YouTube Video Finder ⚡

Fast, API-based YouTube video discovery. Find videos by keyword, #hashtag, channel, playlist, or URL/ID and extract 30+ fields each — including tags, category, hashtags, engagement metrics, channel analytics, detected language, and optional transcripts. Powered by TikHub keyword & hashtag search + the official YouTube Data API — no browser, no proxy, high reliability.

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🚀 Key Features

• ⚡ API-only & fast: No browser, no proxy — pure API calls
• 🔎 Keyword & hashtag search via TikHub: Avoids YouTube's expensive 100-unit search.list quota
• 💰 Near-free YouTube quota: Batched videos.list (~1 unit per 50 videos → ~500k videos/day)
• 📊 30+ Fields per video: Thumbnails, description, engagement metrics, channel info, tags, category, hashtags, links
• 🎚️ Filters & sorting: content type, duration, upload date, title filter; sort by relevance / date / views
• 📈 Rich analytics built in: engagement scoring, channel analytics, and language detection on every video — plus optional trending mode
• 📝 Optional transcripts: Turn on Include Transcript to add full captions/transcript text per video (off by default; charged only when a transcript is delivered)
• 🎯 Flexible discovery: A single field accepts keywords, #hashtags, channels, playlists, and seed videos (a seed video expands to its whole channel)
• 🎬 Direct video mode: List exact video URLs or bare 11-char IDs — one record each
• 📦 Bulk Processing: Text file upload or remote file links

Best for: Video discovery, candidate selection, building watch lists, market research, and SEO analysis

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🎯 At a Glance

Feature	Value
Speed	API-only — no browser; metadata batched 50/call
Fields	30+ fields per video (incl. tags, category, channel analytics)
Discovery	Keyword · #hashtag · channel · playlist · seed video
Transcripts	Optional enrichment (~60–80% availability)
Proxy	❌ Not needed
YouTube quota	~1 unit / 50 videos (~500k videos/day)

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💡 Why This Scraper?

Traditional YouTube scrapers drive a headless browser and hit bot detection. YouTube Video Finder is API-only — TikHub for keyword & hashtag search, the official YouTube Data API for metadata and channel/playlist expansion:

Metric	YouTube Video Finder	Browser-based Scrapers
Method	Pure API (no browser)	Headless Chrome
Proxy requirement	❌ Never needed	✅ Usually required
Keyword/hashtag search cost	TikHub (no YouTube quota)	Browser scraping / quota
YouTube quota	~1 unit / 50 videos (batched)	n/a or high

How it works:

• Keyword and #hashtag sources → TikHub search (get_general_search_v2), avoiding YouTube's 100-unit search.list
• Channel / playlist / seed-video sources → YouTube Data API expansion (uploads playlist, playlist items)
• All discovered + direct video IDs → batched videos.list for full metadata (~1 unit per 50 videos)

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📋 Input Parameters

Field	Key	Type	Default	Description
Channels, Playlists & Discovery	searchQueries	Array	[]	Discovery sources (auto-detected): keyword, hashtag (#tag or a youtube.com/hashtag/<tag> URL), channel (URL / @handle / bare UC… ID), playlist (URL or bare PL…/UU… ID), or a seed video (expands to its channel)
Content type	contentType	string	"all"	all / videos / shorts / live. Filters discovered results (Shorts detected by duration ≤ 60s)
Sort by	sortBy	string	"relevance"	relevance (discovery order) / date (newest) / views (most viewed)
Duration	videoDuration	string	"all"	all / short (<4 min) / medium (4–20 min) / long (>20 min)
Upload date	uploadDate	string	"all"	Relative published-date filter: hour/today/week/month/year. Applies to all sources
Title filter	titleFilter	string	""	Comma-separated keywords; keep results whose title contains any (OR, case-insensitive)
Include trending	trending	boolean	false	Also add the region's trending ("most popular") videos as a source (≤50, sourceType: "trending")
Max videos per source	maxResultsPerQuery	integer	10	Max videos taken from each discovery source (before filtering)
Max videos total	maxResults	integer	0	Global cap across all sources, applied after filtering + sorting. 0 = no cap
Country	regionCode	string	"US"	ISO country code; selects trending region + the category list for categoryName
Language	language	string	"en"	Language code. Limited effect in API mode
From Date	dateFrom	string	""	Published-after (YYYY-MM-DD). Applies to all sources
To Date	dateTo	string	""	Published-before (YYYY-MM-DD). Applies to all sources
YouTube URL	startUrls	Array<Object|string>	[]	Direct videos only — video URLs or bare 11-char IDs. One record each, exempt from the filters above. Supports file upload
Include Transcript	includeTranscript	boolean	false	Fill the transcript field with captions/transcript text (otherwise null). Adds ~1–2s per video; ~60–80% of videos have captions. Billed per delivered transcript
Transcript Language	transcriptLanguage	string	""	Preferred transcript language (e.g. en). Empty = auto-detect (first available). Only used when Include Transcript is on

Important Notes:

• 🌱 Seed videos: A video URL/ID in Search Keywords returns that video's whole channel; to fetch a single video, put it in Direct URLs.
• #️⃣ Hashtags: Enter #tag (e.g. #openai) or a youtube.com/hashtag/<tag> URL to pull YouTube's search results for that tag. Results are tagged sourceType: "hashtag". (This is YouTube's search-for-the-tag, not the exact curated hashtag feed — no API exposes that.)
• 📅 Date & filters apply to all discovery sources (keyword/channel/playlist/seed). Direct URLs are exempt — a video you list explicitly is always returned.
• 🔃 sortBy sorts the discovered set before maxResults is applied, so "top N by views/date" works.
• 📁 Bulk upload: Upload text file (one URL/ID per line) or link to a remote file.

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📤 Output Schema

Output Fields (metadata + scoring + optional enrichment + source-attribution)

Core metadata is extracted via the official YouTube Data API (videos.list). engagementRate/viewsPerDay, language detection, and channel analytics are all computed automatically on every run; transcript is filled only when Include Transcript is enabled. The three source* fields record where each result came from.

#	Field	Type	Description
1	type	String	One of: video, shorts, live
2	videoId	String	YouTube video ID (e.g., dQw4w9WgXcQ)
3	videoUrl	String	Full YouTube video URL
4	thumbnailUrl	String | null	High-quality thumbnail URL (maxres/high)
5	title	String	Video title
6	duration	String | null	Human-readable duration (H:MM:SS, or M:SS for videos under an hour)
7	durationSeconds	Integer | null	Duration in seconds
8	viewCount	Integer | null	Total view count
9	likeCount	Integer | null	Total like count
10	commentCount	Integer | null	Total comment count
11	description	String | null	Full video description
12	publishDate	String | null	Publish date (YYYY-MM-DD)
13	channelId	String | null	Channel ID (UC...)
14	channelTitle	String | null	Channel name
15	channelUrl	String | null	Full channel URL
16	tags	Array	Video tags (empty array if none)
17	categoryId	String | null	YouTube category ID
18	categoryName	String | null	Human-readable category (e.g. "Science & Technology")
19	hashtags	Array	#hashtags extracted from title + description
20	descriptionLinks	Array	URLs extracted from the description
21	transcript	String | null	Captions/transcript text. null unless Include Transcript is on and captions exist (~60–80% of videos)
22	engagementRate	Number | null	(likes + comments) / views (always computed)
23	viewsPerDay	Number | null	Views ÷ days-since-publish — discovery velocity (always computed)
24	detectedLanguage	String | null	2-letter language code (API hint, else detected from title+description)
25	channelSubscriberCount	Integer | null	Channel subscriber count
26	channelViewCount	Integer | null	Channel total views
27	channelVideoCount	Integer | null	Channel video count
28	channelCountry	String | null	Channel country (null if the channel didn't set one)
29	channelJoinedDate	String | null	Channel creation date
30	channelDescription	String | null	Channel description
31	sourceType	String	Where it came from: keyword, hashtag, channel, playlist, seed, direct, trending
32	sourceQuery	String	The exact input that produced this result
33	searchRank	Integer	1-based position of this result within its source

Note: Field names are camelCase (since v2.8). videoId / videoUrl / thumbnailUrl replaced the old VideoId / PageURL / thumbnails.

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📊 Output Examples

Single Video Output

Every record is a flat object with the full field set below (metadata + engagement scoring + channel analytics + language + source attribution — all computed on every run):

{
    "type": "video",
    "videoId": "E19_kwN0f38",
    "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E19_kwN0f38",
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/E19_kwN0f38/maxresdefault.jpg",
    "title": "GPT-5 Codex is the best way to build apps with AI ever (5 tricks you need to know)",
    "duration": "16:39",
    "durationSeconds": 999,
    "viewCount": 2176,
    "likeCount": 123,
    "commentCount": 45,
    "description": "In this video, I'll show you 5 amazing tricks to build apps faster with GPT-5 Codex... #ai #coding https://example.com/resources",
    "publishDate": "2025-10-09",
    "channelId": "UCfQNB91qRP_5ILeu_S_bSkg",
    "channelTitle": "Alex Finn Official",
    "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfQNB91qRP_5ILeu_S_bSkg",
    "tags": ["gpt-5", "ai coding", "app development"],
    "categoryId": "28",
    "categoryName": "Science & Technology",
    "hashtags": ["#ai", "#coding"],
    "descriptionLinks": ["https://example.com/resources"],
    "transcript": null,
    "engagementRate": 0.077206,
    "viewsPerDay": 8,
    "detectedLanguage": "en",
    "channelSubscriberCount": 250000,
    "channelViewCount": 12500000,
    "channelVideoCount": 320,
    "channelCountry": "US",
    "channelJoinedDate": "2019-05-01",
    "channelDescription": "Building apps with AI. Tutorials, tips, and tools for modern developers.",
    "sourceType": "keyword",
    "sourceQuery": "GPT-5 Codex",
    "searchRank": 1
}

Multiple Videos (Batch Discovery)

[
    {
        "type": "video",
        "videoId": "E19_kwN0f38",
        "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E19_kwN0f38",
        "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/E19_kwN0f38/maxresdefault.jpg",
        "title": "GPT-5 Codex is the best way to build apps with AI ever (5 tricks you need to know)",
        "duration": "16:39",
        "durationSeconds": 999,
        "viewCount": 2176,
        "likeCount": 123,
        "commentCount": 45,
        "description": "In this video, I'll show you 5 amazing tricks... #ai #coding",
        "publishDate": "2025-10-09",
        "channelId": "UCfQNB91qRP_5ILeu_S_bSkg",
        "channelTitle": "Alex Finn Official",
        "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfQNB91qRP_5ILeu_S_bSkg",
        "tags": ["gpt-5", "ai coding"],
        "categoryId": "28",
        "categoryName": "Science & Technology",
        "hashtags": ["#ai", "#coding"],
        "descriptionLinks": [],
        "transcript": null,
        "engagementRate": 0.077206,
        "viewsPerDay": 8,
        "detectedLanguage": "en",
        "channelSubscriberCount": 250000,
        "channelViewCount": 12500000,
        "channelVideoCount": 320,
        "channelCountry": "US",
        "channelJoinedDate": "2019-05-01",
        "channelDescription": "Building apps with AI. Tutorials, tips, and tools for modern developers.",
        "sourceType": "keyword",
        "sourceQuery": "AI coding",
        "searchRank": 1
    },
    {
        "type": "shorts",
        "videoId": "7Sx0o-41r2k",
        "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Sx0o-41r2k",
        "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/7Sx0o-41r2k/maxresdefault.jpg",
        "title": "Quick AI tip #shorts",
        "duration": "0:45",
        "durationSeconds": 45,
        "viewCount": 15200,
        "likeCount": 892,
        "commentCount": 234,
        "description": "Quick tip for AI developers... #shorts #ai",
        "publishDate": "2025-10-10",
        "channelId": "UCfQNB91qRP_5ILeu_S_bSkg",
        "channelTitle": "Alex Finn Official",
        "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfQNB91qRP_5ILeu_S_bSkg",
        "tags": [],
        "categoryId": "28",
        "categoryName": "Science & Technology",
        "hashtags": ["#shorts", "#ai"],
        "descriptionLinks": [],
        "transcript": null,
        "engagementRate": 0.074079,
        "viewsPerDay": 56,
        "detectedLanguage": "en",
        "channelSubscriberCount": 250000,
        "channelViewCount": 12500000,
        "channelVideoCount": 320,
        "channelCountry": "US",
        "channelJoinedDate": "2019-05-01",
        "channelDescription": "Building apps with AI. Tutorials, tips, and tools for modern developers.",
        "sourceType": "channel",
        "sourceQuery": "https://www.youtube.com/@AlexFinn",
        "searchRank": 2
    }
]

With Transcript (includeTranscript: true)

When Include Transcript is enabled, the transcript field is filled for videos that have captions:

{
    "type": "video",
    "videoId": "E19_kwN0f38",
    "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E19_kwN0f38",
    "title": "GPT-5 Codex is the best way to build apps with AI ever",
    "transcript": "In this video I'll show you five tricks for building apps faster with GPT-5 Codex. First, ...",
    "detectedLanguage": "en",
    "sourceType": "keyword",
    "sourceQuery": "GPT-5 Codex",
    "searchRank": 1
}

(other fields omitted for brevity — the full field set is unchanged; only transcript becomes populated)

Performance Benefits:

• ⚡ Complete data: 30+ fields via the official YouTube Data API
• ⚡ Fast: pure API, no browser; metadata fetched in batches of 50
• ⚡ Efficient: ~1 YouTube quota unit per 50 videos
• ⚡ Rich metadata: Includes thumbnails, descriptions, and full engagement metrics
• ⚡ Perfect for comprehensive analysis and decision-making

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🎬 Quick Start

Example 1: Search with Filters & Sorting

{
    "searchQueries": ["AI tools", "#machinelearning", "@veritasium"],
    "maxResultsPerQuery": 20,
    "contentType": "videos",
    "videoDuration": "medium",
    "sortBy": "views",
    "dateFrom": "2025-01-01",
    "dateTo": "2025-12-31",
    "regionCode": "US",
    "language": "en"
}

Example 2: Direct Video URLs

{
    "startUrls": [
        { "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Sx0o-41r2k" },
        { "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oAnKSCP4do" }
    ]
}

Example 3: Bulk URL Upload (Remote File)

{
    "startUrls": [
        {
            "requestsFromUrl": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coregentdevspace/youtube-scraper-assets/main/youtube-scraper-pro-direct-url-text-file.txt"
        }
    ]
}

Example 4: Trending Videos + Title Filter

{
    "trending": true,
    "regionCode": "US",
    "contentType": "videos",
    "titleFilter": "review, unboxing",
    "maxResults": 25
}

Example 5: Discovery + Transcripts

{
    "searchQueries": ["ai coding tutorial", "@veritasium"],
    "maxResultsPerQuery": 20,
    "includeTranscript": true,
    "transcriptLanguage": "en"
}

Enabling includeTranscript adds ~1–2s per video and a separate transcript charge per delivered transcript — great for SEO keyword extraction, summarization, and NLP/AI datasets.

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💪 Performance & Reliability

Architecture (API-only)

1. Discovery — each Search Keywords entry is classified and expanded to video IDs:
   • keyword → TikHub search (get_general_search_v2)
   • hashtag (#tag or youtube.com/hashtag/<tag>) → TikHub search for that tag
   • channel (@handle, /channel/UC…, /c/…, /user/…) → resolve → channel uploads
   • playlist (…?list=…) → playlist items
   • seed video → resolve its channel → that channel's videos
2. Direct URLs — video URLs / bare IDs are taken as-is (one record each).
3. Metadata — all IDs are deduped and fetched from videos.list in batches of 50 (~1 quota unit per 50 videos).
4. Transcript (optional) — when Include Transcript is on, captions are fetched per result via TikHub get_video_captions_v2 and parsed to plain text; billed per delivered transcript.

Quota efficiency

• videos.list costs a flat 1 unit per call (up to 50 IDs) → ~1 unit per 50 videos.
• On the default 10,000-unit/day YouTube quota that's roughly 500,000 videos/day.
• Keyword & hashtag search uses TikHub (paid per page) instead of YouTube's 100-unit search.list.

Caps & limits

• maxResultsPerQuery — per-source cap (each keyword/channel/playlist/seed).
• maxResults — optional global cap across the whole run.
• Keyword & hashtag search is bounded to ≤ 10 TikHub pages per term.

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📚 Use Cases

• SEO Research: Analyze keywords, tags, titles, descriptions
• Content Strategy: Study successful formats, posting patterns
• Competitive Intelligence: Benchmark creators, track performance
• Market Research: Identify trends by topic, region, language
• Brand Monitoring: Find mentions and gauge engagement
• Influencer Discovery: Filter by views/engagement in your niche
• Trend Analysis: Spot emerging topics and viral patterns

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💵 Pricing

Pay per event — two billable events (see the Apify Store page for current prices):

Event	Charged	When
video-result	Per video record written to the dataset	Every result
transcript	Per transcript actually delivered	Only when Include Transcript is on and captions exist

• Transcripts are off by default — you're never charged the transcript event unless you enable it, and only for videos where a transcript is actually returned (~60–80% of videos have captions).
• Keyword/hashtag discovery runs through TikHub; metadata via YouTube's videos.list (batched).
• Use Max videos per source and Max videos total to control run size and cost. Runs also respect your per-run spending limit — the actor stops cleanly once the cap is reached.

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🚫 What This Actor Does NOT Do

• No comment scraping — comment bodies are out of scope.
• Transcripts are opt-in — off by default (the transcript field is null); enable Include Transcript to populate it (charged per delivered transcript, ~60–80% availability).

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⚠️ Limitations

• Filters & sort are applied client-side to the discovered set. Keyword search fetches YouTube's relevance-ordered top results (via TikHub), then sortBy / date / duration / title filters run over that set — so e.g. sortBy=views gives the most-viewed among the discovered results, not a global "most viewed" search. Aggressive filters (e.g. keyword + uploadDate=today) may return fewer than Max videos per source.
• Shorts are detected by duration (≤ 60s); the Data API has no explicit Shorts flag, so classification is approximate.
• regionCode / language have limited effect in API mode.
• A bare all-letter 11-character token (e.g. programming) is treated as a keyword, not a video ID. To force seed-video behavior for such an ID, pass the full video URL.

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❓ FAQ

Q: How does discovery work? A: It's API-only (no browser). Keyword searches go through TikHub search; channels/playlists/seed videos expand via the YouTube Data API. Every discovered video's metadata is then fetched in batches from the official YouTube Data API (videos.list).

Q: What's the difference between the two input sections? A: Channels, Playlists & Discovery discovers many videos from a keyword, #hashtag, channel, playlist, or seed video (a video there returns its whole channel). Direct URLs returns exactly the videos you list (video URLs or bare IDs), one record each.

Q: Can I get transcripts? A: Yes — turn on Include Transcript (includeTranscript: true), optionally set Transcript Language. The transcript field is then filled with captions text for videos that have them (~60–80%); it stays null otherwise. Transcripts are billed as a separate transcript event, only for videos where one is actually delivered. Off by default.

Q: Can I search by hashtag? A: Yes — put #tag (e.g. #openai) or a youtube.com/hashtag/<tag> URL in the Channels, Playlists & Discovery field. It returns YouTube's search results for that tag (labelled sourceType: "hashtag"). Note this is search-for-the-tag rather than the exact curated hashtag feed — no public API exposes that feed directly.

Q: Do I need a residential proxy? A: No. The actor is API-only — no browser and no proxy.

Q: What about Shorts and live videos? A: Use contentType (all/videos/shorts/live) to filter discovered results (Shorts are approximated by duration ≤ 60s; live via the type field). A video you explicitly list in Direct URLs is always returned, even if it's a Short.

Q: Can I filter and sort? A: Yes — sortBy (relevance/date/views), contentType, videoDuration, titleFilter, and date filters (dateFrom/dateTo + relative uploadDate) all apply to discovery sources. Direct URLs are exempt. Filters run client-side over the discovered results.

Q: How do I bulk upload URLs? A: Upload a text file (one URL or bare video ID per line) or provide a requestsFromUrl pointing to a remote text file in the Direct URLs section.

Q: How much YouTube quota does it use? A: videos.list costs a flat 1 unit per call (up to 50 IDs), so ~1 unit per 50 videos — roughly 500,000 videos/day on the default 10,000-unit quota. Keyword search uses TikHub instead of YouTube's 100-unit search.list.

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🛠️ Technologies & Architecture

Built entirely on official/first-party APIs — no browser:

• Keyword & hashtag search: TikHub get_general_search_v2 (avoids YouTube's 100-unit search.list)
• Metadata: YouTube Data API v3 videos.list (batched, 50 IDs/call)
• Channel/Playlist Expansion: YouTube Data API channels.list + playlistItems.list
• Channel-ID Resolution: YouTube forHandle/forUsername, with TikHub get_channel_id fallback for /c/…
• Channel analytics / trending: YouTube channels.list and videos.list?chart=mostPopular
• Transcripts (optional): TikHub get_video_captions_v2 — captions parsed to plain text
• Language detection: franc-min (pure-JS trigram detector) with API language hints
• Runtime: Node.js 18+ with native fetch (only runtime deps: apify, franc-min)

Why This Architecture?

• ✅ No browser, no proxy — lower cost and faster cold starts
• ✅ Quota-efficient: ~1 YouTube unit per 50 videos; keywords billed via TikHub, not YouTube
• ✅ Reliable: official APIs return complete, well-structured data
• ✅ Simple: linear pipeline, easy to reason about and maintain
• ✅ Scalable: Handles high-volume scraping efficiently

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📋 Best Practices

1. Start small: Test with maxResultsPerQuery: 10 to verify your configuration
2. Filter early: Use dateFrom/dateTo to narrow results
3. Bulk wisely: Group URLs by topic/channel for better performance
4. Export: JSON/CSV/Excel to your datastore, Google Sheets, or S3

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📜 Changelog

v2.11 (hashtag discovery + optional transcripts)

• #️⃣ Hashtag search: #tag tokens and youtube.com/hashtag/<tag> URLs are now a first-class discovery source in Channels, Playlists & Discovery — routed through search and labelled sourceType: "hashtag". (Hashtag page URLs were previously skipped.)
• 📝 Optional transcripts: new Include Transcript toggle (includeTranscript, default off) + Transcript Language — fills the new transcript output field via TikHub captions for videos that have them (~60–80%).
• 💳 Pricing model → pay-per-event: billing moved from pay-per-result to pay-per-event with two events — video-result (per result) and transcript (per delivered transcript). Runs respect your per-run spending limit.

v2.10 (analytics, trending, language, engagement)

• 📈 Channel analytics (always-on): subs, total views, video count, country, join date, description
• 🌐 Language detection (always-on): hybrid API hint → franc-min
• 💯 Engagement scoring (always-on): engagementRate + viewsPerDay velocity
• 🔥 Trending mode (trending): add a region's most-popular videos as a source
• 🆔 Bare UC… / PL… / UU… IDs accepted in Search Keywords

v2.9 (Discovery v2: filters + richer output)

• 🔃 Sorting: sortBy (relevance / date / views) — sorts the discovered set before the total cap
• 🎚️ Filters: contentType (replaces includeShorts), videoDuration, relative uploadDate, titleFilter
• 📅 Date filtering now works for keyword search too (applied client-side across all sources)
• 🆔 Bare channel IDs (UC…) and playlist IDs (PL…/UU…) now accepted in Search Keywords (previously URL-only)
• 🏷️ Richer output: tags, categoryId, categoryName, hashtags, descriptionLinks, durationSeconds
• ⚠️ Breaking input: includeShorts removed — use contentType instead

v2.8 (polish + provenance)

• 🔤 camelCase output: VideoId→videoId, PageURL→videoUrl, thumbnails→thumbnailUrl (breaking — update downstream integrations)
• 🧭 Source attribution: new sourceType / sourceQuery / searchRank fields on every record
• 📄 README: added Pricing, "What this actor does NOT do", and Limitations sections

v2.7 (API-only re-architecture)

• 🧹 Removed Puppeteer/browser entirely — the actor is now pure API (faster, lighter, no proxy)
• 🔎 Keyword search via TikHub (get_general_search_v2) — avoids YouTube's 100-unit search.list
• 💰 Batched videos.list metadata — ~1 quota unit per 50 videos (~500k videos/day)
• 🎯 Unified discovery input: searchQueries now accepts keyword / channel / playlist / seed video (a seed video expands to its channel)
• 🎬 Direct URLs now accept bare 11-char video IDs; return one record per video
• 📅 Date filters now apply to channel/playlist/seed sources (not keyword search)
• ➕ New optional maxResults global cap

v2.5.1 (API Integration Release)

• 🔑 YouTube Data API Integration: Automatic fallback when CAPTCHA detected
• ✅ 100% Success Rate: No more bot detection failures
• 📊 14 Complete Fields: Added thumbnails, commentCount, description, channelUrl
• ❌ Proxy Removed: No longer needed - API handles all bot detection
• 🚀 Hybrid Speed: Puppeteer (~2-3s) or API (~100ms) depending on detection
• ✅ publishDate Fixed: Now populates 100% via API or microformat extraction
• 📋 Simplified Input: Removed all proxy configuration fields
• 🎯 Enhanced Output: Complete video metadata for comprehensive analysis

v2.5 (Discovery Release)

• ⚡ 2x faster extraction (~2-3s per video vs 5-6s)
• 📊 Optimized to 10 minimal discovery fields
• 🚀 79% code reduction (34KB vs 165KB)
• 💰 Zero artificial delays (error-based backoff only)
• 📅 Date range filtering for search keywords
• 📁 Bulk URL upload via text file or remote link

v2.0

• Caption tracks in output
• Richer channel fields
• Improved localization

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🤝 Compliance

• Intended for legitimate research & business intelligence
• Collects only public YouTube data
• Respect YouTube's Terms of Service
• Users responsible for compliance with applicable laws

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💬 Support

• Issues: Report via GitHub or Apify support
• Feature requests: Open an issue with your use case
• Documentation: See /docs folder for detailed guides

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