YouTube Channel Scraper: Scrape Videos, Shorts, Playlists, and Posts

YouTube Channel Scraper is a comprehensive YouTube data extraction tool that allows you to scrape YouTube channels and extract videos, shorts, playlists, and community posts without using the official YouTube API. Whether you need to monitor competitors, analyze trends, or build research datasets, this scraper provides a fast and reliable way to get structured data from any channel on YouTube.

As a robust YouTube API alternative, this Actor handles the technical complexity of extraction for you, offering localized results, custom sorting, and deep filtering options.

How to use YouTube Channel Scraper to extract data:

1. Find the URL of the YouTube channel you want to scrape.
2. Paste the URL into the YouTube Channel URLs field.
3. Select which content types you need (Videos, Shorts, Live Streams, etc.).
4. Click Start and download your data in JSON, CSV, or Excel format.

Note: YouTube Channel Scraper does not download video files or scrape full comment text; for those specific needs, please see our YouTube Video Downloader or YouTube Comments Scraper.

🌟 What can YouTube Channel Scraper do?

This tool is much more than a simple video list extractor. It is a full-featured YouTube channel scraper that can:

• 🎥 Extract YouTube Videos: Get titles, view counts, upload dates, and durations.
• 📱 Scrape YouTube Shorts: Access the latest viral short-form content.
• 🔴 Monitor Live Streams: Track current and past live broadcasts.
• 📂 Download Playlists: Organize content by the channel's own curation.
• 💬 Collect Community Posts: Scrape text and engagement from the channel's "Community" tab.
• 🏬 Scrape Channel Store: Extract product information if the channel has a shop.
• 🔍 Search Within Channel: Use a keyword to find specific videos or playlists inside a single channel.

💼 Why use YouTube Channel Scraper?

• Competitor Analysis: Track competitors’ upload frequency and content mix to stay ahead.
• Content Strategy: Analyze the performance of Shorts vs. long-form videos to optimize your own channel.
• Audience Sentiment: Monitor community posts and engagement to understand audience trends.
• Research & AI: Build high-quality datasets for content research, trend analysis, or recommendation models.

📊 What data can you extract from YouTube channels?

The scraper returns structured data in multiple formats. Here is a breakdown of the key data points you can collect:

Category	Data Points Extracted
Videos/Shorts	Title, Video ID, Thumbnail URL, View Count, Published Time, Duration, Description Snippet
Live Streams	Title, Video ID, Live Status, Thumbnail, Viewers (if live)
Playlists	Title, Playlist ID, Video Count, Thumbnail
Community Posts	Post Text, Attachment Type (Image/Poll), Published Date
Channel Info	Browse ID, Channel Name, Subscriber Count (via resolve)

🚀 How to scrape YouTube channels with YouTube Channel Scraper

Using this Actor is straightforward, even if you have no coding experience. Follow these simple steps:

1. Find your target: Copy the URL of the YouTube channel you want to scrape (e.g., https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast).
2. Set the Input: Paste the URL(s) into the YouTube Channel URLs field in the input tab.
3. Select Categories: Choose whether you want Videos, Shorts, Playlists, etc.
4. Run the Actor: Click the "Start" button and wait for the data to populate.
5. Download: Once finished, export your data from the Dataset tab.

💰 How much does it cost to scrape YouTube channels?

Scraping YouTube data is highly efficient on the Apify platform. While web scraping can be unpredictable, our tool is optimized for low resource consumption.

On average, you can expect to scrape thousands of results for just a few dollars in platform usage fees (Compute Units).

• Free Plan: You can get started for free using Apify's trial credits.
• Scalability: For large-scale operations, the Actor supports proxy rotation and scheduling to ensure continuous data flow.

📂 Input Parameters

The Actor provides a user-friendly interface for configuration. Key options include:

• YouTube Channel URLs: A list of URLs to process.
• Content Categories: Pick exactly what you need (Videos, Shorts, Live Streams, Playlists, Posts, etc.).
• Results per Category: Limit the amount of data to save on costs.
• Sort Order: Sort by Newest, Oldest, or Popular.

YouTube Channel Scraper has the following input options. For a full description of every field, validation rules, and defaults, click on the Input tab in Apify Console.

⚙️ Tips and advanced options

• Limit Results: Adjust Results per Category to control your Compute Unit usage and speed up runs.
• Localization: Use geo and lang in the Advanced options section to get localized results for specific countries or languages.
• Fresh Data: Schedule the Actor to run daily or weekly to keep your channel dataset up to date automatically.
• Sorting: Use Sort Order = Newest to keep incremental runs fast and focused on the latest content.

📥 Output Example

You can download the dataset extracted by YouTube Channel Scraper in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel from the Dataset tab. Here is a simplified example of a video item in JSON format:

{
  "type": "video",
  "title": "I Built A Giant LEGO Tower",
  "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "viewCount": "15,234,098",
  "publishedTime": "2 days ago",
  "lengthText": "12:45",
  "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/hqdefault.jpg",
  "scrapedCategory": "videos",
  "scrapedBrowseId": "UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA"
}

🛠 Other YouTube Scraping Tools

If you like this Actor, you might also find these specialized tools useful:

• 💬 YouTube Comments Scraper: Extract thousands of comments and replies from any video.
• 🔍 YouTube Search Scraper: Scrape search results for any keyword to discover new channels.
• 📥 YouTube Video Downloader: Get direct download links for YouTube videos.

⚖️ Is it legal to scrape YouTube?

Our scrapers are ethical and do not extract any private user data, such as email addresses, gender, or location. They only extract what the user has chosen to share publicly. We therefore believe that our scrapers, when used for ethical purposes by Apify users, are safe.

However, you should be aware that your results could contain personal data. Personal data is protected by the GDPR in the European Union and by other regulations around the world. You should not scrape personal data unless you have a legitimate reason to do so. If you're unsure whether your reason is legitimate, consult your lawyers. You can also read our blog post on the legality of web scraping.

🆘 Support and Feedback

If you run into any issues or have a feature request, please head over to the Issues tab or contact us directly. We are constantly improving the scraper and appreciate your feedback!