▶️ YouTube Scraper

Returns YouTube videos from search terms, channels, playlists and video links in one run, without an API key, a login or a browser. One row per video: title, exact views, likes, upload date, length, description, channel and its subscribers. It reads a channel's whole history, its Shorts and live streams, and cuts out an exact date range.

Price: $1.50 per 1,000 videos on the Apify Free plan, down to $1.20 from the Gold plan up. A channel, playlist or video that does not exist costs nothing. Export to JSON, CSV or Excel, run on a schedule, call via API, or connect to Make, Zapier or n8n.

🔎 What is the YouTube Scraper?

YouTube's own pages load their lists from a few data endpoints: one for a channel's tabs and playlists, one for search, one for a single video. This Actor calls those endpoints directly. There is no quota as with the official YouTube Data API, and no browser to pay for: a run needs 512 MB of memory.

What data does it extract?

• Video: id, link, title, type (video, Short or live), length, preview picture
• Numbers: views and likes; the number of comments for videos given by link
• Dates: the exact upload day, and the age the list shows ("3 weeks ago")
• Text: the complete description
• Channel: name, id, link, @handle, verified badge, subscribers
• Source: the search term or link that led to the row, its type and the video's place in that list

What users of YouTube scrapers ask for, and what this Actor does

The issue pages of the two most used general YouTube Actors on Apify were read on October 4, 2026. These requests repeat:

Asked for there	Here
A real date range, and date filters that work	publishedAfter and publishedBefore are applied to the exact upload day. One channel's videos from September 1 to 15 came back as 5 rows in 4 seconds
More than the first 200 videos of a channel	A tab is read to its end: 5,304 videos of one channel in 53 seconds
Shorts and live streams	Channel tabs you choose, or a link that ends in /shorts or /streams; every row says which type it is
Correct view counts	Exact views, likes and dates come from each video's own data, not from the rounded list
Playlists that return nothing	Playlists are read from YouTube's list endpoint, 100 videos a request; a playlist that does not exist is named in the status message
Charges without rows	Only saved rows are charged

⬇️ Input

Field	Type	Default	What it does
queries	array		Search terms
urls	array		Channels (link, @handle or UC… id), playlists, videos, Shorts and search result pages, in any mix
maxResults	integer	20	Videos to save per search term, channel tab and playlist, up to 20,000
contentTypes	array	videos	Channel tabs to read: videos, shorts, streams
includeDetails	boolean	true	Exact views, likes, upload day, full description and subscribers for every video. Off: list values only, several times faster
publishedAfter	string		A day (YYYY-MM-DD) or a period back from now (7 days, 2 months)
publishedBefore	string		Upper end of a date range (YYYY-MM-DD)
channelSort	string	latest	latest, popular or oldest
uploadedWithin	string	any	Search filter: today, week, month, year
videoLength	string	any	Search filter: short (under 3 minutes), medium (3 to 20), long (over 20)
searchSort	string	relevance	relevance or popularity
minViews	integer		Keep videos with at least this many views

An empty input runs a sample search (python tutorial).

Example input

A search and two channels:

{
  "queries": ["home workout"],
  "urls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@NASA", "@veritasium"],
  "maxResults": 100
}

Everything a channel uploaded in September, with its Shorts:

{
  "urls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@NASA"],
  "contentTypes": ["videos", "shorts"],
  "publishedAfter": "2026-09-01",
  "publishedBefore": "2026-09-30",
  "maxResults": 500
}

A channel's whole video list, fast, without exact values:

{
  "urls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@TED"],
  "includeDetails": false,
  "maxResults": 20000
}

The most viewed videos about a topic from this week:

{
  "queries": ["openai"],
  "uploadedWithin": "week",
  "searchSort": "popularity",
  "maxResults": 30
}

Coming from another YouTube Actor?

These input names of the two most used YouTube Actors are read as they are: searchQueries, startUrls, maxResults, maxResultsShorts, maxResultStreams, sortVideosBy, dateFilter, lengthFilter, sortingOrder, oldestPostDate, and keywords, youtubeHandles, maxItems. An input like this one runs here unchanged:

{
  "searchQueries": ["Crawlee"],
  "maxResults": 10,
  "maxResultsShorts": 5,
  "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@LofiGirl" }],
  "sortVideosBy": "POPULAR"
}

⬆️ Output

One row per video, the same columns in every row. A video given by link (the description is shortened here):

{
  "id": "jNQXAC9IVRw",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw",
  "title": "Me at the zoo",
  "type": "video",
  "viewCount": 439934381,
  "likes": 19992291,
  "commentsCount": 10633160,
  "date": "2005-04-23",
  "publishedText": null,
  "duration": null,
  "durationSeconds": null,
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jNQXAC9IVRw/hqdefault.jpg",
  "channelName": "jawed",
  "channelId": "UC4QobU6STFB0P71PMvOGN5A",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4QobU6STFB0P71PMvOGN5A",
  "channelHandle": "@jawed",
  "isChannelVerified": true,
  "numberOfSubscribers": 6650000,
  "text": "Microplastics are accumulating in human brains at an alarming rate …",
  "playlistId": null,
  "playlistTitle": null,
  "position": null,
  "input": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw",
  "inputType": "video",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-04T14:02:41.600753+00:00"
}

A row from a search, a channel or a playlist also carries publishedText, duration, durationSeconds and its position in that list; a playlist row carries playlistId and playlistTitle. The names id, url, title, viewCount, likes, commentsCount, date, duration, thumbnailUrl, channelName, channelUrl, numberOfSubscribers and text are those of the most used YouTube Actor, so code written for it reads these rows. The run also writes a SUMMARY record that names the inputs that were not found and the reason a run stopped.

💰 What a run costs

Apify plan	Per 1,000 videos
Free	$1.50
Bronze	$1.40
Silver	$1.30
Gold, Platinum, Diamond	$1.20

Apify's standard start event ($0.00005) is the only other charge; proxies are included. The price is the same with and without exact values. Not charged: an input that does not exist, a video outside your date limits or below minViews. Set the run's maximum charge and the Actor stops at it with the rows it has saved.

⏱️ Measured (October 4, 2026)

Run	Videos	Time
Empty input (sample search, exact values)	20	6 s
Two searches, a channel, its Shorts tab, a playlist and a video link	51	14 s
300 videos of one channel with exact values	300	49 s
One channel's whole video tab, list values only	5,304	53 s
A channel's videos and Shorts, list values only	501	5 s
A channel's uploads of September 1 to 15	5	4 s
This week's most viewed videos for a search term	30	9 s

🤖 For AI agents

Smallest useful call:

{"queries": ["home workout"], "maxResults": 20}

Each row is one video with title, url, viewCount, likes, date, duration, text, channelName and numberOfSubscribers. Put channel, playlist or video links into urls; both fields take several entries. Add "publishedAfter": "7 days" for recent uploads. An input that does not exist returns no rows; the status message and the SUMMARY record name it. No credentials are needed.

💡 Use cases

• 📊 Channel and competitor analysis: every upload of a channel with views, likes and dates, to see what works.
• 🔎 Topic and trend research: what ranks for a keyword, and what was uploaded about it this week.
• 🤝 Creator sourcing: channels behind the top videos of a niche, with subscribers and handles.
• 🧠 Datasets for models: titles and full descriptions of thousands of videos, with their numbers.

⚠️ Limits, stated plainly

• A search ends after roughly 150 to 250 results. YouTube stops there. More terms and filters reach further, and the status message says when a search ended early.
• No transcripts and no comment texts. The YouTube Transcript Scraper and the YouTube Comments Scraper return those.
• Without exact values a row carries what the list shows: views rounded by YouTube and an age instead of a date, no likes and no description. publishedBefore needs exact values.
• A video given by link comes without its length. The length is part of a list, not of the video's own data.
• The number of comments is filled for video links only.
• A date limit on a channel needs the order "latest". With "popular" or "oldest" the whole tab is read and filtered.
• Subscriber counts are rounded by YouTube ("6.65M").
• No dislikes, no video files, no channel "about" page.
• A video link that leads nowhere is reported as not found and costs nothing.

❓ FAQ

Do I need a YouTube API key or an account? No. The Actor reads what YouTube shows a visitor.

How many videos can I get from a channel? All of them. A tab is read 30 videos per request to its end; 5,304 videos took 53 seconds without exact values, 300 videos with exact values 49 seconds.

How do I get only recent uploads? Set publishedAfter to a day or to a period such as 7 days. Put the run on a schedule for a daily list of new videos.

Can I mix searches, channels and playlists? Yes. Every row says in input and inputType where it came from.

Why are views in some rows rounded? With includeDetails off a row carries the list's values. Turn it on for exact numbers.

Does it return Shorts? Yes: choose shorts in contentTypes, or give a channel link that ends in /shorts. Searches return Shorts mixed in, marked by type.

What happens when a channel or video does not exist? It is named in the status message and costs nothing; the other inputs are read.

How do I call it from code? With the Apify API or the Python and JavaScript clients; every run returns a dataset you can fetch as JSON or CSV. It also works as a tool through Apify's MCP server.

Is it legal? The Actor reads public video data that YouTube shows to everyone without a login. Descriptions can contain personal data: GDPR, CCPA and similar rules apply to how you store and use it, and YouTube's terms apply to you as well.

🔗 You might also like

• YouTube Comments Scraper: comments and replies of videos
• YouTube Transcript Scraper: what is said in a video, as text
• YouTube Search Results Scraper: keyword rankings with rank and filters
• TikTok Profile Videos Scraper: every video of a TikTok profile with its numbers
• Instagram Reels Scraper: reels of public Instagram accounts

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