YouTube Shorts Scraper

What is YouTube Shorts Scraper?

YouTube Shorts Scraper lets you extract YouTube Shorts data from any channel, any keyword or hashtag search, or a list of Short URLs. Use it to track competitors' short-form content, find viral Shorts in your niche, vet creators for influencer campaigns, or feed a Shorts analytics dashboard. Give it @MrBeast and it returns every Short on the channel as a clean record with exact view count, exact like count, comment count, publish date, description, hashtags, thumbnail and the channel's subscriber count.

• 📈 Exact numbers, not rounded labels: 60,333,535 views and 1,720,517 likes, not "60M" and "1.7M"
• 🏆 Find what goes viral: sort a channel's Shorts by views or likes per day to see which formats work
• 🤝 Vet creators for sponsorships: subscriber count, verified badge, engagement and posting frequency in one table
• 🔎 Search Shorts by keyword or hashtag: cooking hacks, #asmr, #booktok, sorted by relevance, upload date or rating
• 🔗 Look up any Short by URL: paste /shorts/ links, watch URLs, youtu.be links or bare video IDs
• ⚡ No login, no API key, no quota. Fast HTTP requests, no headless browser, so runs are quick and cheap

The official YouTube Data API caps you at 10,000 quota units a day and does not list a channel's Shorts separately from its videos. YouTube Shorts Scraper reads the channel's own Shorts tab, so you get every Short and only Shorts, newest first.

What data does YouTube Shorts Scraper extract?

• 🎬 Video ID, Short URL, title and full description (id, url, title, description)
• #️⃣ Hashtags from the title and description (hashtags)
• 👀 Exact view count, plus YouTube's displayed label (viewCount, viewCountText)
• 👍 Exact like count (likeCount)
• 💬 Comment count (commentCount, commentCountText)
• 📅 Publish date (publishedDate, YYYY-MM-DD)
• 🖼 Vertical thumbnail URL (thumbnailUrl)
• 📺 Channel name, ID, handle, URL and avatar (channelName, channelId, channelHandle, channelUrl, channelAvatarUrl)
• 👥 Channel subscriber count and verified badge (channelSubscribers, channelVerified)
• 📍 Which input found it and its rank in that channel or search (sourceType, sourceInput, position)

How to scrape YouTube Shorts

1. Click Try for free and open the Input tab.
2. Add channels (@MrBeast, a channel URL, or a UC... channel ID), search queries (cooking hacks, #asmr), or Short URLs. Mix all three if you like.
3. Set Max Shorts per channel or search, and optionally Max Shorts in total as a spend cap.
4. Click Start.
5. Download the results as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, or read them through the Apify API.

Input

{
    "channels": ["@MrBeast", "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd", "UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA"],
    "searchQueries": ["cooking hacks", "#asmr"],
    "shortUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CEJXqm2eiJ0"],
    "maxShortsPerSource": 100,
    "maxItems": 500,
    "includeDetails": true,
    "searchSortBy": "relevance"
}

Field	What it does
channels	Handles, channel URLs or channel IDs. Every Short on the channel's Shorts tab, newest first.
searchQueries	Keywords or hashtags, searched with YouTube's Shorts filter.
shortUrls	Individual Shorts as URLs or 11-character video IDs.
maxShortsPerSource	Limit per channel and per search (default 50).
maxItems	Hard cap on rows across everything, and so on cost.
includeDetails	On by default: exact views, likes, comments, date, description and subscribers. Off gives a fast listing with title, rounded views and thumbnail.
searchSortBy	relevance, date (newest first) or rating. Search queries only.

Output

{
    "id": "LiH-P4rSkLI",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LiH-P4rSkLI",
    "title": "Can You Pass This Classroom Quiz?",
    "description": "#oldnavypartner",
    "hashtags": ["oldnavypartner"],
    "viewCount": 60333535,
    "viewCountText": "60,333,535 views",
    "likeCount": 1720517,
    "likeCountIsApproximate": false,
    "commentCount": 62000,
    "commentCountText": "62K",
    "publishedDate": "2026-08-11",
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LiH-P4rSkLI/sardefault.jpg",
    "channelName": "MrBeast",
    "channelId": "UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA",
    "channelHandle": "@MrBeast",
    "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast",
    "channelSubscribers": 519000000,
    "channelSubscribersText": "519M subscribers",
    "channelVerified": true,
    "channelAvatarUrl": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/nxYrc_1_2f77...",
    "sourceType": "channel",
    "sourceInput": "@MrBeast",
    "position": 4,
    "detailsStatus": "complete",
    "status": "ok",
    "message": null,
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-02T13:30:03Z"
}

The dataset has two table views: Overview (thumbnail, title, views, likes, comments, date, channel) and Channels (avatar, handle, subscribers, verified badge).

How much does it cost to scrape YouTube Shorts?

YouTube Shorts Scraper uses flat pay-per-result pricing: $2.00 per 1,000 Shorts. No monthly fee, no start fee, and you only pay for rows you get.

Shorts	Cost
1,000	$2.00
10,000	$20.00
100,000	$200.00

The most-used YouTube Shorts actor on the Store charges $4.00 per 1,000 on the free plan. Apify's free plan includes $5 of monthly credit, which covers about 2,500 Shorts.

Measured coverage

From QA runs on 2026-10-02 through Apify Proxy, across channels (MrBeast, MKBHD), searches and Short URLs (about 500 Short rows):

Field	Coverage
id, url, title, thumbnailUrl	100%
viewCount, publishedDate	100%
channelName, channelId, channelHandle, channelVerified	100%
likeCount	98% (null when the creator hides likes)
commentCount	96% (null when YouTube shows no count)
channelSubscribers, channelAvatarUrl	98% (collaboration Shorts with several owners have none)
description	15 to 50%, depending on the channel or search (many Shorts have none)

maxItems is honoured exactly, every Short appears once per run even if two inputs find it, and a channel walk stops cleanly at the end of the Shorts tab (MrBeast: 201 of 201, MKBHD: 123 of 123).

Limits

• Search depth: YouTube serves roughly 40 to 120 Shorts per search query. For more, run the same query with another sort order, or add related queries and hashtags. Channels have no such limit.
• Comment counts above 1,000 are rounded by YouTube (21K). View and like counts are exact.
• Likes can be hidden by the creator; likeCount is then null.
• Publish date is a date, not a time. YouTube does not show the upload time on Shorts.
• Upload-date filters and the view-count sort are not offered: combined with the Shorts filter, YouTube returns an empty page for them.
• Video files and comments are not downloaded. You get metadata and links.

FAQ

Is it legal to scrape YouTube Shorts?

YouTube Shorts Scraper only reads public pages that anyone can see without logging in, and it does not collect personal data beyond what creators publish on their public channels. You are responsible for using the data in line with YouTube's terms, copyright law and privacy rules such as GDPR in your country.

How much does it cost to scrape 10,000 YouTube Shorts?

$20.00 at $2.00 per 1,000. Set Max Shorts in total to cap your spend, since you pay per row.

Can I scrape all Shorts from a YouTube channel?

Yes. Put the channel in channels and set maxShortsPerSource above the channel's Shorts count. The actor follows the Shorts tab to its last page.

Do I need a YouTube API key or a Google account?

No. There is no login, no cookies, no API key and no quota.

Why is likeCount null on some Shorts?

The creator has hidden the like count. Everything else on the row is still filled.

Can I get only the Shorts list without exact stats?

Yes. Turn off Include exact stats for a fast listing with ID, title, rounded views and thumbnail. It costs the same per row but finishes several times faster.

Can I use YouTube Shorts Scraper through the API or with Make, Zapier or n8n?

Yes. Every Apify actor has a REST API, client libraries for JavaScript and Python, and integrations with Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets and webhooks.

Something is missing or broken. What do I do?

Open an issue on the Issues tab with the input you used. Fixes for broken fields are a priority.

Related scrapers

• YouTube Comments Scraper for the comments under any video or Short
• YouTube Search Scraper for full YouTube search results