🎬 YouTube Hashtag Extractor Scrape Videos & Shorts from Any Hashtag with Transcripts

YouTube Hashtag Extractor pulls videos (or Shorts) from any YouTube hashtag and enriches each one with full metadata and a clean transcript title, channel, views, runtime, description, thumbnail, and the spoken text with timestamps. Just give it a hashtag and a country, and get structured, ready-to-use data.

Perfect for content researchers, social media marketers, and data analysts who need hashtag-level video data and transcripts without manually opening hundreds of videos.

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Why scrape YouTube hashtags?

YouTube hashtags group millions of videos by topic, making them one of the fastest ways to discover what's being published around a subject trends, competitors, creators, and talking points. Extracting that feed in bulk turns scattered videos into a structured dataset you can search, filter, and analyze.

Here are some of the most common use cases:

• Trend research: See which videos and creators dominate a hashtag right now.
• Content analysis: Pull transcripts in bulk to analyze topics, keywords, and messaging.
• Competitor monitoring: Track who is publishing under hashtags in your niche.
• Shorts discovery: Target the dedicated Shorts feed of a hashtag for short-form research.
• Localized insights: Compare hashtag results across countries to see regional differences.

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What data can YouTube Hashtag Extractor extract?

🎬 Video Identity

• videoId YouTube video ID
• VideoURL canonical watch URL
• Video_title video title
• category / hashtag the hashtag the video was found under

📺 Channel

• Channel_Name uploading channel's display name
• Channel_Id YouTube channel ID

📊 Stats & Metadata

• Views view count
• Runtime duration (M:SS or H:MM:SS)
• published_Date publication date (ISO 8601)
• Description full video description
• thumbnail highest-resolution thumbnail URL

📝 Transcript

• hasTranscript whether a transcript was found
• transcriptText full cleaned transcript as plain text
• transcriptLanguage transcript language code
• isAutoGenerated whether the transcript is auto-generated (ASR)
• timestamps transcript segments with start time and text

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⚙️ How to use YouTube Hashtag Extractor

The actor takes four simple inputs.

hashtag (Array of strings) required

One or more hashtags to extract from. Include the # symbol or just the word.

Input value	What it extracts
#hashtags	Videos under the #hashtags hashtag
cooking	Videos under the #cooking hashtag (the # is optional)

{
    "hashtag": ["#hashtags", "#marketing"]
}

shortsOnly (Boolean)

• Default: false
• When true, extracts from the hashtag's Shorts feed (youtube.com/hashtag/<tag>/shorts). When false, extracts regular videos from the hashtag page.

maxVideos (Integer)

• Default: 5
• Maximum number of videos/shorts to extract per hashtag. Use a small value to test, then increase for a full run.

country (Select)

• Default: US
• Controls both the proxy exit region and YouTube's geo locale together, so results stay consistent. A hashtag returns different videos in different countries this single setting keeps the IP and the locale aligned.

{
    "hashtag": ["#cooking"],
    "shortsOnly": true,
    "maxVideos": 25,
    "country": "FR"
}

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💰 Pricing

🎉 This Actor is currently FREE to use. You only pay Apify's standard platform usage for the run. There are no per-result charges at this time.

Pricing may change in the future. Any change will be shown transparently here and in the Apify Store before you run.

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📊 Sample Output

{
    "videoId": "n4Q-Y8O5_Hk",
    "VideoURL": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Q-Y8O5_Hk",
    "category": "#hashtags",
    "Video_title": "What is a Hashtag (#) and Why Do We Need It?",
    "Channel_Id": "UCCvjioedUfclrYgLSawypfQ",
    "Channel_Name": "Popupsmart",
    "Views": "2559 views",
    "Runtime": "0:51",
    "published_Date": "2022-09-28T06:00:26-07:00",
    "Description": "A hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by the \"#\" symbol...",
    "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/n4Q-Y8O5_Hk/maxresdefault.webp",
    "hasTranscript": true,
    "transcriptText": "Let's talk about hashtags. A hashtag is a word phrase preceded by the hash symbol...",
    "transcriptLanguage": "en",
    "isAutoGenerated": false,
    "timestamps": [
        { "time": "0:00", "text": "Let's talk about hashtags." },
        { "time": "0:02", "text": "A hashtag is a word phrase\npreceded by the hash symbol." }
    ],
    "hashtag": "#hashtags"
}

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a YouTube account to use this actor? No. The actor extracts publicly visible hashtag data no login or account is required.

Can I scrape multiple hashtags in one run? Yes. Pass an array of hashtags in the hashtag field and the actor processes each in turn.

What's the difference between videos and Shorts? By default the actor returns regular videos from the hashtag page. Set shortsOnly: true to target the hashtag's dedicated Shorts feed instead.

Why do results change when I change the country? YouTube personalizes hashtag results by region. The country setting aligns both the proxy IP and YouTube's locale, so a run for FR reflects what a viewer in France would see.

What happens if a video has no transcript? The video is still extracted and returned with hasTranscript: false. Metadata is always attempted regardless of transcript availability.

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⚖️ Legal & Ethical Use

This actor extracts publicly visible data from YouTube the same information any visitor can see in their browser.

Please use this tool responsibly:

• Only extract data you are authorized to access
• Comply with YouTube's Terms of Service and applicable data protection regulations (GDPR, CCPA, etc.)
• Do not use extracted data for spam, harassment, or unsolicited outreach
• Respect creators' rights when reusing transcript content

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🌐 Proxy Support

Proxy is handled automatically based on the country you select the actor uses Apify Residential proxy in that region so the IP and YouTube locale always match.

User tier	Proxy used
💎 Paying	Premium Residential in the selected country
🆓 Free	Apify RESIDENTIAL built-in, automatic

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🚫 Error Handling

Situation	What you see	What to do
Hashtag has no videos	No videos found for this hashtag	Try a more popular hashtag or a different country
YouTube blocks the request	Blocked warning, run stops	Re-run; the actor rotates IPs automatically
Video unavailable / no metadata	Video skipped, not charged	Normal some videos are region-locked or removed
Budget too small	Budget too small	Raise the run's max cost, or lower maxVideos

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🔌 Standby Mode (Actor-to-Actor Streaming)

This actor supports Standby mode it runs as a persistent HTTP server that another actor can call to stream results in real-time via NDJSON.

The public URL:

https://YOUR_USERNAME--youtube-hashtag-extractor.apify.actor?token=***

Endpoints

Endpoint	Method	Purpose
/heartbeat	GET	Keep-alive ping
/health	GET	Readiness probe
/	POST	Main endpoint accepts a hashtag, streams results back

POST Request Body

{
    "hashtag": "#hashtags",
    "maxVideos": 5,
    "shortsOnly": false,
    "country": "US"
}

NDJSON Event Types

Type	When	Key fields
started	Request accepted	hashtag
hashtag_extracted	Video IDs found	videoCount
video_processed	A video succeeded	videoId, data
video_failed	A video failed	videoId, error
completed	All done	processedCount, successCount, failureCount
error	Fatal failure	error

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Get Started Now

Free Trial Available

No credit card required. Test with 5$ to see the quality yourself.

💬 Get Support

Need Help?

📧 Email: flowextractapi@outlook.com
🌐 Website: flowextractapi.com
🐦 Twitter: @FlowExtractAPI
💼 LinkedIn: flowextract-api

Response time: Within 24 hours (usually much faster)