Youtube Comment Scraper

Scrape YouTube video comments with full metadata including author info, likes, timestamps, pinned/hearted status, and reply threads. Supports sorting by Top comments or Newest first.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
videoUrls	array	required	YouTube video URLs, short links (youtu.be), shorts URLs, or plain video IDs
maxComments	integer	100	Max top-level comments per video (1–50,000). Replies don't count toward this limit
includeReplies	boolean	true	Whether to fetch reply threads for each comment
maxRepliesPerComment	integer	5	Max replies to fetch per comment (0–100)
sortBy	string	"top"	Sort order: "top" (most relevant) or "newest" (chronological)
includeModerationStatus	boolean	false	Include pinned/hearted status in comment output

Supported URL Formats

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
• https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ
• https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dQw4w9WgXcQ
• https://www.youtube.com/embed/dQw4w9WgXcQ
• https://www.youtube.com/live/dQw4w9WgXcQ
• dQw4w9WgXcQ (bare video ID)

Example Input

{
    "videoUrls": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
    ],
    "maxComments": 100,
    "includeReplies": true,
    "maxRepliesPerComment": 5,
    "sortBy": "top"
}

Output

Each row in the dataset is either a top-level comment (replyDepth: 0) or a reply (replyDepth: 1). Replies appear immediately after their parent comment.

Field	Type	Description
commentId	string	Unique comment identifier
text	string	Comment text content
authorName	string	Author's display name
authorChannelId	string	Author's YouTube channel ID
authorChannelUrl	string	Author's channel URL
authorProfileImageUrl	string	Author's profile image URL
authorIsChannelOwner	boolean	Whether the author is the video's channel owner
likeCount	integer	Number of likes on the comment
replyCount	integer	Number of replies (top-level comments only)
replyCountText	string	Reply count display text (e.g., "3 replies")
publishedTimeText	string	Relative publish time (e.g., "2 days ago")
commentUrl	string	Direct link to the comment (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID&lc=COMMENT_ID)
isHearted	boolean	Whether the creator hearted this comment
isPinned	boolean	Whether this comment is pinned
isVerifiedAuthor	boolean	Whether the author's channel is verified
isCreator	boolean	Alias for authorIsChannelOwner
isArtist	boolean	Whether the author is a YouTube Music artist
isReply	boolean	Whether this is a reply (true) or top-level comment (false)
parentCommentId	string/null	Parent comment ID (replies only, null for top-level)
replyDepth	integer	0 for top-level comments, 1 for replies
videoId	string	YouTube video ID
videoUrl	string	Full video URL
videoTitle	string	Video title
videoChannelName	string	Video channel name
videoChannelId	string	Video channel ID
scrapedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp of when the data was scraped

Example Output

{
    "commentId": "UgxB...",
    "text": "Great video!",
    "authorName": "John Doe",
    "authorChannelId": "UCxxx...",
    "authorChannelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@johndoe",
    "authorProfileImageUrl": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/...",
    "authorIsChannelOwner": false,
    "likeCount": 42,
    "replyCount": 3,
    "publishedTimeText": "2 days ago",
    "isHearted": false,
    "isPinned": false,
    "isReply": false,
    "parentCommentId": null,
    "replyDepth": 0,
    "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "videoTitle": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up",
    "videoChannelName": "Rick Astley",
    "videoChannelId": "UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-02-11T12:00:00.000000+00:00"
}

Use Cases

• Sentiment analysis — collect comments on product or brand videos to measure audience sentiment at scale
• Community research — surface recurring topics, questions, and audience insights from high-engagement videos
• Moderation dataset building — export comment threads for ML training on toxicity detection or content moderation
• Finding pinned announcements — quickly retrieve creator-pinned comments containing links, dates, or announcements
• Influencer engagement benchmarking — track top-comment like counts to compare engagement quality across creators
• Reply threading for conversation analysis — reconstruct full reply chains for discourse and community interaction studies

FAQ

Why are some comments missing? YouTube loads comments dynamically. The scraper uses the internal YouTube API but may not always see all comments on very large videos due to YouTube's server-side pagination limits.

Are replies included by default? Yes, when includeReplies=true (the default). You can set includeReplies: false or reduce maxRepliesPerComment to skip or cap reply fetching.

Does this require a YouTube API key or cookies? No. The actor uses YouTube's public InnerTube API and does not require any authentication, API keys, or cookies.

What's the difference between top and newest sort? top returns comments sorted by YouTube's relevance score (a combination of likes, pins, and reply volume). newest returns comments in reverse chronological order.

Can I scrape comments for private or age-gated videos? No. Only public videos are supported. Age-gated and private videos require a logged-in session, which this actor does not use.

YouTube Scraper Suite

This actor is part of a complete YouTube data extraction toolkit. Explore the full suite:

Actor	Description
YouTube Channel Scraper	Channel metadata, subscriber counts, and full video catalogs
YouTube Channel Scraper Fast	Streamlined channel scraper for high-volume and speed-sensitive workflows
YouTube Comment Scraper	Comments, replies, likes, author info, and pinned/hearted status
YouTube Email Scraper	Creator contact emails from channel pages, Instagram, TikTok, and Linktree
YouTube Hashtag Scraper	Videos and Shorts tagged with specific hashtags
YouTube Playlist Scraper	All videos and metadata from any YouTube playlist
YouTube Search Scraper	Search results including videos, channels, and playlists
YouTube Shorts Scraper	Shorts from channels or hashtags with full view and like metadata
YouTube Transcript Scraper	Timed transcripts and captions with optional Whisper AI fallback
YouTube Trending Scraper	Ranked trending videos by category — Gaming, Music, News, Movies
YouTube Video Details Scraper	Comprehensive video metadata, chapters, endscreen, captions, and comments
YouTube Video Downloader	Download videos, playlists, and channels in any quality with metadata