YouTube Comments Api for Apify

Professional YouTube comments api actor for Apify platform

This documentation provides complete integration guide for creating an Apify actor that downloads YouTube video comments. No API keys required.

🎯 Overview

What This Actor Does

• Extracts comments from any public YouTube video
• Supports multiple languages and sorting options
• Returns structured data perfect for analysis
• Handles large datasets efficiently
• No YouTube API quotas or restrictions

Key Features

• ✅ No API Key Required - Uses direct scraping approach
• ✅ Flexible Input - Accepts video URLs or IDs
• ✅ Language Support - Multiple language options
• ✅ Sorting Options - Top comments or newest first
• ✅ Scalable - Handle any number of comments
• ✅ Rich Metadata - Complete comment information
• ✅ Error Handling - Robust error management

📋 Input Schema

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
urlOrVideoId	Array[String]	✅ Yes	-	YouTube video URLs or video IDs
language	String	✅ Yes	"en"	Language code (en, tr, es, fr, de, it)
max_comments	Number	✅ Yes	50	Maximum comments per video
sortBy	String	✅ Yes	"top"	Sort method: "top" or "newest"

Input Examples

Basic Input

{
    "language": "en",
    "max_comments": 50,
    "sort_by": "newest",
    "urlOrVideoId": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnF3sUfyNRI"
}

📤 Output Schema

Output Structure

Each video produces an output record with the following structure:

[
  {
    "video_info": {
      "video_id": "mnF3sUfyNRI",
      "video_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnF3sUfyNRI",
      "download_date": "2025-09-03T20:22:16.881390",
      "downloader": "youtube-comments-api"
    },
    "settings": {
      "max_comments": 50,
      "sort_by": "newest",
      "language": "en",
      "total_downloaded": 50
    },
    "comments": [
      {
        "comment_id": "Ugz_xHS6GebfPxWhAjt4AaABAg",
        "author": "@sandro6411",
        "author_channel_id": "UCkAr1IWgyEBfp49BamNnVTw",
        "text": "what's up with speed's voice ?",
        "time_text": "1 minute ago",
        "time_parsed": 1756930876.09903,
        "like_count": "0",
        "reply_count": 0,
        "is_reply": false,
        "parent_id": null,
        "is_hearted": false,
        "is_pinned": false,
        "is_verified": false
      },
      ...
    ],
    "summary": {
      "total_comments": 50,
      "main_comments": 50,
      "replies": 0,
      "hearted_comments": 0,
      "pinned_comments": 0
    }
  }
]

📊 Performance Guidelines

Best Practices

1. Batch Size: Process 10-50 videos per run for optimal performance
2. Memory: Allocate at least 512MB for large comment sets
3. Timeout: Set timeout to 15-30 minutes for large datasets
4. Error Handling: Always include error handling for failed videos
5. Rate Limiting: Add delays between requests if processing many videos

🚨 Error Handling

Common Errors and Solutions

Video Unavailable

{
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INVALID",
  "error": true,
  "errorMessage": "Video unavailable: INVALID",
  "processedAt": "2023-12-01T10:30:00.000Z"
}

Comments Disabled

{
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "error": true,
  "errorMessage": "Comments disabled: dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "processedAt": "2023-12-01T10:30:00.000Z"
}

Invalid URL

{
  "videoUrl": "invalid-url",
  "error": true,
  "errorMessage": "Invalid YouTube URL or video ID: invalid-url",
  "processedAt": "2023-12-01T10:30:00.000Z"
}

🔐 Security & Privacy

Data Handling

• Only public comments are extracted
• No personal data beyond public usernames
• Comments are processed as-is from YouTube
• No authentication or login required

Compliance

• Respects YouTube's public content policy
• No rate limiting violations
• Ethical scraping practices
• GDPR compliant for public data

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This documentation provides everything needed to create a professional YouTube comment extraction actor for the Apify platform. The solution is scalable, robust, and ready for production use.