YouTube Channel & Search Scraper - Fast & Cheap

Get the videos of any YouTube channel, or the results of any YouTube search, as clean structured rows. Paste channel URLs, handles or search queries and the Actor returns one row per video with title, views, duration, publish date, channel, thumbnail and link, plus the channel's subscriber and video counts. Schedule it and every run flags the videos that are new since the previous one.

No browser, no proxies on your side, no YouTube API key and no daily quota: the Actor reads the same internal endpoints the YouTube website uses, so it is fast and cheap. You pay $0.001 per video returned.

What you get

One Dataset row per video:

• title, url, id, thumbnailUrl, isLive.
• views and viewsText, durationSeconds and durationText.
• publishedText (YouTube's relative date such as 2 days ago) and publishedAt, an approximate ISO date computed from it.
• channelId, channelName, channelUrl, and for channel rows channelSubscribers.
• description: the snippet YouTube shows in search results (search rows only).
• source, kind, query: where the row comes from (a channel or a search).
• isNew: true when the video was not in the previous run of that channel or query.

A channel that does not exist or a query that fails produces a single row with an error field and is not charged.

How to use it

1. Open the Input tab.
2. In Channels paste one channel per line: https://www.youtube.com/@GoogleDevelopers, @GoogleDevelopers or https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_x5XG1OV2P6uZZ5FSM9Ttw. You get the channel's videos, newest first.
3. In Search queries paste one query per line, for example web scraping tutorial. Pick Sort search results by: relevance, upload date (videos uploaded in the last month, newest first) or view count.
4. Set Max videos per channel or query to cap the size and the cost (default 100).
5. Click Start. Read the rows in Output or export them as JSON, CSV or Excel.
6. To monitor a channel or a topic, schedule the Actor (hourly or daily). Every run compares with the previous one and new videos come with isNew: true. For topics, sort by upload date. Connect a webhook or an email integration to be notified.

Input

{
  "channels": ["https://www.youtube.com/@GoogleDevelopers"],
  "queries": ["web scraping tutorial"],
  "sortBy": "relevance",
  "maxVideos": 100
}

Field	Description
channels	Channel URLs, @handles or channel ids. Up to 50 sources per run (channels plus queries).
queries	Search texts.
sortBy	Search order: relevance (default), date (videos uploaded in the last month, newest first) or views. Channels are always newest first.
maxVideos	Per channel or query, 1 to 2,000. Default 100.

Output example

{
  "source": "https://www.youtube.com/@GoogleDevelopers",
  "kind": "channel",
  "query": null,
  "id": "Rnz9mOyxk0k",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnz9mOyxk0k",
  "title": "How to transform audio into physical prints using Gemini and Google AI Studio",
  "channelId": "UC_x5XG1OV2P6uZZ5FSM9Ttw",
  "channelName": "Google for Developers",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@GoogleDevelopers",
  "channelSubscribers": 2680000,
  "durationText": "1:05",
  "durationSeconds": 65,
  "views": 14000,
  "viewsText": "14K views",
  "publishedText": "2 days ago",
  "publishedAt": "2026-10-02T09:30:00.000Z",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Rnz9mOyxk0k/hq720.jpg",
  "description": null,
  "isLive": false,
  "isNew": false,
  "timestamp": "2026-10-04T09:30:00.000Z"
}

Pricing

Pay per event, no subscription:

• Video scraped: $0.001 per video row. A channel with 500 videos costs $0.50; a search of 100 results costs $0.10.
• New video: $0.002 per video flagged as new in a scheduled run. Runs with nothing new only pay for the rows.

Channels or queries that cannot be read are free. Compare with typical YouTube scrapers at $0.002 to $0.005 per video.

Use it as an API

Run it from your code with the Apify API or client libraries:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/aolmo~youtube-videos/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"channels": ["@GoogleDevelopers"], "maxVideos": 50}'

The response is the list of video rows. You can also call it from AI agents through the Apify MCP server. For transcripts of the videos you find, use the companion Actor aolmo/youtube-transcript.

FAQ

Are the view counts exact? In search rows yes (484,842 views). In channel rows YouTube only shows rounded figures (14K views), and views is the rounded number.

How precise is publishedAt? It is computed from YouTube's relative text, so 2 days ago becomes a timestamp two days before the run. Use it for ordering and filtering, not as the exact upload time.

Does it include Shorts and live streams? Channel rows come from the Videos tab, so Shorts are not included. Live streams appear with isLive: true and no duration.

Can I get comments or transcripts? Transcripts: yes, with aolmo/youtube-transcript. Comments are planned as a separate Actor.

Where is the data stored between runs? In a Key-Value Store of your account named micro-saas-state-youtube-videos, one key per channel or query. Delete it to start fresh.