🎥 YouTube Comments Scraper

Quickly extract structured comment data from one or more YouTube videos — including comment text, author info, timestamps, votes, and raw fields.

Built to run as an Apify actor. This README shows a summary, inputs, outputs, examples, troubleshooting tips and proxy recommendations. 🔧

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✨ Summary

This actor scrapes comments from YouTube video URLs and returns structured JSON objects per video, including:

• 💬 Comments (text, id, author, replies, likes/votes, timestamps)
• 👤 Author info (author name, author id, author url, avatar if available)
• 🧾 Video metadata (video id, video url, title, best-effort commentsCount)
• 📦 Raw payload — the original raw comment object is preserved for every comment so you don’t lose any fields.

Key points:

• Input: one or more YouTube video URLs (startUrls).
• Optional: maxComments to limit how many comments per video are scraped.
• Optional: getAllComments to ignore maxComments and fetch all available comments.
• Optional: sortBy — top (highest votes first) or newest (most recent first).

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🚀 Highlights

• ⚡ Fast, structured output — one JSON object per video run.
• 🧩 Preserves full raw comment object for custom fields.
• 🎯 Exact maxComments support (when getAllComments is false) and getAllComments toggle.
• 🌐 Proxy-aware (Apify Proxy recommended for stability) — use RESIDENTIAL for best results.
• 🔁 Supports sorting by top or newest.

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🛠️ Example Input

{
  "startUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT4HcYAeV5U",
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6l0q4l2NLo"
  ],
  "maxComments": 100,
  
  "sortBy": "top",
}

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📤 Output

For every video the actor writes results both to the Apify dataset and to container files:

• output_<videoId>.json — full JSON object for the video (including comments array).
• comments_<videoId>.jsonl — newline-delimited JSON with one comment per line (good for streaming).
• Apify dataset entry for each video — downloadable from the Apify Console. ☁️

Example output (one video object)

{
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT4HcYAeV5U",
  "videoId": "wT4HcYAeV5U",
  "title": "YouTube",
  "commentsCount": null,
  "comments": [
  
  {
    "cid": "Ugxl_IUyS2PaN9t-_wV4AaABAg",
    "type": "comment",
    "publishedTimeText": "7 hours ago",
    "publishedTimeTs": 1759729079.617027,
    "comment": "Madhubanti + Rashmika = 🔥",
    "author": "@maddockfilmsindia",
    "authorId": null,
    "authorUrl": null,
    "authorThumbnail": null,
    "replyCount": 7,
    "voteCount": 5,
    "isHearted": false,
    "isEdited": false,
    "raw": {
      "cid": "Ugxl_IUyS2PaN9t-_wV4AaABAg",
      "text": "Madhubanti + Rashmika = 🔥",
      "time": "7 hours ago",
      "author": "@maddockfilmsindia",
      "channel": "UCGgi8DSEirlGCQ3B3bO5BsQ",
      "votes": "5",
      "replies": "7",
      "photo": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/bhYAlBYCO9k-CfeGL42c3db-vBGi-3vLwQFgXWrQgHAstpaqE5LxHdIHDYdJ0RVje0-v5j7RLQ=s88-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj",
      "heart": false,
      "reply": false,
      "time_parsed": 1759729079.616943
    },
    "videoId": "H6l0q4l2NLo",
    "pageUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6l0q4l2NLo"
  },
  {
    "cid": "UgxR7iZmrx-cvVYyIZJ4AaABAg",
    "type": "comment",
    "publishedTimeText": "10 hours ago",
    "publishedTimeTs": 1759718280.088529,
    "comment": "This song honestly has the soul of Aaj Ki Raat.\nFeels like Sachin–Jigar were asked to recreate that same vibe — and they pulled it off.\nJust try singing Aaj Ki Raat over this track and you’ll get exactly what I mean",
    "author": "@saho_x",
    "authorId": null,
    "authorUrl": null,
    "authorThumbnail": null,
    "replyCount": 1,
    "voteCount": 4,
    "isHearted": false,
    "isEdited": false,
    "raw": {
      "cid": "UgxR7iZmrx-cvVYyIZJ4AaABAg",
      "text": "This song honestly has the soul of Aaj Ki Raat.\nFeels like Sachin–Jigar were asked to recreate that same vibe — and they pulled it off.\nJust try singing Aaj Ki Raat over this track and you’ll get exactly what I mean",
      "time": "10 hours ago",
      "author": "@saho_x",
      "channel": "UCnVC00Vv0foM0EKkz6Y1iWQ",
      "votes": "4",
      "replies": "1",
      "photo": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/TUTguFWKoy3k8SUTycBbxzhJ3T7B6enA0MGQqsE77VSCl8YeL4p8dK9iZu1QZ5gqGj_IWqN3=s88-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj",
      "heart": false,
      "reply": false,
      "time_parsed": 1759718280.088388
    },
    "videoId": "H6l0q4l2NLo",
    "pageUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6l0q4l2NLo"
  },
  {
    "cid": "UgyDoXT2Qt9yi8s_K0V4AaABAg",
    "type": "comment",
    "publishedTimeText": "16 hours ago",
    "publishedTimeTs": 1759696680.562509,
    "comment": "Thama Massive Hit Hai 💯🔥",
    "author": "@KAMALBOLTAHAI",
    "authorId": null,
    "authorUrl": null,
    "authorThumbnail": null,
    "replyCount": 0,
    "voteCount": 2,
    "isHearted": false,
    "isEdited": false,
    "raw": {
      "cid": "UgyDoXT2Qt9yi8s_K0V4AaABAg",
      "text": "Thama Massive Hit Hai 💯🔥",
      "time": "16 hours ago",
      "author": "@KAMALBOLTAHAI",
      "channel": "UC7QK8aH2kx8kV3ZDb78gudg",
      "votes": "2",
      "replies": "",
      "photo": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/-dSC3L4wVQlPFXaE1DQ0pa861J_1gJmKr0whQ_OBAVuC_du6rp3UNXtb9mIImMk2akwNfj1-=s88-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj",
      "heart": false,
      "reply": false,
      "time_parsed": 1759696680.562357
    },
    "videoId": "H6l0q4l2NLo",
    "pageUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6l0q4l2NLo"
  },
  {
    "cid": "UgxjmCCpexYiRfqxtOZ4AaABAg",
    "type": "comment",
    "publishedTimeText": "52 minutes ago",
    "publishedTimeTs": 1759751159.068628,
    "comment": "🗿AAJ KI RAAT 2.0✅",
    "author": "@SANJAY_GALAXY_369",
    "authorId": null,
    "authorUrl": null,
    "authorThumbnail": null,
    "replyCount": 0,
    "voteCount": 1,
    "isHearted": false,
    "isEdited": false,
    "raw": {
      "cid": "UgxjmCCpexYiRfqxtOZ4AaABAg",
      "text": "🗿AAJ KI RAAT 2.0✅",
      "time": "52 minutes ago",
      "author": "@SANJAY_GALAXY_369",
      "channel": "UC1aOBn-22LWDKOXIEjWpaBQ",
      "votes": "1",
      "replies": "",
      "photo": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/PgPHT8B88ib2qteQGAaQe_zQWPs5D4hQHM6xlyBijbL0paF_AUO6VPdj0eH49QCT5o_5JiVa=s88-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj",
      "heart": false,
      "reply": false,
      "time_parsed": 1759751159.068529
    },
    "videoId": "H6l0q4l2NLo",
    "pageUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6l0q4l2NLo"
  },
  {
    "cid": "UgxieB4nLFkp3lMGhY94AaABAg",
    "type": "comment",
    "publishedTimeText": "7 hours ago",
    "publishedTimeTs": 1759729079.616322,
    "comment": "Aaj Ki Raat 2.0 ❤",
    "author": "@maddockfilmsindia",
    "authorId": null,
    "authorUrl": null,
    "authorThumbnail": null,
    "replyCount": 0,
    "voteCount": 1,
    "isHearted": false,
    "isEdited": false,
    "raw": {
      "cid": "UgxieB4nLFkp3lMGhY94AaABAg",
      "text": "Aaj Ki Raat 2.0 ❤",
      "time": "7 hours ago",
      "author": "@maddockfilmsindia",
      "channel": "UCGgi8DSEirlGCQ3B3bO5BsQ",
      "votes": "1",
      "replies": "",
      "photo": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/bhYAlBYCO9k-CfeGL42c3db-vBGi-3vLwQFgXWrQgHAstpaqE5LxHdIHDYdJ0RVje0-v5j7RLQ=s88-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj",
      "heart": false,
      "reply": false,
      "time_parsed": 1759729079.616239
    },
    "videoId": "H6l0q4l2NLo",
    "pageUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6l0q4l2NLo"
  },
  ]
  "scrapedCount": 1
}

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📑 Typical fields

Field	Description
videoUrl	Input video URL
videoId	YouTube video ID
title	Best-effort page title (if available)
commentsCount	Best-effort comment count (may be null)
comments	Array of comment objects
comments[].cid	Comment unique id
comments[].comment	Comment text
comments[].author	Author display name
comments[].authorId	Author channel id (if available)
comments[].authorUrl	Author channel URL (if available)
comments[].authorThumbnail	Author avatar URL (if available)
comments[].publishedTimeText	Human readable time (e.g. "2 days ago")
comments[].publishedTimeTs	Parsed timestamp (when parseable)
comments[].replyCount	Number of replies
comments[].voteCount	Likes / votes count (if available)
comments[].isHearted	Whether channel owner hearted the comment
comments[].isEdited	Whether the commenter edited the comment
comments[].raw	Full raw object returned by underlying parser

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🧩 Troubleshooting

Issue	Possible Cause	Fix / Tip
Empty dataset	Wrong video URL or comments disabled	Verify URLs and check video has comments; try another video.
Fewer comments than expected	maxComments limit or generator yielded fewer	Set getAllComments=true or increase maxComments
commentsCount is null	Not present in page HTML	Use comments[].raw to inspect raw payload for count
Partial metadata	Fields hidden or loaded dynamically	Check raw field; consider retries with proxy
Rate limiting / 429 errors	Too many requests without proxy	Use Apify Proxy RESIDENTIAL or reduce concurrency

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