channelUrl, canonicalUrl, vanityChannelUrl, ownerUrls, rssUrl, avatarUrl, avatarImages, isFamilySafe, isUnlisted, isNoindex, availableCountryCodes, linkAlternates, and compact tabs.
• Raw source object: rawVideoResult for video discovery, or rawSearchResult for the optional channel-filter addition.

The raw source result is intentionally preserved because YouTube responses can expose fields that vary by query, locale, and UI changes.

Development Notes

This Actor calls YouTube's internal search and channel metadata endpoints directly with a web client context.

Run locally after installing dependencies:

python -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/python -m pip install -r requirements.txt
.venv/bin/python -m src

For normal Apify local runs, use the Apify CLI:

$apify run