YouTube Video Metadata Scraper - Video Data

Scrape metadata from YouTube video URLs and export clean video data in one run. Get title, description, duration, channel, channel URL, views, likes, comments, upload date, tags, categories, thumbnail and availability fields. Export to JSON/CSV/Excel, run on a schedule, call via API, or connect to Make, Zapier or n8n.

What is the YouTube Video Metadata Scraper?

The YouTube Video Metadata Scraper turns a list of public YouTube video URLs into structured rows. It is built for marketers, creators, agencies, researchers, data teams and automation builders who need reliable video metadata without setting up the official YouTube API.

The actor uses yt-dlp metadata extraction and does not download videos. It focuses on metadata only, which keeps runs lightweight and practical for scheduled workflows.

What data does it extract?

• Video fields: video id, URL, title, description, duration, upload date and timestamp.
• Channel fields: channel name, channel id, channel URL and uploader id.
• Engagement fields: view count, like count and comment count when available.
• Discovery fields: tags, categories, thumbnail, availability and live status.

Input

Paste one or more YouTube video URLs into videoUrls.

Example input

{
  "videoUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5KVEU3aaeQ",
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uQrJ0TkZlc"
  ]
}

Output

Each dataset row can include:

{
  "video_id": "K5KVEU3aaeQ",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5KVEU3aaeQ",
  "title": "Python Full Course for Beginners",
  "description": "Master Python from scratch...",
  "duration_seconds": 7341,
  "channel": "Programming with Mosh",
  "channel_id": "UCWv7vMbMWH4-V0ZXdmDpPBA",
  "channel_url": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWv7vMbMWH4-V0ZXdmDpPBA",
  "uploader_id": "@programmingwithmosh",
  "view_count": 6814353,
  "like_count": 120000,
  "comment_count": 3000,
  "upload_date": "20240201",
  "tags": ["python", "programming"],
  "categories": ["Education"],
  "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/...",
  "availability": "public",
  "live_status": "not_live"
}

Use cases

🎥 Video research: Export metadata for a set of videos and compare titles, descriptions, lengths, tags and thumbnails.

📈 Competitive analysis: Track competitor videos and monitor views, likes, comments and publishing patterns.

🧲 Influencer vetting: Collect public performance signals before reviewing creators manually.

🧠 Content planning: Study successful videos in a niche and build topic or format ideas.

🗂️ Dataset enrichment: Add YouTube metadata to URLs collected from search, playlists, RSS feeds or internal databases.

Workflow ideas

Use this actor after a search or playlist export. First collect video URLs, then pass those URLs into this actor to enrich them with deeper metadata. For agencies, keep one task per client or niche and run it on a saved list of competitor videos. For research teams, store results over time and compare how view counts change.

The actor is also useful for cleaning messy video URL lists. It returns normalized video ids, canonical URLs and channel metadata so downstream workflows can deduplicate videos and group them by channel.

Reliability notes

The actor does not use a YouTube API key and does not download media. YouTube can change page behavior or hide some fields depending on video, region, age restrictions or availability. Missing fields are returned as null rather than guessed.

For large jobs, split video URLs across several tasks. That keeps retries easy and avoids letting one unavailable video affect a very large batch.

Data quality tips

YouTube metadata changes over time. View counts, like counts, comment counts, titles, descriptions and thumbnails can all change after a video is published. If you need monitoring, schedule repeated runs and keep the run timestamp in your own storage so you can compare snapshots.

For research datasets, deduplicate by video_id rather than raw URL. The same video can appear with tracking parameters, playlist parameters or shortened links. The normalized video_id and canonical url make later joins much easier.

Some videos expose limited metadata because of age restrictions, regional restrictions, privacy settings, live-stream state or YouTube page behavior. Missing fields are kept as null; the actor does not invent values.

Pricing

This actor uses pay-per-result pricing. You are charged for each video metadata row pushed to the dataset, plus a tiny actor-start event.

FAQ

Does it download videos?

No. It only extracts metadata.

Does it need a YouTube API key?

No. It uses public metadata extraction through yt-dlp.

Can I scrape multiple videos?

Yes. Add multiple URLs to videoUrls.

Does it include comments?

It may include comment count when available, but it does not scrape comment text.

Does it include transcripts?

No. Use a transcript actor separately if you need subtitles or captions.

Can I schedule it?

Yes. Save a task and run it on a schedule to monitor the same videos.

Is it legal?

This actor extracts publicly available metadata. You are responsible for using the output lawfully, respecting YouTube's terms, privacy rules, copyright and compliance requirements.

Why use this instead of the official YouTube API?

The official API is useful if you have quota and developer setup. This actor is simpler for Apify exports, no-code workflows and quick URL enrichment.

Can I combine this with playlist or search actors?

Yes. Use a search or playlist actor to discover URLs, then enrich those URLs here.

Does it work for Shorts?

It can extract metadata from many Shorts URLs, but the dedicated Shorts actor is better for monitoring a channel's Shorts tab.

Can I use it for reporting?

Yes. Export rows to a spreadsheet or BI tool and group by channel, category, tag, view count or upload date.

You might also like

• YouTube Search Results Scraper - find videos by keyword
• YouTube Playlist Extractor - export playlist videos
• YouTube Shorts Scraper - monitor Shorts tabs
• YouTube Transcript Scraper - extract captions and transcript text

Keywords

YouTube metadata scraper, YouTube video data, YouTube video API, video metadata extractor, YouTube title scraper, YouTube views scraper, YouTube channel metadata, YouTube tags extractor, creator analytics, video intelligence.