💬 YouTube Comments Scraper - Comments, Replies & Likes

Collect the comments under YouTube videos, Shorts and live streams: comment text, author handle and channel, likes, reply count, the replies themselves, and whether the channel pinned or hearted a comment. Top comments or newest first. No login, no cookies, no YouTube API key and no API quota. Export to JSON/CSV/Excel, run on a schedule, call via API, or connect to Make, Zapier or n8n.

🔎 What is the YouTube Comments Scraper?

It is an Apify Actor that asks YouTube for comments the same way the watch page does when a visitor scrolls down: 20 comments per request, 10 replies per request. No browser is opened, so a run with 50 comments finishes in about nine seconds.

Paste video links in any form (youtube.com/watch?v=…, youtu.be/…, /shorts/…, /live/…) or bare video ids. Every row carries the video's title and channel, so comments from many videos can share one dataset.

Two orders are available, and they behave differently:

• Top comments first is the order visitors see. YouTube ends this list after roughly 1,000 to 1,200 comments, however many the video has.
• Newest first has no such end: 3,000 comments took 80 seconds in our test. Use it for full exports and for scheduled runs that watch a video for new comments.

With Include replies on, the replies follow the comment they answer, and parent_id links them. A limit per comment keeps one long discussion from using up the whole run.

What data does it extract?

• Comment: id, url (opens the video at that comment), text, published, is_edited, record_type (comment or reply), parent_id
• Engagement: likes, reply_count, is_pinned, is_hearted
• Author: author, author_channel_id, author_url, author_is_verified, author_is_creator
• Video: video_id, video_url, video_title, channel

⬇️ Input

Field	Type	What it does
videoUrls	array	Video, Shorts or live links, or bare video ids
maxResults	integer	Rows per video. 50 by default, up to 100,000
sort	string	top or newest
includeReplies	boolean	Also save the replies under each comment
maxRepliesPerComment	integer	Replies to save per comment when replies are on. 10 by default

Example input

The newest 1,000 comments of two videos, with up to five replies each:

{
  "videoUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw",
    "https://youtu.be/9bZkp7q19f0"
  ],
  "maxResults": 1000,
  "sort": "newest",
  "includeReplies": true,
  "maxRepliesPerComment": 5
}

⬆️ Output

A real comment row:

{
  "record_type": "comment",
  "id": "UgzuC3zzpRZkjc5Qzsd4AaABAg",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw&lc=UgzuC3zzpRZkjc5Qzsd4AaABAg",
  "video_id": "jNQXAC9IVRw",
  "video_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw",
  "video_title": "Me at the zoo",
  "channel": "jawed",
  "text": "We're so honored that the first ever YouTube video was filmed here!",
  "published": "6 years ago",
  "is_edited": false,
  "likes": 4800000,
  "reply_count": 985,
  "author": "@SanDiegoZoo",
  "author_channel_id": "UCC5NfQ6Mf0dq_eEwv4P_hWA",
  "author_url": "https://www.youtube.com/@SanDiegoZoo",
  "author_is_verified": true,
  "author_is_creator": false,
  "is_pinned": true,
  "is_hearted": true,
  "parent_id": null,
  "scraped_at": "2026-10-03T09:19:18.021692+00:00"
}

A reply points to its comment through parent_id:

{
  "record_type": "reply",
  "id": "UgzuC3zzpRZkjc5Qzsd4AaABAg.958xaQsh63D958yN1-HDaK",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw&lc=UgzuC3zzpRZkjc5Qzsd4AaABAg.958xaQsh63D958yN1-HDaK",
  "video_id": "jNQXAC9IVRw",
  "video_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw",
  "video_title": "Me at the zoo",
  "channel": "jawed",
  "text": "San Diego Zoo That’s so awesome! I’m so glad the first YouTube video featured cute animals in it! 😊🐘",
  "published": "6 years ago",
  "is_edited": true,
  "likes": 205000,
  "reply_count": 0,
  "author": "@TheGreekPianist",
  "author_channel_id": "UC8h3BHk1Pk1_-VH9PRIxtgg",
  "author_url": "https://www.youtube.com/@TheGreekPianist",
  "author_is_verified": false,
  "author_is_creator": false,
  "is_pinned": false,
  "is_hearted": false,
  "parent_id": "UgzuC3zzpRZkjc5Qzsd4AaABAg",
  "scraped_at": "2026-10-03T09:19:16.002965+00:00"
}

published is the age YouTube shows ("3 days ago"); YouTube does not give visitors an exact timestamp. Large like counts are rounded by YouTube itself ("4.8M" becomes 4800000).

💰 How much does it cost?

You pay per saved comment or reply, plus a tiny start fee per run.

Apify plan	Price per 1,000 comments
Free	$1.00
Starter	$0.95
Scale	$0.90
Business and above	$0.85

The default run (50 comments) costs 5 cents. Set Maximum cost per run in the run options and the Actor stops saving at that amount and says so in the status message.

💡 Use cases

• 🗣️ Audience and sentiment analysis: read what viewers say about a launch video, a review or a competitor's channel.
• 🔔 Comment monitoring: schedule a run in newest order and send new comments to Slack, a sheet or a moderation queue.
• 🧠 Datasets for AI and research: large, clean comment sets with likes and reply structure.
• 💡 Content ideas: find the questions viewers ask again and again under videos in your niche.

❓ FAQ

Do I need a YouTube API key or a Google account? No. The Actor reads what the public watch page loads and uses no API quota.

Why did top order stop at about 1,000 comments? YouTube ends the top list there for every visitor. The status message tells you when that happened. Switch to newest order to read further.

Why is the saved number lower than the count on the video? The count on the video includes replies. Turn on Include replies to collect them.

How fast is it? Between 15 and 40 comments per second. In our tests 3,000 comments in newest order took 80 seconds and 980 in top order took 66 seconds.

Does maxResults count per video or per run? Per video. Two links with maxResults: 500 can save up to 1,000 rows. To cap the whole run, set Maximum cost per run.

What happens with deleted or private videos, or videos with comments turned off? They are skipped and listed in the status message and the SUMMARY record. The run still succeeds with the other videos.

Can I get exact comment dates? No. Visitors only see the age ("2 weeks ago"), and the Actor does not invent a date from it. In newest order the rows are in time order.

Does it work for Shorts and live streams? Yes, any video with a comment section.

Is it legal to scrape YouTube comments? The Actor reads only what YouTube shows publicly to any visitor and does not log in. Comments are personal data, so GDPR, CCPA and similar rules apply to how you store and use them, and YouTube's terms apply to you as well. If in doubt, ask a lawyer.

Something is missing or broken? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab with the run ID. Issues are answered within one business day.

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