YouTube Search Scraper - Videos, Channels & Playlists

What is YouTube Search Scraper?

YouTube Search Scraper is a tool that lets you scrape YouTube search results: videos, channels and playlists with their title, link, channel, views, duration, publish time, thumbnail and rank for each keyword. Type your search terms, click Start, and download the results as Excel, CSV or JSON.

• 🔍 Many keywords in one run: up to 1,000 results per search term, each tagged with its rank
• 🎛️ YouTube's own filters: sort by relevance, upload date, views or rating, and filter by upload date and video length
• 🔓 No login: no YouTube account, cookies or API key needed
• 💸 Free to try: free to use today (you pay only Apify platform usage); from 15 October 2026 it costs $0.50 per 1,000 results, and the $5 of free usage every Apify account gets each month covers about 10,000 results

What can YouTube Search Scraper do?

• Scrape YouTube search results for any keyword
• Get the top YouTube videos for a search term, with views and duration
• Find YouTube channels and playlists for a topic
• Sort YouTube search by upload date, view count or rating
• Get only videos uploaded in the last hour, day, week, month or year
• Filter YouTube videos by length: short, medium or long
• Track where your videos rank on YouTube for your target keywords
• Spot YouTube Shorts and live streams in the results
• Search YouTube as seen from another country or language

What data can you extract from YouTube search results?

🔍 Search term	🏅 Rank in the results	🎬 Result type (video, channel or playlist)
📝 Title	🔗 Link	🆔 Video, channel or playlist ID
📺 Channel name	🔗 Channel link	👁️ Number of views
⏱️ Duration (and in seconds)	📅 Publish time (like "2y ago")	🖼️ Thumbnail
📄 Description snippet	🏷️ Badges (4K, CC, Verified, New)	📱 Short and live stream flags
👥 Channel subscribers (when shown)	🎞️ Channel video count (when shown)	🧾 Channel description and avatar (optional)

How to scrape YouTube search results

1. Create a free Apify account (no credit card needed).
2. Open YouTube Search Scraper.
3. Add one or more search terms under Search queries and choose which result types you want.
4. Set Max results per query, pick any sort order or filters, then click Start.
5. When the run finishes, download your results as Excel, CSV, JSON, HTML or XML.

How much does it cost to scrape YouTube search results?

YouTube Search Scraper is free to use today: you pay only for the Apify platform usage of your runs.

From 15 October 2026, it costs $0.50 per 1,000 results. You will pay only for the results you get, so from that date 1,000 results cost $0.50 and 10,000 results cost $5.00.

Every Apify account gets $5 of free usage each month, which will cover about 10,000 results. Check the Pricing tab on this page for the current price.

⬇️ Input

Setting	What it does
Search queries	The search terms to look up on YouTube. Each one is searched on its own, and every result is tagged with its search term
Result types	Which results to keep: video, channel, playlist (one per line). Default is videos only
Max results per query	The most results to get for each search term (1 to 1,000, default 50)
Sort by	Relevance (YouTube's default), Upload date, View count or Rating
Upload date	Any time, Last hour, Today, This week, This month or This year. Videos only
Video duration	Any length, Short (under 4 minutes), Medium (4 to 20 minutes) or Long (over 20 minutes). Videos only
Language	Two-letter language code, like en, es or de (default en). Changes labels such as publish times
Country	Two-letter country code, like us, gb or in (default us). Shows results as people in that country see them
Include thumbnails	Add the thumbnail image link to each result (on by default)
Include channel details	Add the channel's subscriber count, description and avatar to each result (off by default, runs take a little longer)

If you choose one result type, you get only that type. If you choose several, you get all of the chosen types, in the order YouTube shows them. The remaining connection settings can stay as they are. The default works for most runs.

Example: the 25 most-viewed videos uploaded this year for two keywords.

{
  "queries": ["home espresso", "latte art tutorial"],
  "resultTypes": ["video"],
  "maxResults": 25,
  "sortBy": "viewCount",
  "uploadDate": "year",
  "country": "us"
}

⬆️ Output

You get one row per result. You can view them as a table in Apify Console or download them as Excel, CSV, JSON, HTML or XML. Here is a real video row:

{
  "query": "espresso",
  "rank": 1,
  "resultKind": "video",
  "itemId": "eVli-tstM5E",
  "videoId": "eVli-tstM5E",
  "channelId": "UCPKWE1H6xhxwPlqUlKgHb_w",
  "title": "Sabrina Carpenter - Espresso",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVli-tstM5E",
  "channelName": "Sabrina Carpenter",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPKWE1H6xhxwPlqUlKgHb_w",
  "publishedText": "2y ago",
  "duration": "3:21",
  "durationSeconds": 201,
  "viewCountText": "685,863,976 views",
  "viewCount": 685863976,
  "descriptionSnippet": "Music video by Sabrina Carpenter performing Espresso. © 2024 Island Records, a division of UMG Recordings, Inc.",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eVli-tstM5E/hq720.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEnCNAFEJQDSFryq4qpAxkIARUAAIhCGAHYAQHiAQoIGBACGAY4AUAB&rs=AOn4CLCiEj3kh7qnqwn7MWtF0LZkUPMNZw",
  "isShort": false,
  "isLive": false,
  "badges": ["4K", "CC", "Verified"],
  "fetchedAt": "2026-10-02T10:12:16Z"
}

query and rank tell you which search term a result came from and where it ranked. Channel and playlist rows use the same columns: they fill channelId or playlistId, and subscriber and video counts when YouTube shows them. Turn on Include channel details to also fill subscriberCount, channelDescription and channelThumbnailUrl for the channel behind each result.

How can I use YouTube search data?

• YouTube SEO and rank tracking: see which videos rank for your target keywords and where your own videos land
• Content research: find the most-viewed videos on a topic and learn what titles, lengths and formats work
• Competitor analysis: see which channels own the search results in your niche
• Influencer and creator discovery: find channels and playlists on a topic to build an outreach list
• Trend spotting: check what is new for a keyword this week, sorted by upload date or views
• Market research: compare search results across countries and languages

How to track YouTube search results over time

1. Add your keywords under Search queries.
2. Set Upload date to This week or Today if you only want fresh videos, or leave it on Any time to track rankings.
3. Schedule the actor to run every day or every week.

Each run saves a fresh dataset with the rank of every result, so you can compare runs and see which videos move up or down. Send the results to Slack, email or a spreadsheet with an integration.

Use it from your own code

You can start the scraper from your own code with the Apify API or the Python and JavaScript clients:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("automly/youtube-search-results-scraper").call(run_input={
    "queries": ["home espresso"],
    "resultTypes": ["video"],
    "maxResults": 50,
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["rank"], item["title"], item["viewCount"])

Scrape more YouTube data

Actor	What it does
YouTube Channel Scraper - Search Channels by Keyword	Find channels by keyword with subscriber, video and view counts, country and links

❓FAQ

How much does it cost to scrape YouTube search results?

It is free to use today, and you pay only Apify platform usage. From 15 October 2026 it costs $0.50 per 1,000 results. Every Apify account gets $5 of free usage each month. See the cost section above and the Pricing tab for details.

How many results can I get for one search?

Up to 1,000 results per search term. Set Max results per query to the number you need. If YouTube shows fewer results for a search, you get all of them. Add as many search terms as you like to one run.

Why is there no exact upload date?

YouTube search shows a relative time, like "2y ago" or "3 weeks ago", and that is what you get in publishedText. Use Sort by: Upload date or the Upload date filter when you need the newest videos.

Why do my results differ from what I see on YouTube?

YouTube results change with country, language and time. Set Country and Language to match the market you care about. Your own YouTube history can also change what you see when you are logged in, while this scraper shows results as a new visitor sees them.

Do I need a YouTube account or API key?

No. You don't need a YouTube account, cookies or a YouTube API key. You only need a free Apify account.

Can I scrape private or unlisted videos?

No. You get only what anyone can see in public YouTube search. Private and unlisted videos don't appear in search, so they are not included.

Can I connect YouTube Search Scraper to other tools or AI agents?

Yes. Start runs and download results with the Apify API or the Python and JavaScript clients, send results to Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets or Slack with Apify integrations and webhooks, or let AI assistants and agents run it through the Apify MCP server at mcp.apify.com.

Is it legal to scrape YouTube?

This scraper only collects public search results: titles, links, channel names and counts that anyone can see. It does not collect private data such as email addresses or phone numbers. Results can still contain personal data, such as a creator's name, which may be protected by laws such as GDPR, so only scrape it for a legitimate reason and ask a lawyer if you are unsure. You can read more in Is web scraping legal?

YouTube Search Scraper is an independent tool. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by YouTube or Google.

Something isn't working. What should I do?

Open the Issues tab and tell us your search terms, settings and what you expected to get. We'll take a look.

⭐ Your feedback

Ideas, missing fields or problems: open the Issues tab and we'll take a look. If YouTube Search Scraper saved you time, a short review on the Reviews tab helps other people find it.