YouTube Playlist Scraper

Extract clean video inventories from public YouTube playlists.

Use this actor to turn any public YouTube playlist URL into structured rows with video IDs, URLs, titles, channel details, durations, thumbnails, positions, and playlist metadata.

What does YouTube Playlist Scraper do?

YouTube Playlist Scraper reads public playlist pages through YouTube's web data endpoint and saves one dataset item per playlist video.

It is built for repeatable playlist inventory work rather than one-off browsing.

You provide playlist URLs or playlist IDs.

The actor returns normalized video rows that are ready for spreadsheets, BI tools, enrichment pipelines, transcript workflows, and content audits.

Who is it for?

Content marketers use it to audit competitor playlists.

SEO teams use it to map video clusters and topical coverage.

Creator agencies use it to monitor client and competitor channels.

Researchers use it to collect public video lists for media studies.

Developers use it as a playlist discovery step before transcript, comment, or video detail scraping.

Sales teams use it to identify active channels and content themes in a niche.

Why use this actor?

📌 It focuses on playlist rows, not generic search results.

📌 It accepts both playlist URLs and raw playlist IDs.

📌 It returns stable IDs that can be joined with other YouTube datasets.

📌 It captures playlist context on every row.

📌 It runs without a browser for lower cost and faster execution.

📌 It is designed for automation on the Apify platform.

Data you can extract

Field	Description
playlistId	YouTube playlist ID
playlistUrl	Canonical playlist URL
playlistTitle	Playlist title when returned by YouTube
playlistChannelName	Playlist owner channel name when available
playlistChannelId	Playlist owner channel ID when available
videoId	YouTube video ID
videoUrl	Video watch URL with playlist context
title	Video title
position	Position in the playlist
channelName	Video channel name
channelId	Video channel ID
durationText	Human-readable duration
durationSeconds	Duration converted to seconds when available
thumbnailUrl	Best available thumbnail URL
thumbnails	Full thumbnail array returned by YouTube
isPlayable	Whether YouTube marks the video as playable
scrapedAt	ISO timestamp for the extraction

How much does it cost to scrape YouTube playlists?

The actor uses pay-per-event pricing.

There is a small $0.005 start event for each run.

Each saved playlist video is charged as one result. Formula-based BRONZE pricing is $0.000027626 per video, with lower rates on higher Apify tiers.

A short playlist is inexpensive.

A large playlist costs more because it produces more rows.

The input prefill is intentionally small so your first run is cheap.

Input options

Playlist URLs

Paste public YouTube playlist URLs such as:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL590L5WQmH8fJ54F369BLDSqIwcs-TCfs

Playlist IDs

You can also provide raw playlist IDs such as:

PL590L5WQmH8fJ54F369BLDSqIwcs-TCfs

Maximum videos

Use maxVideos to cap the total rows saved across all playlists.

Include unavailable videos

Enable includeUnavailable if you want private, deleted, or unavailable entries when YouTube returns them.

Example input

{
  "playlistUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL590L5WQmH8fJ54F369BLDSqIwcs-TCfs" }
  ],
  "maxVideos": 25,
  "includeUnavailable": false
}

Example output

{
  "playlistId": "PL590L5WQmH8fJ54F369BLDSqIwcs-TCfs",
  "playlistUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL590L5WQmH8fJ54F369BLDSqIwcs-TCfs",
  "playlistTitle": "Year in Search",
  "videoId": "KIViy7L_lo8",
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIViy7L_lo8&list=PL590L5WQmH8fJ54F369BLDSqIwcs-TCfs",
  "title": "2016 — Year in Search",
  "position": 1,
  "channelName": "Google",
  "durationText": "2:01",
  "durationSeconds": 121,
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KIViy7L_lo8/hqdefault.jpg",
  "isPlayable": true,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-27T00:00:00.000Z"
}

How to scrape a YouTube playlist

1. Open the actor on Apify.

2. Paste one or more playlist URLs.

3. Set maxVideos to the number of rows you need.

4. Run the actor.

5. Export the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or HTML.

Tips for best results

Use public playlists.

Start with a low maxVideos value to confirm the playlist is the one you want.

Use raw playlist IDs if your URLs contain extra tracking parameters.

Run the actor on a schedule if you need a recurring playlist inventory.

Join results by videoId with transcript, comments, or video detail datasets.

Integrations

Send rows to Google Sheets for editorial planning.

Use dataset webhooks to trigger transcript scraping for each videoUrl.

Export CSV files for SEO keyword clustering.

Load JSON into a data warehouse for channel analysis.

Use Make, Zapier, or n8n to notify your team when a playlist changes.

API usage with Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/youtube-playlist-scraper').call({
  playlistUrls: [{ url: 'https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL590L5WQmH8fJ54F369BLDSqIwcs-TCfs' }],
  maxVideos: 25
});
console.log(run.defaultDatasetId);

API usage with Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN')
run = client.actor('automation-lab/youtube-playlist-scraper').call(run_input={
    'playlistUrls': [{'url': 'https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL590L5WQmH8fJ54F369BLDSqIwcs-TCfs'}],
    'maxVideos': 25,
})
print(run['defaultDatasetId'])

API usage with cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~youtube-playlist-scraper/runs?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"playlistUrls":[{"url":"https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL590L5WQmH8fJ54F369BLDSqIwcs-TCfs"}],"maxVideos":25}'

MCP usage

You can use this actor from tools that support the Apify MCP server.

Claude Code MCP URL:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/youtube-playlist-scraper

Claude Desktop MCP URL:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/youtube-playlist-scraper

Add the actor to Claude Code:

$claude mcp add apify-youtube-playlists https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/youtube-playlist-scraper

Claude Desktop JSON config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify-youtube-playlists": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/youtube-playlist-scraper"
    }
  }
}

Example prompts:

• "Scrape this YouTube playlist and summarize the video topics."
• "Find the longest videos in this playlist."
• "Export all video URLs from these playlists."

Common workflows

Build a playlist inventory for a competitor channel.

Create a seed list for a transcript scraping pipeline.

Track new videos added to a public playlist over time.

Compare course playlists by length and content coverage.

Prepare bulk video URLs for analytics enrichment.

Limitations

The actor only supports public playlist data returned by YouTube.

Private playlists cannot be scraped without access.

Some unavailable videos may have limited metadata.

YouTube can change its internal response shape, so output availability may vary.

FAQ and troubleshooting

The actor returned fewer videos than expected

Check that the playlist is public and that maxVideos is high enough.

Some playlists contain private or deleted entries that YouTube may hide.

My URL did not work

Make sure the URL contains a list= parameter.

If you copied a watch URL, keep the list value or paste the raw playlist ID into playlistIds.

Legality

This actor extracts publicly available playlist metadata.

You are responsible for using the data in a lawful way and respecting YouTube's terms, privacy rules, and applicable regulations.

Do not scrape private, personal, or restricted data.

Do not use the results for spam or abusive automation.

Related scrapers

Try other automation-lab actors for YouTube workflows:

• https://apify.com/automation-lab/youtube-search-scraper
• https://apify.com/automation-lab/youtube-transcript-scraper
• https://apify.com/automation-lab/youtube-comments-scraper
• https://apify.com/automation-lab/youtube-channel-scraper

Output quality checklist

Rows include stable IDs.

Rows include playlist context.

Rows include canonical URLs.

Rows include timestamps.

Rows can be exported from Apify datasets.

Performance notes

The actor is HTTP-only.

It does not launch a browser.

It does not require residential proxy by default.

It paginates through continuation tokens when YouTube returns them.

Versioning

Initial version focuses on playlist video rows.

Future versions may add optional video detail enrichment.

Future versions may add playlist-change comparison helpers.

Support

If a public playlist does not return expected rows, share the run and playlist URL with support.

Include the playlist URL, input JSON, and expected video count when reporting an issue.