📺 Youtube Scraper by Video URL

Overview

Extract structured data from individual YouTube videos using only their URLs. Perfect for developers and analysts seeking detailed video metrics for research, content monitoring, or automation pipelines.

🚀 Why choose this actor?

Unlike other YouTube scrapers, this actor offers:

• No proxy requirements ✅
• High-resolution thumbnail capture 📷
• Clean and structured JSON output ready for automation 📦
• Transcript and related video extraction for content enrichment 🧠

⚠️ THIS ACTOR ONLY RETURNS 10 RESULTS FOR FREE USERS. ⚠️ max_results MUST BE A MULTIPLE OF 10 (e.g. 10, 20, 30...).

Use Cases

• Academic research on YouTube content evolution
• Social listening & sentiment analysis from comments
• Monitor competitor channels and engagement
• Enhance SEO strategies with video meta-data

🧩 Key Features

• Scrapes full video metadata including title, views, likes, and upload date
• Retrieves channel information: handle, subscribers, verification, etc.
• Extracts preview image, transcript and related video links
• Provides a clean JSON format optimized for data pipelines

How It Works

1. Provide a list of YouTube video URLs as input.
2. Actor navigates to each URL and collects structured data.
3. Results are returned in a standardized JSON format for easy parsing.

Input Parameters

Field	Type	Description	Example
urls	Array	List of YouTube video URLs to scrape	["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuhE6PYnRMc"]

Output (Full Example)

{
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuhE6PYnRMc",
  "title": "Train Vs Giant Pit",
  "youtuber": "@ExampleHandle",
  "youtuber_md5": "dd748d5dfc88b91ea388429c3c685874",
  "video_length": 636,
  "likes": 6519296,
  "views": 269900201,
  "date_posted": "2023-07-08T16:00:00.000Z",
  "description": "This is an example description of a video.",
  "num_comments": 129000,
  "subscribers": 412000000,
  "video_id": "fuhE6PYnRMc",
  "channel_url": "https://www.youtube.com/@ExampleHandle",
  "preview_image": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fuhE6PYnRMc/hqdefault.jpg",
  "shortcode": "fuhE6PYnRMc",
  "verified": true,
  "handle_name": "ExampleHandle",
  "avatar_img_channel": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/sample-image.jpg",
  "related_videos": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1234567890A",
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0987654321B"
  ],
  "license": null,
  "viewport_frames": "640x360 / -",
  "current_optimal_res": "640x360@30 / 640x360@30",
  "codecs": "avc1.42001E, mp4a.40.2 / mp4a.40.2",
  "color": "bt709",
  "quality": "hd1080",
  "quality_label": "1080p",
  "post_type": "post",
  "youtuber_id": "UCXXXXXXXXXXXX",
  "transcript": "- Sample transcript text here...",
  "formatted_transcript": [
    {
      "start_time": 0,
      "end_time": 1007,
      "duration": 1007,
      "text": "- Sample text"
    }
  ],
  "hashtags": null,
  "tags": [],
  "next_recommended_videos": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZZZZZZZZZZ",
      "title": "Sample Recommended Video",
      "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/sample-thumbnail.jpg",
      "startMs": 630668,
      "endMs": 635668,
      "style": "VIDEO"
    }
  ],
  "recommended_videos": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYYYYYYYYYY",
      "title": "Another Sample",
      "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/sample-thumbnail2.jpg"
    }
  ]
}

Pricing

Tier	Price per 1,000 results
Free tier	10 results max
Pay-as-you-go	$2.50

🔒 Legal Disclaimer

This actor is intended for ethical use only. Scraping data from YouTube must comply with their Terms of Service. This tool is provided as-is without any guarantees of legality or compatibility with third-party platforms.

🔁 Update Policy

We aim to maintain support for layout and structure changes in YouTube as promptly as possible. Please report any bugs or issues via Apify support.

❓ FAQ

Does it work with playlists?
No, you must provide individual video URLs.

Does it support shorts?
Yes, if the full URL to the short video is provided.

Can I use proxies?
NO – THIS ACTOR DOES NOT USE PROXIES.

What happens if I enter max_results = 35?
IT WILL RETURN 40 RESULTS. max_results MUST BE A MULTIPLE OF 10.