YouTube Video Metadata Scraper

Overview

This Apify Actor extracts detailed metadata from public YouTube video URLs. It is ideal for analysts, developers, and marketers looking to retrieve insights like video stats, channel info, transcripts, and recommended content without relying on the official API.

🚀 Why choose this actor?

Unlike other scrapers, this Actor gives you raw, structured access to video pages without API limits or login requirements. You get full control over the data and can scale your extraction easily. The Actor is optimized for high-volume, metadata-rich tasks.

⚠️ SPECIAL CASES:

• NO PROXIES REQUIRED
• FREE USERS GET UP TO 10 RESULTS PER RUN
• THE FIELD max_results WILL ROUND UP TO THE NEAREST MULTIPLE OF 10 (e.g., setting 35 will return 40 results)

📌 Use Cases

• Monitor engagement trends on viral content
• Research competitors' video performance
• Train AI models with full video transcripts
• Build internal databases of influencer metrics
• Evaluate metadata for SEO or content strategy

🔑 Key Features

• Parses public video URLs directly — no login or API key needed
• Fetches views, likes, video length, publish date, and more
• Retrieves YouTuber data and related video links
• Includes full video transcripts (if available)
• High-resolution preview images & thumbnail links

⚙️ How It Works

1. You provide a list of YouTube video URLs as input.
2. Each URL is processed individually using headless scraping.
3. Structured data is extracted from the page DOM and returned as JSON.
4. Output is stored in Apify’s Dataset tab or accessible via API.

📥 Input Parameters

Field	Type	Description	Example
urls	Array of strings	List of full YouTube video URLs to extract metadata from.	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuhE6PYnRMc

📤 Output (Full Example)

{
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuhE6PYnRMc",
  "title": "Train Vs Giant Pit",
  "youtuber": "@example_channel",
  "youtuber_md5": "abc1234def5678ghijklmnopqrstuv",
  "video_length": 636,
  "likes": 123456,
  "views": 4567890,
  "date_posted": "2023-07-08T16:00:00.000Z",
  "description": "Go buy my merch...",
  "num_comments": 890,
  "subscribers": 1230000,
  "video_id": "fuhE6PYnRMc",
  "channel_url": "https://www.youtube.com/@example_channel",
  "preview_image": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fuhE6PYnRMc/hqdefault.jpg",
  "shortcode": "fuhE6PYnRMc",
  "verified": true,
  "handle_name": "example_channel",
  "avatar_img_channel": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/...",
  "related_videos": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXXX", "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYYY"],
  "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": "UC1234567890abcdef",
  "transcript": "- I just bought this train...",
  "formatted_transcript": [
    {"start_time": 0, "end_time": 1007, "duration": 1007, "text": "- I just bought this train"},
    {"start_time": 1007, "end_time": 3450, "duration": 2443, "text": "and it is currently barreling..."}
  ],
  "hashtags": null,
  "tags": [],
  "next_recommended_videos": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=example1",
      "title": "Lose 100 LBs, Win $250,000!",
      "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/example1/maxresdefault.webp",
      "startMs": 630668,
      "endMs": 635668,
      "style": "VIDEO"
    }
  ],
  "recommended_videos": []
}

💰 Pricing

• $2.50 USD per 1,000 results processed.
• Free users are limited to the first 10 videos per run.

🛡️ Legal Disclaimer

This Actor accesses only public video pages and does not use private APIs or credentials. Use is subject to YouTube's Terms of Service and must respect intellectual property rights.

📅 Update Policy

This Actor is actively maintained. Updates are made regularly to reflect YouTube layout changes or new data fields. We aim for high availability and rapid bug fixes.

❓ FAQ

Q: Does it work with private or unlisted videos? A: No. Only publicly accessible videos are supported.

Q: Is login required? A: No, this actor does not require login.

Q: Can I extract comments or replies? A: This actor focuses on metadata only. For comments scraping, check Apify's dedicated YouTube comment scrapers.

Q: Will I get the transcript for every video? A: Only if the transcript is available on the public page.

Q: Can I use this with Apify Proxy or residential IPs? A: NO PROXIES NEEDED. The actor works without them.