🔎 YouTube Search Results Scraper - Keywords to CSV

Search YouTube by keyword and export what it returns: title, link, exact views, age, length, channel, verified badge, description snippet and rank. Filter by upload date, length and type, and choose YouTube's relevance or popularity order. No API key, no login, no proxy to configure. Export to JSON/CSV/Excel, run on a schedule, call via API, or connect to Make, Zapier or n8n.

🔎 What is the YouTube Search Results Scraper?

It is an Apify Actor that sends your search terms to YouTube the way its own site does and reads the answers without a browser. The default run (ten results) takes about five seconds. Two filtered searches with 100 results each took fifteen seconds in our test on Apify.

Every search term is its own search, and every row carries the term and its rank, so many searches can share one dataset. The filters are YouTube's own: the Actor picks them from the filter menu YouTube returns, in the same way a visitor would click them.

What data does it extract?

• Video: video_id, url, title, type (video, short or live), duration_seconds, thumbnail, description (the snippet YouTube shows)
• Reach: view_count (exact for videos), published
• Search: query, search_rank
• Channel: channel, channel_id, channel_url, channel_handle, channel_is_verified
• With details on: upload_date, like_count, the full description, channel_subscribers

⬇️ Input

Field	Type	What it does
queries	array	Search terms, one search per entry
maxResults	integer	Results per search. 10 by default
uploadDate	string	any, today, week, month or year
contentType	string	any, videos or shorts
duration	string	any, short (under 3 minutes), medium (3 to 20) or long (over 20)
sort	string	relevance or popularity
excludeVideoIds	array	Videos you already have; they are skipped and not charged
includeDetails	boolean	Publication date, likes and full description per video

Example input

This week's long videos for two topics:

{
  "queries": ["nasa artemis", "web scraping tutorial"],
  "maxResults": 100,
  "uploadDate": "week",
  "contentType": "videos",
  "duration": "long"
}

⬆️ Output

A real row:

{
  "video_id": "ix9cRaBkVe0",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix9cRaBkVe0",
  "title": "Python Full Course for free 🐍",
  "type": "video",
  "view_count": 12670927,
  "published": "2 years ago",
  "duration_seconds": 43200,
  "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ix9cRaBkVe0/hq720.jpg",
  "channel": "Bro Code",
  "channel_id": "UC4SVo0Ue36XCfOyb5Lh1viQ",
  "channel_url": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4SVo0Ue36XCfOyb5Lh1viQ",
  "channel_handle": "@BroCodez",
  "channel_is_verified": true,
  "description": "python #tutorial #beginners Python tutorial for beginners' full course 2024 *Learn Python in 1 HOUR* ...",
  "query": "python tutorial",
  "search_rank": 1,
  "scraped_at": "2026-10-03T11:18:55.852102+00:00"
}

💰 How much does it cost?

You pay per saved row, plus a tiny start fee per run.

Apify plan	Price per 1,000 rows
Free	$1.50
Starter	$1.35
Scale	$1.275
Business	$1.20

The default run (ten results) costs 1.5 cents. Details do not cost extra. Set Maximum cost per run in the run options and the Actor stops at that amount and says so in the status message.

💡 Use cases

• 🔍 Keyword and SEO research: see who ranks for a term, with views, length and channel size signals.
• 📰 Topic monitoring: schedule a search with Upload date: today and excludeVideoIds from earlier runs to get only new videos.
• 🤝 Find creators in a niche: search the topic, then group the rows by channel_id.
• 🧠 Datasets for AI: collect video ids by topic and pass them to the transcript or comment Actors.

❓ FAQ

Do I need a YouTube API key or a Google account? No. The Actor reads what YouTube's own site loads for any visitor and uses no API quota.

Why are some view counts round numbers? YouTube shows large counts rounded in lists (88K, 4.3M). Search rows of videos carry the exact view count; Shorts in search results are rounded.

Why is there no exact date in the list rows? YouTube lists only show an age ("2 days ago"). Turn on Include exact details and each row gets upload_date, the exact view_count, like_count and the full description, at one extra request per video and the same price per row.

Is it legal to scrape YouTube? The Actor reads only what YouTube shows publicly to any visitor and does not log in. Channel and video data can be personal data, so GDPR, CCPA and similar rules apply to how you store and use it, 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.

How many results can one search return? YouTube ends a search after roughly 150 to 250 results and says "No more results". The status message tells you when that happened. To collect more, use several search terms or split one term with the filters.

Which country are the results for? The Actor asks for US results in English. YouTube also looks at the address of the visitor, which on Apify is in the United States.

Why did a search with an upload-date filter return fewer rows than maxResults? YouTube mixes a few older videos into filtered results. The Actor leaves those out, so every saved row is inside the window you chose.

Does it export channels and playlists from the results? No, only videos, Shorts and live streams.

🔗 You might also like

• YouTube Channel Videos Scraper
• YouTube Shorts Scraper
• YouTube Playlist Scraper
• YouTube Video Metadata Scraper
• YouTube Comments Scraper
• YouTube Transcript Scraper

Keywords: youtube search scraper, youtube search results scraper, scrape youtube search, youtube keyword search export, youtube search to csv, youtube search api alternative, youtube search without api key, youtube keyword research, youtube seo tool, youtube video search data, youtube search filter, youtube trending topics, youtube topic monitoring, youtube search rank, youtube search dataset