YouTube Trending Topic Finder — Rising Topics, Momentum & Content Opportunities

Find out what is gaining traction on YouTube in any niche — as topics, not just a list of popular videos.

Give the Actor a niche such as artificial intelligence, fitness or personal finance. It samples recent YouTube videos and Shorts, measures how fast each one is gathering views and engagement since upload, spots breakout videos, groups repeated themes across different creators, and returns one ranked row per trending topic with a momentum score, a tier, plain-English reasons and the evidence videos behind it.

No YouTube login. No browser. Results in seconds to minutes.

---

⚡ Quick start

1. Type a niche into Seed topics.
2. Leave the Time window at Last 7 days.
3. Click Start.

{
    "seedTopics": ["artificial intelligence"],
    "regionCode": "US",
    "languageCode": "en",
    "timeWindow": "7_DAYS",
    "videosPerSeed": 250,
    "maxTopics": 25
}

You get rows like "AI Agents — BREAKOUT: 8 of 13 videos from the last 7 days are gaining traction, from 8 creators, with 2 videos well above the niche's typical view velocity; most of the activity is Shorts", each with the videos that prove it.

---

What counts as a trending topic?

A theme — a name, product, phrase or hashtag — that shows up across several recent videos from several different creators, and whose videos are gathering views faster than is typical for the niche right now.

A topic scores highly when these line up:

• recent uploads, not old classics
• high views per hour since upload
• strong engagement (likes + comments) per hour
• the same theme repeated across videos
• multiple independent creators
• activity clustered in the most recent part of the window

How is this different from a "trending videos" scraper?

	Trending-videos scrapers	YouTube search scrapers	This Actor
One row is	a video	a video	a topic
Ranked by	position on a chart	relevance or lifetime views	momentum since upload
Works for a specific niche	❌ only YouTube's broad categories	✅	✅
Tells you what theme is rising	❌	❌	✅
Separates one viral video from a real trend	❌	❌	✅ needs several videos and creators
Explains why	❌	❌	✅ signals + one-line summary

Does YouTube still have a generic Trending page?

Not as a useful foundation. YouTube's old single Trending list has given way to category hubs, charts, search, recommendations and Shorts feeds. Those are too broad to tell you what is rising inside your niche. This Actor builds its own sample from recent search results for each seed instead.

Does the Actor use lifetime views?

No. A video's views are always divided by its age in hours — a video with 100,000 views after 10 hours outranks one with 1,000,000 views after 3 months. Only videos uploaded inside your time window are analysed at all.

What is view velocity?

views ÷ hours since upload (minimum one hour). Each video's velocity is then ranked against the other videos in the same niche and format, so a fitness Short is compared with other fitness Shorts, not with long-form AI explainers.

A breakout video is one in roughly the top 15% of its niche for velocity and at least 1.5× the niche's median — or an above-median video pulling unusually many views for its channel's size, or unusually much engagement per hour.

A video has traction when it is a breakout, or is at least as fast as its niche's median and has at least 100 views. Brand-new uploads nobody has watched yet still count towards a topic's video count, but not towards its tier.

What do BREAKOUT, RISING, ACTIVE and WEAK mean?

Tier	Meaning
BREAKOUT	Score ≥ 70, at least 2 breakout videos, and videos with traction from at least 3 creators — strong recent acceleration across the niche
RISING	Score ≥ 50 — clearly positive momentum with enough evidence
ACTIVE	Score ≥ 30 — current activity, acceleration unclear
WEAK	Below 30 — little evidence or momentum

Whatever the score, a topic is WEAK unless at least 2 of its videos, from at least 2 creators, have traction — one viral video surrounded by unwatched uploads is not a trend.

By default, BREAKOUT, RISING and ACTIVE topics are returned. Set Minimum trend tier to change that.

Each topic also carries a confidence of HIGH, MEDIUM or LOW, based on how many videos with traction and how many creators support it, how complete the metadata is, and how tightly its videos share the theme.

How is the trend score calculated?

0–100, from six parts (each topic's scoreBreakdown shows the points it earned):

Component	Max points
View velocity (median velocity rank of the topic's videos, so one outlier cannot carry it)	30
Breakout videos (3 or more = full points)	20
Creator diversity (creators with a video that has traction)	15
Recency (share of videos in the newest third of the window)	15
Engagement velocity	10
Video count (videos with traction)	10

Penalties: −15 when one channel makes 60%+ of the topic's videos, −20 when most of the topic's views sit on its oldest videos with almost nothing recent, −15 when only 3 videos support it. If like and comment counts are not available, the engagement part is dropped and the rest scaled up to 100.

Every row also lists trendSignals such as HIGH_VIEW_VELOCITY, MULTIPLE_BREAKOUT_VIDEOS, MULTIPLE_CREATORS, RECENT_UPLOAD_CLUSTER, RISING_SHORTS_ACTIVITY, CROSS_SEED_OCCURRENCE, and weakening signals such as SINGLE_VIDEO_DRIVEN, LOW_TRACTION, SINGLE_CREATOR_DOMINANCE, LOW_SAMPLE_SIZE or LOW_RECENCY — so you never get just a number.

Why require several videos and creators?

Because one viral video is not a trend, and one prolific channel posting the same theme five times is not one either. By default a topic needs 3 videos from 2 different creators; both are adjustable. On top of that, a topic only rises above WEAK when at least 2 of those videos, from 2 different creators, actually have traction.

How many videos are analysed?

Videos sampled per seed (default 250, up to 500) recent search results per seed, split across the content types you pick. Duplicates found by several seeds are analysed once. Videos outside the exact time window are dropped after their upload time is checked.

💡 The default 250 videos per seed usually finds 10–15 topics in a single niche; 100 gives a quicker but thinner read, and 500 finds more and smaller topics. The run summary reports how many videos were collected, analysed and dropped, and why.

Are Shorts included?

Yes — by default the sample is half long-form videos and half Shorts. Shorts come from YouTube's own Shorts search filter, so they are real Shorts; Shorts older than the window are dropped once their exact upload time is checked. Shorts are ranked against other Shorts (they collect views much faster), and each topic reports shortsCount, shortsShare and a RISING_SHORTS_ACTIVITY signal when Shorts are driving it. Live streams are available as a third content type.

Can I choose country and language?

Yes. Country (any two-letter code — US, GB, AU, IN, BD, …) localises YouTube search, and Language sets the interface language. Country changes which videos search surfaces; it does not prove where the viewers are. Topic extraction is tuned for English titles; other languages work but may let through more filler phrases.

What does seed expansion do?

With Expand seeds on, each seed is widened with YouTube's own autocomplete — AI tools → AI tools for students, AI tools for video editing, AI tools to make money — and every suggestion is sampled and analysed together with the seed. Each suggestion samples a quarter of Videos sampled per seed (at least 20), so expansion widens coverage at the cost of a longer run.

Is AI required?

No. Topics come from statistics and rules: phrase extraction from titles, hashtags and descriptions, clustering of phrases that describe the same videos, and the velocity metrics above. No language model is called and no AI cost is involved.

Are transcripts or comments used?

No. Only public video metadata is used — title, description, hashtags, upload time, views, likes, comment count, duration and channel. Comment text and transcripts are not read.

How does pricing work?

Pay per result: you are charged once for each topic row delivered to your dataset. Videos sampled, searches made and topics filtered out are not charged, and a run that finds no topics writes one free explanatory row instead. Max topics returned caps the cost of any run, and the Actor stops cleanly at your run's spending limit.

See the Pricing tab for current rates — this README deliberately doesn't quote figures, as they can change.

Can I schedule recurring scans?

Yes. Save your input as an Apify Task and attach a Schedule (for example, every morning for 24 hours, or weekly for 7 days). Each run is a fresh snapshot, so comparing runs shows which topics are holding, climbing or fading.

Can I use the API or MCP?

Yes — like any Apify Actor, it runs from the Apify API, the JavaScript and Python clients, integrations (Make, Zapier, n8n) and Apify's MCP server for AI agents.

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/coregent~youtube-trending-topic-finder/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>" \
  -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"seedTopics": ["artificial intelligence"], "timeWindow": "7_DAYS"}'

---

Input examples

Several niches, one country

{
    "seedTopics": ["artificial intelligence", "robotics", "productivity"],
    "regionCode": "AU",
    "timeWindow": "7_DAYS",
    "videosPerSeed": 150,
    "minimumVideosPerTopic": 3,
    "minimumCreatorsPerTopic": 2,
    "maxTopics": 50
}

Seed expansion

{
    "seedTopics": ["AI tools"],
    "expandSeeds": true,
    "maxExpandedSeedsPerTopic": 10,
    "regionCode": "US",
    "languageCode": "en",
    "timeWindow": "14_DAYS",
    "videosPerSeed": 100
}

Shorts only

{
    "seedTopics": ["fitness"],
    "contentTypes": ["SHORTS"],
    "timeWindow": "7_DAYS",
    "videosPerSeed": 250,
    "minimumTrendTier": "RISING"
}

Input reference

Field	Default	What it does
seedTopics	— (required)	Niches or keywords, up to 25
timeWindow	7_DAYS	24_HOURS, 3_DAYS, 7_DAYS, 14_DAYS, 30_DAYS, 90_DAYS
videosPerSeed	250	Recent videos sampled per seed (10–500)
contentTypes	VIDEOS, SHORTS	Any of VIDEOS, SHORTS, LIVE
regionCode	US	Two-letter country code for search localisation
languageCode	en	Interface language
expandSeeds	false	Add YouTube autocomplete suggestions as extra queries
maxExpandedSeedsPerTopic	10	Suggestions per seed when expanding
minimumVideosPerTopic	3	Evidence videos a topic needs
minimumCreatorsPerTopic	2	Distinct channels a topic needs
minimumTrendTier	ACTIVE	Lowest tier returned
maxTopics	50	Topics returned at most (caps cost)
minimumViews	0	Drop videos below this view count
minimumEngagement	0	Drop videos below this many likes + comments (where shown)
includeEvidenceVideos	true	Attach supporting videos to each topic
maxEvidenceVideos	5	Evidence videos per topic
includeChannelContext	true	Add channel subscriber counts; enables small-channel breakout detection
maxConcurrency	5	Seeds searched in parallel
maxRetries	3	Retries on rate-limit or server errors
proxyConfiguration	no proxy	Optional — see the proxy policy below

---

Output

One dataset row per topic, highest score first. The samples below are one real row ("AI Agents", rank 5 of 18) from a default run on artificial intelligence, shown as each dataset view presents it.

Trending Topics

The ranked table: one line per topic with its tier, score and the one-sentence reason.

{
    "rank": 5,
    "topic": "AI Agents",
    "trendTier": "BREAKOUT",
    "trendScore": 72,
    "confidence": "HIGH",
    "videoCount": 13,
    "uniqueCreators": 13,
    "avgViewsPerHour": 535,
    "breakoutVideoCount": 2,
    "shortsShare": 0.846,
    "trendSummary": "AI Agents is breaking out: 8 of 13 videos from the last 7 days are gaining traction, from 8 creators, with 2 videos well above the niche's typical view velocity; most of the activity is Shorts."
}

Signals & Creators

Why the topic ranks where it does, which phrases belong to it, and who is making it (creators shortened to two of five).

{
    "rank": 5,
    "topic": "AI Agents",
    "trendTier": "BREAKOUT",
    "trendSignals": [
        "MULTIPLE_BREAKOUT_VIDEOS",
        "MULTIPLE_CREATORS",
        "RECENT_UPLOAD_CLUSTER",
        "REPEATED_TITLE_THEME",
        "REPEATED_KEYPHRASE"
    ],
    "relatedPhrases": ["#aisafety", "#aiagents"],
    "seedTopics": ["artificial intelligence"],
    "topCreators": [
        {
            "channelId": "UCOFl0wDeBMSBbK3jNJQHHFg",
            "channelName": "AI Copium",
            "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOFl0wDeBMSBbK3jNJQHHFg",
            "videosInTopic": 1,
            "subscriberCount": 34200
        },
        {
            "channelId": "UCSSB338C8A9ZOXtsbfM7phg",
            "channelName": "Mikey Website",
            "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSSB338C8A9ZOXtsbfM7phg",
            "videosInTopic": 1,
            "subscriberCount": 41900
        }
    ],
    "observedWindow": {
        "requested": "7_DAYS",
        "oldestEvidenceAt": "2026-10-15T14:15:33.000Z",
        "newestEvidenceAt": "2026-10-20T23:00:14.000Z"
    }
}

Evidence Videos

The videos behind the topic, best first (shortened to two of five).

{
    "rank": 5,
    "topic": "AI Agents",
    "trendTier": "BREAKOUT",
    "evidenceVideos": [
        {
            "videoId": "rb4CTZjHCNg",
            "title": "Researchers Made “First Contact” With Rogue AI Agents…",
            "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb4CTZjHCNg",
            "channelId": "UCOFl0wDeBMSBbK3jNJQHHFg",
            "channelName": "AI Copium",
            "contentType": "VIDEO",
            "publishedAt": "2026-10-16T14:15:28.000Z",
            "timestampPrecision": "exact",
            "views": 648099,
            "likes": 7034,
            "comments": 1356,
            "viewsPerHour": 5917,
            "engagementRate": 0.0129,
            "subscriberCount": 34200,
            "viewsToSubscribers": 18.95,
            "isBreakoutVideo": true
        },
        {
            "videoId": "TiNUHdbfOFs",
            "title": "AI Can Self-Replicate Now... #anthropic #aisafety #ai",
            "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiNUHdbfOFs",
            "channelId": "UCkVfrGwV-iG9bSsgCbrNPxQ",
            "channelName": "Better Stack",
            "contentType": "SHORT",
            "publishedAt": "2026-10-18T20:00:23.000Z",
            "timestampPrecision": "exact",
            "views": 17584,
            "likes": 796,
            "comments": 85,
            "viewsPerHour": 315.2,
            "engagementRate": 0.0501,
            "subscriberCount": 235000,
            "viewsToSubscribers": 0.075,
            "isBreakoutVideo": true
        }
    ]
}

All Fields

The complete row, including the per-topic metrics and the points behind the score in scoreBreakdown (creators and evidence videos shortened to two).

{
    "rowType": "trending_topic",
    "rank": 5,
    "topic": "AI Agents",
    "seedTopics": ["artificial intelligence"],
    "relatedPhrases": ["#aisafety", "#aiagents"],
    "trendScore": 72,
    "trendTier": "BREAKOUT",
    "confidence": "HIGH",
    "trendSignals": [
        "MULTIPLE_BREAKOUT_VIDEOS",
        "MULTIPLE_CREATORS",
        "RECENT_UPLOAD_CLUSTER",
        "REPEATED_TITLE_THEME",
        "REPEATED_KEYPHRASE"
    ],
    "trendSummary": "AI Agents is breaking out: 8 of 13 videos from the last 7 days are gaining traction, from 8 creators, with 2 videos well above the niche's typical view velocity; most of the activity is Shorts.",
    "videoCount": 13,
    "uniqueCreators": 13,
    "topCreatorShare": 0.077,
    "totalViews": 704933,
    "avgViewsPerHour": 535,
    "breakoutVideoCount": 2,
    "shortsShare": 0.846,
    "metrics": {
        "videoCount": 13,
        "uniqueCreators": 13,
        "topCreatorShare": 0.077,
        "totalViews": 704933,
        "avgViews": 54226,
        "medianViews": 258,
        "avgViewsPerHour": 535,
        "medianViewsPerHour": 38.6,
        "totalLikes": 7976,
        "totalComments": 1467,
        "avgEngagementRate": 0.0111,
        "avgEngagementPerHour": 7.7,
        "breakoutVideoCount": 2,
        "tractionVideoCount": 8,
        "tractionCreators": 8,
        "shortsCount": 11,
        "longFormCount": 2,
        "liveCount": 0,
        "shortsShare": 0.846,
        "avgSubscriberCount": 454368
    },
    "scoreBreakdown": {
        "viewVelocity": 14.8,
        "breakoutVideos": 13.3,
        "creatorDiversity": 15,
        "recency": 15,
        "engagementVelocity": 3.8,
        "videoCount": 10,
        "penalties": {},
        "engagementDataAvailable": true
    },
    "observedWindow": {
        "requested": "7_DAYS",
        "oldestEvidenceAt": "2026-10-15T14:15:33.000Z",
        "newestEvidenceAt": "2026-10-20T23:00:14.000Z"
    },
    "topCreators": [
        {
            "channelId": "UCOFl0wDeBMSBbK3jNJQHHFg",
            "channelName": "AI Copium",
            "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOFl0wDeBMSBbK3jNJQHHFg",
            "videosInTopic": 1,
            "subscriberCount": 34200
        },
        {
            "channelId": "UCSSB338C8A9ZOXtsbfM7phg",
            "channelName": "Mikey Website",
            "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSSB338C8A9ZOXtsbfM7phg",
            "videosInTopic": 1,
            "subscriberCount": 41900
        }
    ],
    "evidenceVideos": [
        {
            "videoId": "rb4CTZjHCNg",
            "title": "Researchers Made “First Contact” With Rogue AI Agents…",
            "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb4CTZjHCNg",
            "channelId": "UCOFl0wDeBMSBbK3jNJQHHFg",
            "channelName": "AI Copium",
            "contentType": "VIDEO",
            "publishedAt": "2026-10-16T14:15:28.000Z",
            "timestampPrecision": "exact",
            "views": 648099,
            "likes": 7034,
            "comments": 1356,
            "viewsPerHour": 5917,
            "engagementRate": 0.0129,
            "subscriberCount": 34200,
            "viewsToSubscribers": 18.95,
            "isBreakoutVideo": true
        },
        {
            "videoId": "TiNUHdbfOFs",
            "title": "AI Can Self-Replicate Now... #anthropic #aisafety #ai",
            "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiNUHdbfOFs",
            "channelId": "UCkVfrGwV-iG9bSsgCbrNPxQ",
            "channelName": "Better Stack",
            "contentType": "SHORT",
            "publishedAt": "2026-10-18T20:00:23.000Z",
            "timestampPrecision": "exact",
            "views": 17584,
            "likes": 796,
            "comments": 85,
            "viewsPerHour": 315.2,
            "engagementRate": 0.0501,
            "subscriberCount": 235000,
            "viewsToSubscribers": 0.075,
            "isBreakoutVideo": true
        }
    ],
    "regionCode": "US",
    "languageCode": "en",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-21T03:47:20.778Z"
}

Missing values are null, never 0 — a video with hidden likes does not look like a flop.

Run summary: the key-value store record RUN_SUMMARY reports seeds, expanded queries, videos collected / analysed / dropped (and why), duplicates removed, field availability (exact timestamps, views, likes, comments, subscriber counts), breakout videos, topics by tier, a status per seed, and request counts. If a seed fails, RETRY_INPUT holds a ready-made input that re-runs just the failed seeds.

Statuses: a failed seed never fails the run. Per-seed status is one of SUCCESS, PARTIAL_RESULT, NO_RESULTS, INVALID_SEED, SEARCH_FAILED, RATE_LIMITED or BLOCKED. A run that delivers no topics writes one free run_status row explaining why and what to change.

---

Tips

• Too few topics? Raise Videos sampled per seed to 500, lengthen the window, or turn on seed expansion.
• Too broad? Use a narrower seed (kettlebell training rather than fitness) — topics are always subtopics of the seed, never the seed restated.
• Creator-content ideas: filter to RISING and above, then open the evidence videos for hooks and angles.
• Shorts trends: set Content types to Shorts only with a 3–7 day window.

🚦 Proxy policy

No proxy is needed for normal runs — the Actor reads public YouTube endpoints at a conservative pace. Use Apify Datacenter proxy only if a run is being rate-limited.

Apify Residential proxy is not supported. The Actor fails at startup if apifyProxyGroups includes RESIDENTIAL. Reason: in pay-per-event Actors, residential bandwidth is billed to the developer, not the run user, so a bandwidth-heavy run could exceed the per-result revenue.

If you genuinely need residential routing, supply your own provider via the proxy editor's Custom proxy URLs field — that traffic goes through your provider, not Apify:

http://user:pass@proxy.iproyal.com:12321
http://user:pass@proxy.brightdata.com:22225
http://user:pass@proxy.oxylabs.io:7777

Limitations

• Topics are detected from a sample of recent public videos per seed, not from all of YouTube.
• View, like and comment counts change constantly; each run is a snapshot.
• Search localisation by country does not prove where viewers are.
• Topic labels are extracted phrases, so occasionally a broad word or hashtag surfaces as a topic; the signals and evidence videos show how much weight to give it.
• Videos whose upload time cannot be determined are left out rather than guessed.

Disclaimer

This is an unofficial tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by YouTube or Google. Trend scores, tiers and signals are analytics derived by this Actor from public video metadata — they are not official YouTube metrics, not search volume, and not a guarantee of future views. You are responsible for how you use the output.