# YouTube Video List Scraper (`confidential_gnat/youtube-video-list-scraper`) Actor

Scrapes video listings from YouTube channels and playlists, with optional per-video detail enrichment. Set a project name to return only unique videos across runs, skipping ones already scraped before using our own cache.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/confidential\_gnat/youtube-video-list-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [ActorFlow](https://apify.com/confidential_gnat) (community)
- **Categories:**
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.40 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## YouTube Video List Scraper

Scrapes video listings from YouTube channels and playlists — video title, view count, duration, publish date, thumbnail, and more. Optionally enriches each video with extra detail-page data such as full description and exact publish date. Output is delivered as structured JSON, ready for export to CSV or Excel.

**Target website:** [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com)

### ⚖️ Legality of this actor

This actor only collects data that is already publicly visible on YouTube's channel, Shorts, and playlist pages — no login, paywall, or private content is accessed. Scraping publicly available data is generally considered legal, and this is consistent with rulings such as *hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn*. Users are responsible for ensuring their use of the collected data complies with YouTube's Terms of Service and any applicable laws in their jurisdiction (e.g. GDPR/CCPA if storing personal data).

### 💡 Use Case

Content teams, marketers, and researchers who need structured video metadata from a YouTube channel or playlist — without manually scrolling and copying data — to track uploads, monitor engagement, or build a dataset for analysis.

### 🏭 Industry

Media & Entertainment, Marketing & Advertising, Market Research, Content Creation.

### 📤 Output

Structured JSON dataset (exportable to CSV/Excel) containing per-video metadata: title, URL, channel, view count, duration, publish date, thumbnail, and optionally full description and keywords.

### 🌐 Domain

Social media / video platform data extraction (YouTube).

### 🏷️ Label

`youtube`, `video-scraper`, `channel-scraper`, `playlist-scraper`, `social-media`

### ✨ Features

- **Video listing extraction** — pulls videos from a channel's Videos tab, Shorts tab, channel root, or any playlist
- **Pagination support** — automatically pages through the full listing, not just the first page
- **Proxy support** — configurable proxy for listing requests, with automatic residential proxy routing for detail pages when enabled
- **Optional detail enrichment** — turn on `scrapeDetails` to fetch full description, exact view count, publish date, and video length per video
- **Unique results across runs** — set a project name to automatically skip videos already collected in a previous run under that name, so repeated runs only return new videos (disabled by default; leave the project name empty to fetch the full listing every run)

### 🔧 Input Configuration

| Field | Type | Required | Default | Description |
|-------|------|----------|---------|-------------|
| `startUrls` | array | ✅ | — | YouTube channel (Videos or Shorts tab, or channel root) or playlist URLs to scrape. |
| `maxItems` | integer | — | 5 | Maximum number of videos to collect per start URL. |
| `scrapeDetails` | boolean | — | false | When enabled, visits each video's watch page for extra fields (description, exact view count, publish date). Increases run cost since these requests are routed through a residential proxy. When disabled, only data available on the list page is returned (faster, cheaper, no proxy needed). |
| `projectName` | string | — | — | Videos already scraped under this project name in a previous run are skipped on later runs, so repeated runs only collect new videos. Leave empty to disable caching. |
| `proxyConfiguration` | object | — | Residential proxy | Proxy settings for list-page (channel/playlist) requests. |

**Supported URL types:**

- Channel Videos tab — `https://www.youtube.com/@3blue1brown/videos`
- Channel Shorts tab — `https://www.youtube.com/@3blue1brown/shorts`
- Channel root — `https://www.youtube.com/@3blue1brown`
- Playlist — `https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=...`

### 📦 Output

The actual fields returned depend on the `scrapeDetails` input — two dataset views are available to match.

#### Video list (`scrapeDetails` off — default)

Fields available directly from the channel/playlist listing page.

```json
{
	"videoId": "ZpF6IE0rdxA",
	"title": "Antigravity A1: A New Take on Drones!",
	"url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpF6IE0rdxA",
	"sourceUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd/videos",
	"channelName": "Marques Brownlee",
	"viewCountText": "2.2M views",
	"durationText": "10:09",
	"publishedTimeText": "3 weeks ago",
	"thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZpF6IE0rdxA/maxresdefault.jpg"
}
```

#### Video details (`scrapeDetails` on)

Adds fields only available on the video's watch page — full description, exact view count, ISO publish date, video length, and keywords.

```json
{
	"videoId": "ZpF6IE0rdxA",
	"url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpF6IE0rdxA",
	"sourceUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd/videos",
	"title": "Antigravity A1: A New Take on Drones!",
	"description": "Thanks Antigravity for sponsoring this video! Get 25% off the A1 at https://geni.us/lQlFcj for a limited time, and get 20% off accessories during Prime Day! Also, the first 25 people get a free flight battery and a double-lens replacement kit with their A1 purchase.\n\nMKBHD Merch: http://shop.MKBHD.com\n\nPlaylist of MKBHD Intro music: https://goo.gl/B3AWV5\n\n~\nhttp://twitter.com/MKBHD\nhttp://instagram.com/MKBHD\nhttp://facebook.com/MKBHD",
	"channelName": "Marques Brownlee",
	"channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBJycsmduvYEL83R_U4JriQ",
	"viewCount": "2204028",
	"publishDate": "2026-06-29T12:22:20-07:00",
	"lengthSeconds": "609",
	"keywords": [
		"Antigravity",
		"Antigravity A1",
		"A1 drone",
		"360 drone"
	],
	"thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZpF6IE0rdxA/maxresdefault.jpg"
}
```

### 💡 Uses of This Data

- Tracking a channel's upload frequency and content strategy over time
- Monitoring view count and engagement growth on new uploads
- Building a searchable archive of a channel's or playlist's video catalog
- Competitive research across multiple channels in the same niche
- Feeding video metadata into content recommendation or analytics pipelines

### 🚀 How to Use

1. [Sign up](https://apify.com/sign-up) for a free Apify account — includes **$5 monthly credit**.
2. Open the actor page and click **Try for free**.
3. Fill in the **Input** fields (start URL is required).
4. Click **Start** and wait for the run to complete.
5. Download results from the **Output** tab in JSON, CSV, or Excel format.

You can also run this actor via the [Apify API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2) or integrate it directly into your workflows using [Zapier](https://zapier.com/apps/apify), [Make](https://www.make.com/), or [n8n](https://n8n.io/).

### 📝 Notes

- **Proxy recommended for large-scale scraping** — For high-volume runs, enable the Apify Residential or Datacenter proxy to avoid blocks.
- **API integration** — This actor can be called as an API from any automation platform (Zapier, Make, n8n, custom scripts).

### Other Existing Actors

| Scraper | Description |
|----------|-------------|
| [🏛️ BidNet Direct Open Bid Opportunities Scraper](https://apify.com/confidential_gnat/bidnetdirect-open-bid-opportunities-scraper) | Scrapes open government bid and RFP solicitations from BidNet Direct, including title, publication date, closing date and other relevant data. |
| [🚗 Cheapest Cars & Bids Scraper](https://apify.com/confidential_gnat/cheapest-carsandbids-scraper) | Scrapes the cheapest vehicle listings from Cars & Bids, making it easy to discover the best-value auction deals. |
| [🔍 Incidecoder Scraper](https://apify.com/confidential_gnat/whois-com) | Extracts cosmetic ingredient and product information from Incidecoder for research and analysis. |
| [🎟️ Gametime Events Website Scraper](https://apify.com/confidential_gnat/gametime-events-scraper) | Collects event listings, ticket availability, and pricing data from Gametime. |
| [🌐 WHOIS Domain Lookup Scraper](https://apify.com/confidential_gnat/whois-com) | Bulk WHOIS lookups via whois.com. Accepts URLs, bare domains, or whois.com lookup links, and returns registration dates, registrar, name servers, status codes, abuse contacts, registrant/technical contact details, and similar domain suggestions. |

### 💬 Support & Contact

If you encounter any issues or have questions, please [open an issue](https://apify.com/confidential_gnat/youtube-video-list-scraper/issues/open)

You can also find more of my actors on the page [Actor Flow ](https://apify.com/confidential_gnat).

# Actor input Schema

## `startUrls` (type: `array`):

YouTube channel (Videos or Shorts tab, or channel root) or playlist URLs to scrape.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of videos to collect per start URL.

## `scrapeDetails` (type: `boolean`):

When enabled, visits each video's watch page for extra fields (description, exact view count, publish date). Watch pages are bot-gated more heavily than channel/playlist listings, so enabling this automatically routes those requests through a residential proxy (higher cost per run). When disabled, only data available on the list page is returned (faster, cheaper, no proxy needed).

## `projectName` (type: `string`):

Optional. Videos already scraped under this project name in a previous run are skipped on later runs, so repeated runs only collect new videos. Leave empty to disable caching.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Proxy settings for list-page (channel/playlist) requests. Defaults to residential proxy.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd/videos"
    }
  ],
  "maxItems": 5,
  "scrapeDetails": false,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ]
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "startUrls": [
        {
            "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd/videos"
        }
    ],
    "maxItems": 5
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("confidential_gnat/youtube-video-list-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd/videos" }],
    "maxItems": 5,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("confidential_gnat/youtube-video-list-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd/videos"
    }
  ],
  "maxItems": 5
}' |
apify call confidential_gnat/youtube-video-list-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,confidential_gnat/youtube-video-list-scraper"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/5lzUesdprd2IgJj4E/builds/1RInYfqythmp2r6YB/openapi.json