YouTube Shorts Scraper - Search, Channel Shorts & Videos

YouTube Shorts Scraper returns public YouTube Shorts and videos as clean, flat JSON. You can search Shorts by keyword, list every Short or the latest videos of any channel, or search videos uploaded within a chosen period. Channel video listings also include the public channel profile: avatar, handle, verified badge and bio. No Google account, API keys, proxies or cookies are needed, so marketers, researchers and developers can use it as a simple alternative to the YouTube Data API.

What data can you get?

The Actor has four modes. Each mode returns either Short records ("type": "short") or video records ("type": "video").

Mode	You give	You get
shorts	a keyword	Shorts matching the keyword: link, title, view count, thumbnail
channelShorts	channel links, @handles or channel IDs	every Short of each channel: link, title, view count, thumbnail, channel ID
search	a keyword (optional: uploaded within)	videos matching the keyword: title, channel, views, length, upload time, snippet
channelVideos	channel links, @handles or channel IDs	the latest videos of each channel: title, views, length, upload time, plus the public channel profile

All fields in the dataset:

Field	What it contains	Carried by
title	Title of the Short or video	short, video
viewCount	View count as a number; rounded the way YouTube rounds it when only a short form is shown	short, video
url	Link to the video or Short on youtube.com	short, video
videoId	YouTube video ID	short, video
channelName	Channel name	video
channelId	Channel ID (UC...)	video; Shorts only in channel mode
duration	Length as shown, e.g. 10:47	video
publishedTimeText	Relative upload time as shown, e.g. 5 days ago	video
description	Search snippet or channel-list description; null when empty	video
viewCountText	Views as YouTube shows them, e.g. 4.2M views	short
channelHandle	Channel handle URL, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/@name	video (channel listings only)
channelUrl	Channel page URL	video (channel listings only)
channelAvatar	Channel avatar image URL	video (channel listings only)
channelVerified	Whether the channel carries the verified badge	video (channel listings only)
channelBio	Channel description as published, including any business contact info	video (channel listings only)
isLive	Live flag of the video (true or false)	video
thumbnailUrl	Thumbnail image URL	short, video
type	Record type: short or video	short, video

In the Apify Console the results are shown in two table views: Shorts (title, viewCount, channelId, url) and Videos (title, channelName, viewCount, duration, publishedTimeText, url). The full records with all fields are always available in the export.

How to use YouTube Shorts Scraper

1. Open YouTube Shorts Scraper on Apify Store and go to the Input tab.
2. Choose a Mode: Search Shorts by keyword, Channel Shorts, Search videos by keyword, or Channel videos.
3. For the keyword modes, enter a Keyword. For video search you can also choose Uploaded within. For the channel modes, add channel links, @handles or channel IDs under Channels.
4. Set Max results: the total number of items for the whole run.
5. Click Start and wait for the run to finish.
6. Open the Output tab and export the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel or another format.

Input

Field	Type	Required	What it does	Default
mode	string	Required	What to scrape: shorts (Search Shorts by keyword), channelShorts (Channel Shorts), search (Search videos by keyword), channelVideos (Channel videos)	shorts
keyword	string	Optional	Search keyword for the shorts and search modes. When empty, "python" is searched.	none
uploadedWithin	string	Optional	search mode only: return only videos uploaded in this period. One of last_hour, today, this_week, this_month, this_year. The Shorts search has no time filter.	this_year
channels	array of strings	Optional (used by the channel modes)	Channel links (https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd), @handles or channel IDs (UC...) for channelShorts and channelVideos.	prefilled with @mkbhd
maxResults	integer	Optional	Maximum number of items to return in total for this run, from 1 to 5000. You are charged per item returned.	20

maxResults is the total across all channels in the run; a run stops as soon as it is reached. On the free Apify plan a run returns at most 20 results in total; any paid Apify plan removes the limit. On the free Apify plan each account can run this Actor up to 3 times per 24 hours and 10 times per 7 days, within a small lifetime free allowance shared across all our Actors, and all free accounts share a daily free budget. When any of these limits is reached, the run stops before fetching anything and nothing is charged.

Example: search Shorts by keyword

{
  "mode": "shorts",
  "keyword": "home workout",
  "maxResults": 100
}

Example: search videos uploaded this month

{
  "mode": "search",
  "keyword": "electric cars",
  "uploadedWithin": "this_month",
  "maxResults": 50
}

Example: list the Shorts of a channel

{
  "mode": "channelShorts",
  "channels": ["@veritasium"],
  "maxResults": 200
}

Example: list the latest videos of several channels

{
  "mode": "channelVideos",
  "channels": ["https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd", "@veritasium"],
  "maxResults": 60
}

Output example

A video from a channel list ("type": "video"). Values are illustrative:

{
  "type": "video",
  "videoId": "aBcD1234EfG",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBcD1234EfG",
  "title": "Testing Five Budget Phones for a Week",
  "description": null,
  "channelName": "Example Tech Channel",
  "channelId": "UC0123456789abcdefABCDEF",
  "channelAvatar": "https://yt3.googleusercontent.com/example-avatar=s900-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj",
  "channelHandle": "https://www.youtube.com/@exampletech",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0123456789abcdefABCDEF",
  "channelVerified": true,
  "channelBio": "Weekly reviews of phones, laptops and gadgets.",
  "viewCount": 1200000,
  "duration": "10:47",
  "publishedTimeText": "5 days ago",
  "isLive": false,
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aBcD1234EfG/hq720.jpg"
}

A video from the search mode has the same fields, but the channel profile fields (channelAvatar, channelBio, channelHandle, channelUrl, channelVerified) are empty, description holds the search snippet, and viewCount is exact.

A Short from a channel list ("type": "short"). Values are illustrative:

{
  "type": "short",
  "videoId": "xYz9876WvUt",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xYz9876WvUt",
  "title": "One-minute desk stretch",
  "viewCountText": "4.2M views",
  "viewCount": 4200000,
  "channelId": "UC0123456789abcdefABCDEF",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xYz9876WvUt/hq720.jpg"
}

A Short from the keyword search (shorts mode) has the same fields except channelId.

How much does it cost?

The Actor uses pay-per-event pricing. You pay a fee for each run start and a fee for each Short or video returned.

Charge event	Free Apify plan	Paid Apify plans (Bronze to Diamond)
Run start (run-start)	$0.02 per run	$0.005 per run
Result (result), each Short or video	$0.003	$0.003

Worked examples:

• 100 results on a paid plan: $0.005 + 100 × $0.003 = $0.305.
• 1,000 results on a paid plan: $0.005 + 1,000 × $0.003 = $3.005.
• 20 results on the free plan: $0.02 + 20 × $0.003 = $0.08.

On the free Apify plan, a run returns at most 20 results in total; any paid Apify plan removes the limit.

How charging works:

• The run-start fee is charged when the first request to the data source succeeds, even if that request returns nothing. In the channel modes this first request is the lookup that turns a channel link or @handle into a channel ID, so a channel that is found but has no Shorts or videos still costs the run-start fee with 0 results. The fee is not charged when the data source fails from the start or rejects the IDs, or when your spending limit cannot cover it.
• You never pay for more than maxResults items, and you are never charged for items that were not delivered.
• The run stops by itself if your spending limit is reached.

Use cases

• Trend and content research: see which Shorts are taking off for a topic and how many views they get, using the shorts mode with a keyword.
• Competitor and creator tracking: pull a channel's full Shorts list or latest videos with views, length and upload time, and refresh it on a schedule.
• Influencer and sponsorship shortlists: use channelVideos to get each channel's handle, verified badge and bio together with the recent performance of its videos.
• Topic monitoring: run the search mode with uploadedWithin set to today or this_week to collect new videos about a brand, product or event.
• AI and data projects: build datasets of video titles, channels and view counts with clean, consistent metadata for analysis.

Integrations and API

You can start runs from your own code through the Apify API, schedule them in the Apify Console (for example daily channel checks), and connect results to other apps through Apify integrations and webhooks. Results are stored in an Apify dataset that you can read through the API or export as JSON, CSV or Excel.

Python example with the apify-client package:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("clover_folktale/youtube-scraper").call(run_input={
    "mode": "channelVideos",
    "channels": ["https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd", "@veritasium"],
    "maxResults": 60,
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

Tips and limits

• What each source gives. Keyword Shorts search returns link, title, view count and thumbnail only. It does not include the channel or upload date, and it has no sort or time filter; use the search mode for videos with an upload window. Channel Shorts lists give the same fields plus the channel ID.
• Rounded numbers. View counts of Shorts and channel videos are what YouTube shows ("4.2M views"), so they are rounded. Search results give exact view counts.
• Search window. The search mode returns videos uploaded within the chosen period (default: this year).
• Page sizes. A channel's Shorts come about 48 per page, channel videos 30 per page, and video search 20 per page. A single keyword search or channel listing ends after 100 pages.
• Empty input. An empty input {} searches Shorts for "python", which is a quick way to test the Actor.
• Channels. Well-formed channel links, @handles or channel IDs that YouTube does not know are skipped. Entries that are not a channel link, @handle or channel ID (for example a video link or a link to another site) are rejected at the start with an input error, before anything runs. If 5 inputs return nothing, the run stops to protect your budget.
• Reliability. The Actor retries transient errors in all modes, and re-asks an empty page once in the two keyword modes; in the channel modes an empty page is taken as the end of the list. It stops cleanly instead of failing half-way.
• Freshness. Counts are what YouTube shows at the time of the run.
• Empty fields. Search results carry no channel profile details (channelAvatar, channelBio, channelHandle, channelUrl, channelVerified); those appear in channel video listings. Channel video lists have an empty description. Shorts from the keyword search have no channelId.
• Not included. Comments, captions, per-video details (likes, exact upload date) and video downloads.
• Free plan. A run returns at most 20 results in total; any paid Apify plan removes the limit.
• Privacy. Only public data is returned: titles, descriptions, view counts and the public channel profile (name, ID, handle, avatar, verified badge, bio) of every channel that appears. Descriptions and bios are returned as published, including any business contact info the creator put there.
• Feedback. Missing a field or a mode? Open an issue from the Actor page and it will be looked at.

FAQ

Do I need a YouTube or Google account?

No. You do not need a Google account, YouTube login, API keys, proxies or cookies. You only need an Apify account to run the Actor.

Is this an alternative to the YouTube Data API?

It can be used instead of the YouTube Data API for the data listed above: Shorts and videos by keyword, and the Shorts and videos of channels. You do not need to create an API key, and you pay per result. It is not an official YouTube or Google product.

Is it legal to scrape YouTube?

The Actor only returns public data that anyone can see on YouTube. It does not return private data such as email inboxes, phone numbers from accounts or private messages. You are responsible for how you use the data and for following the laws that apply to you, such as data protection rules.

How fresh is the data?

The data is collected live when you run the Actor. View counts and upload times are what YouTube shows at the time of the run.

Why are some fields empty?

Different YouTube sources show different data. Keyword Shorts search has no channel or upload date, search results have no channel profile, and channel video lists have no description. See Tips and limits above for the full list.

How many results can I get?

maxResults goes up to 5,000 items per run. A single keyword search or channel listing ends after 100 pages, so one video search gives at most about 2,000 videos and one channel's video list about 3,000; reaching 5,000 needs several channels or channel Shorts (about 48 per page). On the free Apify plan a run returns at most 20 results in total.

Can I get comments, captions or likes?

No. Comments, captions, likes, exact upload dates and video downloads are not included.

Can I schedule runs and export the data?

Yes. You can schedule runs in the Apify Console, start them through the API, and export the results as JSON, CSV, Excel and other formats.

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