YouTube Shorts Scraper 🎬

Extract video metadata from YouTube Shorts in seconds! Just paste your URLs and let the magic happen.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                                                                 │
│   📋 Your Shorts URLs  ──►  🔄 Scraper  ──►  📊 Rich Data      │
│                                                                 │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

What Does It Do? 🤔

This scraper takes any YouTube Shorts link and pulls out all the juicy details:

Data Point	Description
🎥 Title	The video's title
📝 Description	Full video description
⏱️ Duration	Length in seconds
🖼️ Thumbnail	High-quality thumbnail URL
👤 Uploader	Channel name & ID
👁️ Views	Current view count
❤️ Likes	Current like count
📅 Upload Date	When it was posted
🔗 Download URL	Direct MP4 link (best quality)

How It Works 🛠️

┌──────────────┐
   │  You paste   │
   │  Shorts URLs │
   └──────┬───────┘
          │
          ▼
   ┌──────────────┐
   │   Scraper    │──── Uses residential proxies
   │   extracts   │     to avoid bot detection
   │   metadata   │
   └──────┬───────┘
          │
          ▼
   ┌──────────────┐
   │  Get clean   │
   │  JSON data   │
   └──────────────┘

Quick Start 🚀

Step 1: Add Your URLs

Paste your YouTube Shorts URLs. They should look like this:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dQw4w9WgXcQ
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/abc123xyz

Step 2: Configure Proxies (Required!)

⚠️ Important: YouTube blocks datacenter IPs. You MUST use residential proxies!

Select Apify Proxy with RESIDENTIAL group for best results.

Step 3: Run & Get Your Data!

Hit that Run button and watch the data flow in.

Input Options ⚙️

Option	Required	Default	Description
urls	✅ Yes	-	List of YouTube Shorts URLs to scrape
proxyConfiguration	✅ Yes	Residential	Proxy settings (residential required!)
maxConcurrency	❌ No	3	How many URLs to process at once (1-10)

Example Input

{
  "urls": [
    { "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dQw4w9WgXcQ" },
    { "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/another-video" }
  ],
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]
  },
  "maxConcurrency": 3
}

Output Format 📤

Each successfully scraped video returns:

{
  "id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "title": "Amazing Short Video",
  "description": "Check out this cool video...",
  "duration": 58,
  "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/...",
  "uploader": "Cool Creator",
  "uploader_id": "@coolcreator",
  "view_count": 1500000,
  "like_count": 125000,
  "upload_date": "20240115",
  "download_url": "https://...",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "success": true
}

If something goes wrong, you'll get a clear error:

{
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/invalid",
  "success": false,
  "error_code": "VIDEO_NOT_FOUND",
  "error_message": "Video not found or unavailable"
}

Error Codes 🚨

Code	What It Means
INVALID_URL	Not a valid YouTube Shorts URL
VIDEO_NOT_FOUND	Video doesn't exist or was removed
VIDEO_UNAVAILABLE	Video is private or restricted
AGE_RESTRICTED	Video requires age verification
BOT_DETECTED	YouTube flagged the request (try residential proxies!)
RATE_LIMITED	Too many requests, slow down
EXTRACTION_ERROR	Something unexpected went wrong

Tips for Best Results 💡

Tip	Why
🏠 Use Residential Proxies	Datacenter IPs get blocked by YouTube
🐢 Start with low concurrency (3)	Avoid rate limiting
📊 Process in batches	Split large lists into smaller runs
🔄 Retry failures	Some errors are temporary

Pricing 💰

This actor uses pay-per-result pricing:

• You only pay for successfully scraped videos
• Failed extractions are free
• Budget limits are respected automatically

Use Cases 📱

• 📈 Analytics - Track performance of Shorts across channels
• 🔍 Research - Study trending content and patterns
• 📥 Archiving - Save metadata for content you care about
• 🤖 Automation - Feed data into your own tools and workflows

FAQ ❓

Q: Why do I need residential proxies? A: YouTube actively blocks requests from datacenter IPs (like AWS, Google Cloud, etc.). Residential proxies make requests look like they're from regular home users.

Q: How fast is it? A: With concurrency set to 3, expect roughly 1-2 seconds per video. Increase concurrency for faster processing, but watch for rate limits.

Q: Can I scrape regular YouTube videos? A: No, this scraper is specifically designed for YouTube Shorts (/shorts/ URLs only).

Q: What happens if a video is private? A: You'll get a VIDEO_UNAVAILABLE error with success: false.

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Made with ❤️ for the Apify community