YouTube Shorts & Channel Scraper: Videos, Subs, About

A YouTube Shorts scraper and channel video scraper in one Actor. Give it channels by URL, @handle or channel ID and get every video, Short and live stream with title, views, length, publish age and thumbnail, plus one About row per channel with subscribers, total views, video count, country, join date, description and links. $0.0005 per video or Short ($0.50 per 1,000), $0.001 per channel. Plain HTTP: no browser, no login, no YouTube API key and no quota.

Sort by newest, most viewed or oldest, take up to 5,000 rows per channel and tab, and switch on exact views, exact dates, likes and full descriptions when you need them. The rows are flat JSON with the same fields every time, so people, spreadsheets and AI agents can all use them.

What does the YouTube Shorts & Channel Scraper do?

For each channel you give it, the Actor reads the channel's public Videos, Shorts and Live tabs and its About tab, the same pages a logged-out visitor sees. It pages through each tab the way the site does, in the order you pick, until it has the number of rows you asked for.

• Videos tab: videoId, url, title, viewCount, publishedText, publishedAt, durationSeconds, thumbnailUrl.
• Shorts tab: the same fields for every Short, with isShort: true and a youtube.com/shorts/... link. Shorts are the lane with the fewest tools, which is why this Actor opens with them.
• Live tab: past and upcoming streams, with isLive set for a stream that is live right now.
• About tab: one channel row per channel: subscriberCount, viewCount, videoCount, joinedDate, country, description, links, avatarUrl, bannerUrl, isVerified.
• Optional video details: includeVideoDetails adds the exact view count, the exact publish date, the like count and the full description to every video and Short.

It does not return emails (the About tab shows none without a sign-in), comments, transcripts or video files. For channel emails and socials, see Related Actors below.

Use cases

• Shorts research: pull a creator's or a niche's Shorts with views, sorted by most viewed, to see which hooks and topics work.
• Competitor and creator monitoring: schedule a daily run with sortBy: newest and a small limit, and diff on videoId to catch every new upload.
• Influencer vetting: subscribers, country, join date, upload cadence and average views, in one table for a list of channels.
• Content and trend analysis: rank a channel's whole back catalogue by views, length or age.
• Datasets for AI and analytics: titles, view counts and dates for thousands of videos, without managing API quota.
• Lead and outreach pipelines: the channel's links carry its website and socials, which you can pass on to a contact finder.

Input

Field	Meaning
channelUrls	Channel URLs (https://www.youtube.com/@MKBHD, /channel/UC..., /c/..., /user/...). @handles and UC... IDs also work.
handles	Handles with or without the @.
channelIds	Channel IDs starting with UC.
tabs	Any of videos, shorts, streams. Default ["videos"]. An empty list with includeAbout on returns channel rows only.
maxVideosPerChannel	Rows per channel and tab. Default 50, up to 5,000.
sortBy	newest (default), popular (most viewed) or oldest: YouTube's own Latest, Popular and Oldest sort.
includeAbout	Add one channel row per channel. Default true.
includeVideoDetails	Exact views, exact date, likes and full description per video. Default false.
maxConcurrency, requestDelaySecs	Politeness controls. Defaults of 4 requests at a time and 0.25 s spacing are enough for most runs.
proxyConfiguration	Optional. Works without a proxy.

Example: the 20 most viewed Shorts and the 20 newest videos of two channels, with channel facts.

{
  "channelUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@MKBHD", "@NASA"],
  "tabs": ["videos", "shorts"],
  "maxVideosPerChannel": 20,
  "sortBy": "popular",
  "includeAbout": true
}

Note that sortBy applies to every selected tab. For the newest videos and the most viewed Shorts together, run the Actor twice.

An empty input runs a built-in example (one channel, 2 videos and 2 Shorts, 5 rows) so you can see the output format for a few cents. Any input that names a channel runs only what you asked for.

Output

Video and Short row (includeVideoDetails off):

{
  "type": "video",
  "videoId": "QVv3mQzlrN0",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVv3mQzlrN0",
  "title": "Apple Homeview Impressions: Not Convinced!",
  "viewCount": 10000000,
  "viewCountText": "10M views",
  "viewCountExact": false,
  "publishedText": "6d ago",
  "publishedAt": "2026-10-15T00:00:00Z",
  "publishedApprox": true,
  "durationText": "11:47",
  "durationSeconds": 707,
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/QVv3mQzlrN0/hq720.jpg",
  "isShort": false,
  "isLive": false,
  "badges": [],
  "tab": "videos",
  "position": 2,
  "channelId": "UCBJycsmduvYEL83R_U4JriQ",
  "channelHandle": "@mkbhd",
  "channelTitle": "Marques Brownlee",
  "inputUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@MKBHD",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-21T09:12:44Z"
}

With includeVideoDetails, the same row also has description and likeCount, viewCount becomes exact (10378636, viewCountExact: true) and publishedAt becomes the real date (publishedApprox: false).

Channel row:

{
  "type": "channel",
  "channelId": "UCBJycsmduvYEL83R_U4JriQ",
  "handle": "@mkbhd",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd",
  "title": "Marques Brownlee",
  "description": "MKBHD: Quality Tech Videos | YouTuber | Geek ...",
  "subscriberCount": 21400000,
  "subscriberCountText": "21.4M subscribers",
  "videoCount": 1859,
  "viewCount": 5800350438,
  "joinedDate": "2008-03-21",
  "country": "United States",
  "countryCode": "US",
  "links": [{"title": "Instagram", "url": "https://instagram.com/MKBHD"}],
  "avatarUrl": "https://yt3.googleusercontent.com/...",
  "bannerUrl": "https://yt3.googleusercontent.com/...",
  "isVerified": true,
  "keywords": "MKBHD MarquesBrownlee Marques Brownlee",
  "rssUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCBJycsmduvYEL83R_U4JriQ",
  "inputUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@MKBHD",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-21T09:12:42Z"
}

How exact are the numbers?

The channel's list pages show rounded views (10M, 8.3M) and relative ages (6d ago). By default the Actor returns exactly that: viewCount is the rounded number as YouTube shows it, flagged viewCountExact: false, and publishedAt is worked out from the age and flagged publishedApprox: true. Shorts carry no age at all on the list page. Turn on includeVideoDetails for exact views, exact dates and likes. Subscriber counts are always rounded to three significant digits, because YouTube hides the rest.

Pricing

Pay per event, and nothing else:

Event	Price	Per 1,000
Video, Short or live stream row	$0.0005	$0.50
Video row with includeVideoDetails	$0.0008	$0.80
Channel row (About)	$0.001	$1.00

There is no start fee and no extra charge for compute or proxies. You pay for rows pushed to the dataset. A channel that does not exist, a tab a channel does not have and a video whose details could not be read (it is billed at the plain video price instead) cost nothing extra. The run stops at your maximum charge.

Worked examples:

• 1,000 Shorts from 10 creators: 1,000 x $0.0005 = $0.50. Shorts-focused scrapers on the Apify Store charged up to $0.003 per result when we checked on 2026-10-21, which is $3.00 for the same rows.
• A creator list of 200 channels with the About row and their 50 newest videos each: 200 x $0.001 + 10,000 x $0.0005 = $5.20.
• A daily monitor of 25 channels, 5 newest videos each, no About row: 125 x $0.0005 = $0.06 a day, about $1.90 a month.
• 100 videos with exact views, dates and likes: 100 x $0.0008 = $0.08.
• The default test (prefill: one channel, 10 videos and 10 Shorts) costs about $0.011.

Use it from the API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/datagleaner~youtube-channel-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"channelUrls": ["@MKBHD"], "tabs": ["shorts"], "maxVideosPerChannel": 20, "sortBy": "popular", "includeAbout": false}'

Use with Python

pip install apify-client, set APIFY_TOKEN, run. This input returns 20 Shorts for $0.01.

import os
from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient(os.environ["APIFY_TOKEN"])
run = client.actor("datagleaner/youtube-channel-scraper").call(run_input={
    "channelUrls": ["@MKBHD"],
    "tabs": ["shorts"],
    "maxVideosPerChannel": 20,
    "sortBy": "popular",
    "includeAbout": False,
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["viewCount"], item["title"], item["url"])

Use with JavaScript / Node.js

npm install apify-client, set APIFY_TOKEN, run as an ES module.

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('datagleaner/youtube-channel-scraper').call({
    channelUrls: ['@NASA'],
    tabs: ['videos'],
    maxVideosPerChannel: 10,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
for (const row of items) console.log(row.type, row.title ?? row.handle);

Use it from n8n, Make, Zapier or an AI agent

Actor ID: datagleaner/youtube-channel-scraper

Minimal input:

{"channelUrls": ["@MKBHD"], "tabs": ["videos", "shorts"], "maxVideosPerChannel": 10}

• n8n: add the Apify node (@apify/n8n-nodes-apify), choose Run an Actor and get dataset, set Actor to datagleaner/youtube-channel-scraper and paste the input.

• Make: the Apify app's Run an Actor module, then Get Dataset Items. Watch Actor Runs can trigger a scenario when a run finishes.

• Zapier: the Apify action Run Actor, then Fetch dataset items.

• AI agents (MCP): connect to https://mcp.apify.com?tools=datagleaner/youtube-channel-scraper. In Claude Code:

  claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=datagleaner/youtube-channel-scraper"
  

  Then ask in plain language, for example: "Get the 30 most viewed Shorts of this channel and tell me what they have in common." An agent without the Actor preloaded can find it with Apify's search-actors tool by searching "youtube shorts".

Limits

• Lists show rounded views and relative ages. Use includeVideoDetails for exact numbers and dates. Shorts have no date without it.
• Likes and descriptions need includeVideoDetails. Likes come back empty when a creator hides them.
• Subscriber counts are rounded to three significant digits by YouTube. Some channels hide the count; it is empty then.
• Only public content. Members-only videos, private and unlisted videos, age-restricted videos that need a sign-in, and comments are not returned. There are no video files, captions or transcripts.
• No email field. The public About tab does not show one without a sign-in. The channel's links and description are returned as published.
• A channel with no Shorts or Live tab returns nothing for that tab. The status message lists the tabs that did not exist; you are not billed for them.
• sortBy follows YouTube's own sort buttons (Latest, Popular, Oldest), so a tab that does not offer one keeps its default newest-first order. The log says so.
• Rate limits. The Actor keeps to 4 requests at a time with a short pause, and backs off when YouTube answers 429. If a very large run is slowed down, turn on proxyConfiguration or lower maxConcurrency.
• YouTube changes its pages now and then. If a field starts coming back empty, report it and it will be fixed.

FAQ

Do I need a YouTube API key or quota? No. The Actor reads the public pages a logged-out visitor sees, so there is no key and no daily quota.

Can it scrape YouTube Shorts? Yes. Add shorts to tabs. Each Short comes back with its link, title, views and thumbnail, and exact date and likes with includeVideoDetails.

How do I get all videos of a channel? Set maxVideosPerChannel high (up to 5,000 per tab). The Actor pages through the tab until it runs out.

How do I get a channel's most viewed videos? sortBy: "popular".

How do I monitor new uploads? Schedule a run with sortBy: "newest", a small maxVideosPerChannel, and compare videoId with the last run. The position field is the rank in the tab.

Does it work with a handle only? Yes: @MKBHD, MKBHD, a /channel/UC... URL, a /c/ or /user/ URL, or a bare UC... ID.

What does the About row cost? $0.001 per channel, and you can switch it off with includeAbout: false.

Can I get emails from the channels? Not from this Actor. Use the YouTube channel email Actor listed below, which reads the description and links for published emails.

Do I need a proxy? No. It works without one on Apify. The option is there for very large runs.

Related Actors

• YouTube Channel Email Scraper: published emails, websites and socials for a list of channels or a niche keyword. Run it after this Actor on the same channels when you need contacts rather than videos.
• YouTube Search Scraper: find channels and videos by keyword first, with date, length and sort filters, then pass the channelUrl values to this Actor.
• YouTube Comments Scraper: the comments and replies under any video, top or newest, with authors, likes and an optional keyword filter. Take the videoId values from this Actor's dataset, or give it this run's dataset ID.
• YouTube Transcript Scraper: the transcript of any video. Take the videoId values from this Actor's dataset and get the spoken text.
• Website Contact Details Scraper: emails, phones and social profiles from the websites listed in a channel's links.

Responsible use

This Actor reads public YouTube pages without logging in or bypassing any sign-in, and it paces its requests. Use the data in line with YouTube's terms and applicable law. Channel and video data is public, but if you store or combine it with other data about individuals, the data-protection obligations are yours.