YouTube Shorts Scraper: Shorts by Channel or Keyword

Scrape YouTube Shorts into JSON, CSV or Excel, from any channel's Shorts tab or from a Shorts search by keyword. You get one row per Short: title, URL, view count, thumbnail and channel, and on request likes, comment count, exact upload time, duration, description and hashtags.

• No API key, no quota, no login. It reads what youtube.com shows a logged-out visitor.
• By channel: pages through a channel's Shorts tab, newest or most popular first.
• By keyword: YouTube's search with the Type filter set to Shorts.
• Full details on request (includeVideoDetails): likes, exact views, upload time, duration, hashtags.
• Monitoring: scheduled runs that return only Shorts you haven't received yet.

This Actor is a focused version of the YouTube Scraper (same code). Use the YouTube Scraper if you also need regular videos, comments, playlists, hashtags or community posts.

What can you use it for?

• Trend research: which Shorts take off for a keyword, and who makes them.
• Creator analysis: a creator's most popular Shorts and how often they post.
• Competitor tracking: new Shorts from a list of channels every day.

Input

Field	What it does
startUrls	Channel URLs (youtube.com/@MrBeast, /channel/UC…): their Shorts tab. Single /shorts/… URLs work too.
channels	Optional: channel names or handles (nasa, @mkbhd).
searchQueries	Keywords to search Shorts for.
maxResultsShorts	Max Shorts per channel or keyword. Default 50.
sortVideosBy	Channels: NEWEST (default) or POPULAR.
includeVideoDetails	Open every Short for likes, exact counts, upload time, duration, description. Slower, same price.
onlyNewSinceLastRun + monitorName	Skip Shorts an earlier run with the same monitoring name returned.

{ "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast" }], "searchQueries": ["cooking hacks"], "maxResultsShorts": 200 }

channelUrls, youtubeHandles, keywords, maxShorts and sortChannelShortsBy are understood too.

Output example

{
    "type": "shorts",
    "id": "9btQkaci6kA",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9btQkaci6kA",
    "title": "How Zach King Gets Away With Doing Graffiti",
    "viewCount": 1000000000,
    "viewCountText": "1B views",
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9btQkaci6kA/oar1.jpg?…",
    "likes": null,
    "date": null,
    "duration": null,
    "channelId": "UCq8DICunczvLuJJq414110A",
    "channelName": "Zach King",
    "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq8DICunczvLuJJq414110A",
    "channelUsername": "ZachKing",
    "numberOfSubscribers": 43500000,
    "channelLocation": "United States",
    "channelTotalVideos": 866,
    "fromChannelListPage": "shorts",
    "order": 0,
    "fromYTUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@ZachKing/shorts",
    "input": "ZachKing",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-05T10:50:01.978Z"
}

The Shorts tab and search show only the title, a rounded view count and the thumbnail (viewCount is that rounded number); likes, date, duration, text (description) and hashtags are filled with includeVideoDetails and null otherwise. Rows from a channel carry the channel's subscribers, country and totals; rows from search carry the channel's name and id.

How much does it cost?

Pay per result, platform usage (compute and proxy) included. One result = one Short.

Apify plan	Price per 1,000 results
Free	$1.50
Starter (Bronze)	$1.20
Scale (Silver)	$1.00
Business (Gold) and above	$0.80

1,000 Shorts cost $1.50 on the Free plan and $0.80 on Business. includeVideoDetails does not change the price. Inputs that fail (a deleted video, an unknown channel, a URL this Actor doesn't take) produce no row and no charge, and so do rows skipped by monitoring.

Monitoring (only new Shorts)

Turn on Only new Shorts since my last run, give it a name and schedule the run. Each run returns only the Shorts no earlier run with that name returned; skipped Shorts are not charged. Works best with channels (newest first); search results reshuffle between runs.

Limitations

• Shorts tiles have no date, duration or likes. Turn on includeVideoDetails for them (about 2 extra requests per Short, so roughly 5-10x slower; the price per row stays the same).
• Shorts search ends after a few hundred results per keyword (YouTube stops paging). Use several keywords.
• A few search results can be regular videos when YouTube mixes them into the Shorts results.
• The Shorts tab has Newest and Popular order; there is no date filter for Shorts here (use the YouTube Channel Scraper or the YouTube Scraper with oldestPostDate for that).
• Playlists, hashtags and regular video URLs are not accepted: they are skipped and named in the status message.

FAQ

Do I need a YouTube account or an API key? No.

Is it legal? It collects publicly visible data. You are responsible for how you use it, including data protection rules for personal data.

Why did my run say "partial"? Some inputs could not be finished (for example the run hit its timeout). Everything scraped so far is in the dataset; the status message says what was missed.

More scrapers from the same developer

• YouTube Scraper: videos, channels, Shorts, comments, subtitles and community posts without the API quota
• YouTube Channel Scraper: every video of a channel with views, dates and the channel's stats
• YouTube Comments Scraper: comments and replies of any video, top or newest first
• Google Trends API & Scraper: interest over time, regions, related queries and Trending Now, a pytrends alternative
• Threads Scraper: posts, profiles, replies and keyword search on Meta Threads, no login
• Bilibili Scraper: videos, creators, full comment threads and danmaku from B站, no login
• Google Hotels Scraper: hotel prices from every booking site across dates, room rates and reviews
• Google Ads Transparency Scraper: every Google ad a competitor runs, with the real ad copy
• Threads Account Finder: Threads accounts by keyword with followers, bio links and the contacts they list
• Threads Hashtag & Keyword Monitor: only the new posts for your keywords and #hashtags, for scheduled runs
• Google Flights Scraper: flight prices, airlines, layovers and a cheapest-date calendar for any route

Feedback

Missing a field, found a bug, or need a feature? Open an issue in the Issues tab and I'll take a look. If this Actor saved you time, a short review on the Store page helps other people find it.