YouTube Scraper: videos, transcripts and comments without an API key

Get YouTube data as a table: the videos of a search, a channel, a playlist or a list of video URLs, each with title, views, likes, publish date, duration, description, tags and channel. Add subscriber and comment counts, a transcript (timed segments, plain text, SRT or WebVTT), or comments when you need them. No YouTube account or Data API key. Export to Excel, CSV or JSON, or read it through the API.

$0.50 per 1,000 rows (videos or comments), transcripts $0.30 per 1,000 videos, no start fee, platform usage and proxies included.

What you get

One row per video:

Field	Example
id, url, title	_uQrJ0TkZlc, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uQrJ0TkZlc, Python Full Course for Beginners
channelName, channelId, channelUrl	Programming with Mosh, UCWv7vMbMWH4-V0ZXdmDpPBA, …
subscriberCount (optional)	5160000 when counts or comments are requested, or from a channel source; otherwise often null
publishedAt, publishedText	2019-02-18T07:00:08-08:00, 7 years ago
category, isUnlisted	Education; isUnlisted appears when YouTube marks a video unlisted
durationText, durationSeconds	6:14:07, 22447
viewCount, likeCount	49062038, 1270677
commentCount (optional)	63000 with counts or comments on; otherwise usually null
description, keywords	full description, video tags
thumbnailUrl, isShort, isLive, isLiveContent, ageRestricted	isLive = live right now, isLiveContent = a stream, current or past
transcript, transcriptText, transcriptLanguage	4,530 timed segments, the whole text, en English
transcriptSrt or transcriptVtt	the same subtitles as an SRT or WebVTT file, with Transcript format set to SRT or WebVTT
searchQuery, inputUrl	where the video came from

With Max comments per video above 0, comments come as extra rows with type = comment: id, text, author, authorChannelId, authorUrl, authorAvatar, publishedText, likeCount, replyCount, isVerified, isCreator, plus videoId, videoUrl and videoTitle of the video they belong to. Top comments or newest first. Max replies per comment adds the replies as rows too, right after their comment, with parentId and replyLevel = 1.

With Include channel records on, every channel gets one row with type = channel: id, handle, name, description, country, joinedAt, viewCount (all-time), videoCount, subscriberCount, links (Twitter, Instagram, website … as {title, url}), avatar, channelKeywords. Channel URLs get their own channel; searches and playlists get every channel that appears, once per run.

Likes, exact publish date and time, category, full description and tags need Include video details (on by default, one small request per video). In an ordinary keyword search, subscriberCount and commentCount are usually null. Turn on Include subscriber and comment counts for both (one larger request per video, no surcharge); collecting comments also fills them. Channel sources carry the subscriber count anyway. With details off you get the listing fields only (title, channel, views, relative date, duration), about twice as fast.

Sources

• Search queries: one per line. Filter by upload date (last hour to this year) and order by relevance, upload date, views or rating.
• Channel URLs: youtube.com/@handle, /channel/UC…, /c/name, /user/name. Add /videos, /shorts or /streams to pick the tab, or set Channel content. Newest first as on the channel page, or set Channel video order to Popular (most viewed first) or Oldest.
• Playlist URLs: youtube.com/playlist?list=…. A channel's uploads playlist (UU + channel ID) works too.
• Video URLs: youtube.com/watch?v=…, youtu.be/…, /shorts/…, /live/….
• Search result URLs copied from the browser.

Max videos per source caps each search, channel or playlist. A search page holds about 20 videos; channels and playlists page 30 at a time and can go into the thousands.

Use cases

• Research and monitoring: every new video on a topic this week, with views and likes, into a sheet; a competitor's channel, every Monday.
• Transcripts for AI: full subtitles of a channel or a search as plain text for summaries, RAG, translation or content repurposing. One run, one JSON. As SRT or WebVTT they drop straight into a video editor, a player or a subtitle workflow.
• Channel audits: a channel's all-time hits (most viewed first) or its earliest uploads, with views, dates and lengths, for competitor research and content strategy.
• Comment analysis: the top or newest comments of a launch video, an ad or a podcast episode, with likes and authors, for sentiment and feedback mining.
• Lead generation and outreach: channels talking about your niche, their size, and the authors of the most liked comments.
• Content planning: the most viewed videos for a keyword in the last month, their length, tags and titles.

Examples

Fifty most viewed Python tutorials of this month with transcripts:

{ "searchQueries": ["python tutorial"], "sortBy": "views", "uploadDate": "month", "maxVideos": 50, "transcript": true }

Latest 200 videos of a channel, listing fields only (fast):

{ "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd/videos" }], "maxVideos": 200, "scrapeDetails": false }

The 20 most viewed videos of a channel with SRT subtitles:

{ "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@veritasium" }], "channelSort": "popular", "maxVideos": 20, "transcript": true, "transcriptFormat": "srt" }

The newest 500 comments of one video, with up to 5 replies each:

{ "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" }], "maxComments": 500, "maxReplies": 5, "commentsSort": "newest" }

Channel record plus the latest 50 videos of three channels:

{ "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd" }, { "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@NASA" }, { "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@veritasium" }], "maxVideos": 50, "channelDetails": true }

Verified output row from the 19 September 2026 preview run (shortened; Include subscriber and comment counts and Include transcript enabled):

{
  "type": "video",
  "id": "_uQrJ0TkZlc",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uQrJ0TkZlc",
  "title": "Python Full Course for Beginners",
  "channelName": "Programming with Mosh",
  "channelId": "UCWv7vMbMWH4-V0ZXdmDpPBA",
  "subscriberCount": 5160000,
  "publishedAt": "2019-02-18T07:00:08-08:00",
  "category": "Education",
  "durationSeconds": 22447,
  "viewCount": 49062038,
  "likeCount": 1270677,
  "commentCount": 63000,
  "transcriptLanguage": "en English"
}

This row also contained 4,530 timed transcript segments and 263,320 characters of transcriptText; they are omitted above for readability. Counts are a snapshot and can change.

Separate video, comment and channel exports

The default dataset always contains the same type: video, type: comment and optional type: channel rows in their original order. Turn on Separate datasets by row type to also copy those rows into the run's Videos, Comments and Channels datasets. In the run's Storage tab, choose a dataset from the dropdown and export JSON, CSV or Excel. The switch is off by default. Copies do not trigger another row charge, but they use additional dataset storage and download transfer; large transcripts can make the video copy substantial.

Use it from code, n8n, Make, Zapier or an AI agent

• API: POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/alfalfa~youtube-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=… with the JSON input above returns the rows directly (runs up to 5 minutes). Longer jobs: start the run, poll, read the dataset. Any Apify client library works.
• n8n, Make, Zapier: add the Apify node, pick alfalfa/youtube-scraper, paste the same JSON input and read the run's dataset in the next step. See the Apify integrations docs.
• AI agents and MCP (Claude, Cursor, VS Code, ChatGPT): connect the Apify MCP server with this Actor as a tool, https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=alfalfa/youtube-scraper, and the agent can pull videos, transcripts and comments by describing what it wants. See Apify MCP docs.

Pricing

Event	Price
Video row	$0.50 per 1,000 ($0.45 / $0.40 / $0.35 on Starter / Scale / Business plans)
Comment or reply row	same as a video row
Transcript	$0.30 per 1,000 videos with a transcript, nothing for videos without captions
Channel record	$0.50 per 1,000 channels on top of the row, i.e. $1 per 1,000 channels in total on the free plan
Start fee, platform usage, proxies	none, included

Examples at Free tier: 1,000 videos without extras cost $0.50; 1,000 videos that all have captions with transcripts cost $0.80; 1 video plus 100 comment rows costs $0.0505; 1,000 videos plus 10 distinct channel records cost $0.51. A channel record counts as one row and has the channel surcharge. The transcript charge applies only when a transcript is saved.

Final Actor event price. The per-row price includes the Actor's platform usage and proxy costs; there is no Actor start fee or per-run minimum. Apify's own plan or storage charges, if any, are separate. The optional separate datasets do not add row events.

A run's Maximum total charge is honoured: the Actor stops before the budget, so the bill never exceeds it.

Search to transcript: a checked example

On 19 September 2026, a private preview run searched python tutorial with maxVideos: 1, counts, transcript, one comment and a channel record enabled. Its video row for _uQrJ0TkZlc had a title, views and likes, subscriberCount: 5160000, commentCount: 63000, 4,530 timed transcript segments and 263,320 characters of transcriptText. The run saved one video, one comment and one channel row. With separate datasets enabled, the three copies exactly matched the default rows. At the current Free-tier event prices, that public-run output would cost $0.0023: three rows, one transcript and one channel add-on. Counts change on YouTube; this is a snapshot, not a promise for every query.

Limits and honesty

• Public videos only. Private, deleted and members-only videos are reported as unavailable, not charged. Age-restricted videos return the listing fields and the details with ageRestricted: true; their comments and transcripts are not readable without a login.
• YouTube shows rounded counts in some places (21.2M subscribers, 2.4M comments); the rounded value is what you get. Views and likes are exact.
• Transcripts exist only where the uploader or YouTube's auto-captioning provided them. Live streams have none while live.
• Search returns what YouTube's search shows a visitor in the US with English settings: about 20 videos per page and rarely more than 500-600 results per query. Split by upload date for more.
• Comment replies come with Max replies per comment; they count towards the per-video comment limit.

FAQ

Do I need a YouTube API key? No. The Data API's free quota is 10,000 units a day (a few hundred searches); this Actor has no quota and no key.

Does it work for Shorts? Yes: Shorts URLs, a channel's Shorts tab, and Shorts in search results. isShort marks them.

Can I get subtitles in another language? Set Transcript language to a language code. Manual captions in that language are preferred, then auto-generated ones in it, then a manual track in any language, then the first track available. transcriptLanguage records what was used.

Can I download the transcript as an SRT or VTT file? Set Transcript format to SRT or WebVTT: every video row then carries the whole subtitle file in transcriptSrt or transcriptVtt (numbered cues, 00:00:18,640 --> 00:00:21,880), next to the timed segments and the plain text. Save the field as <video id>.srt or .vtt and it plays in VLC, YouTube Studio, Premiere or any player. Auto-generated captions overlap in time on YouTube; in the file each cue ends where the next one starts.

Can I get a channel's most viewed videos? Set Channel video order to Popular (or Oldest for the first uploads) on a channel URL; it works for the Videos, Shorts and Live tabs. Searches use Search order instead.

Is this legal? The Actor reads public pages the way a visitor without an account does and stores nothing but the results in your dataset. Respect YouTube's terms and copyright when you reuse the content, and personal data laws for comment authors.

How fast is it? About 100 videos with details in 20-30 seconds; listing only, several hundred a minute. Comments add one request per 20 comments, a transcript two requests per video.

Examples you can run in one click

Each example opens with its input already filled in and a sample of the results, so you can change any field and run it right away.

• All videos of a YouTube channel
• Comments of a channel's latest videos
• YouTube channel record and latest videos
• YouTube channel transcripts, every video
• YouTube comments of a video
• YouTube Shorts of a channel
• YouTube transcripts

Need something the examples do not cover? Every field is on the Input tab, and any example input works unchanged in an API call or an n8n, Make or Zapier workflow.

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