🎞️ YouTube Video Metadata Scraper - Views, Likes & Dates

Get the details of YouTube videos by link: title, exact view count, likes, comment count, publication date, full description, and the channel with its handle, verified badge and subscriber count. 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 Video Metadata Scraper?

It is an Apify Actor that reads the data YouTube's watch page loads for a video, without a browser. One video takes between five and ten seconds including start-up; four links took six seconds in our test on Apify.

Paste links in any form (youtube.com/watch?v=…, youtu.be/…, /shorts/…, /live/…) or bare video ids. Schedule it on a fixed list of videos and you get a daily snapshot of views, likes and comments for each of them.

What data does it extract?

• Video: video_id, url, title, description, upload_date, type, thumbnail
• Reach: view_count, like_count, comment_count
• Channel: channel, channel_id, channel_url, channel_handle, channel_is_verified, channel_subscribers

⬇️ Input

Field	Type	What it does
videoUrls	array	Video, Shorts or live links, or bare video ids

Example input

{
  "videoUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw",
    "https://youtu.be/K5KVEU3aaeQ"
  ]
}

⬆️ Output

A real row (the description is shortened here):

{
  "video_id": "K5KVEU3aaeQ",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5KVEU3aaeQ",
  "type": "video",
  "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K5KVEU3aaeQ/hqdefault.jpg",
  "title": "Python Full Course for Beginners",
  "view_count": 7763571,
  "upload_date": "2025-02-12",
  "like_count": 169676,
  "description": "Master Python from scratch 🚀 No fluff—just clear, practical coding skills to kickstart your journey! \n\n🚀 Want to dive deeper?\nCheck out my complete Python mastery course: https://mosh.link/python-course\nSubscribe for …",
  "channel": "Programming with Mosh",
  "channel_id": "UCWv7vMbMWH4-V0ZXdmDpPBA",
  "channel_url": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWv7vMbMWH4-V0ZXdmDpPBA",
  "channel_handle": "@programmingwithmosh",
  "channel_subscribers": 5170000,
  "channel_is_verified": true,
  "comment_count": 4419,
  "scraped_at": "2026-10-03T11:19:28.663142+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

One video costs 0.15 cents. 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

• 📈 Track campaign videos: schedule a daily run on your sponsored videos and chart views, likes and comments.
• 🧾 Enrich a list of links: turn a column of YouTube links into titles, channels, dates and reach.
• 🤝 Check creators' numbers: exact views and likes for the videos named in a media kit.
• 🧠 Datasets for AI and research: full descriptions and exact engagement numbers per video.

❓ 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.

Are the numbers exact? Views, likes and the comment count are the exact numbers of the watch page. Subscribers are rounded by YouTube itself (15.1M).

Why is comment_count empty for some videos? Comments are turned off there. The count includes replies.

Why is there no length, tag list or category? YouTube only gives those to a logged-in or attested player, which this Actor does not imitate. The YouTube Channel Videos Scraper, YouTube Playlist Scraper and YouTube Search Results Scraper return duration_seconds from YouTube's lists.

What happens with private, deleted or misspelled videos? They are named as not found in the status message and the SUMMARY record, cost nothing, and the run still succeeds with the other videos.

I used an earlier version. What changed? Rows now always come from the watch page, so the metadata_source column and the requireFullMetadata switch are gone, and upload_date is written as 2025-02-12.

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.

🔗 You might also like

• YouTube Channel Videos Scraper
• YouTube Shorts Scraper
• YouTube Playlist Scraper
• YouTube Search Results Scraper
• YouTube Comments Scraper
• YouTube Transcript Scraper

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