YouTube Channel Scraper — Extract Analytics & Video Data

Get clean YouTube channel and video analytics in minutes — subscribers, total views, video counts, plus per-video views, likes, comments, duration, and tags. This YouTube channel scraper takes channel URLs, @handles (e.g. @mkbhd), or search keywords and needs no login and no API key. Export to JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML, or pull via the Apify API.

A production-ready Apify Actor that scrapes YouTube for comprehensive channel and video analytics data.

What it does

This Actor extracts detailed data from YouTube channels and their latest videos. Provide channel URLs, handles (e.g., @mkbhd), or search keywords — the Actor will scrape channel metadata and video analytics for each result.

Channel Data Extracted

• Channel name, handle, and URL
• Subscriber count, total views, total video count
• Join date and country
• Channel description and avatar/banner images
• Verified badge status
• Social links
• Channel category/topic

Video Data Extracted (per latest N videos)

• Video title and URL
• View count, like count, comment count
• Duration (seconds + formatted)
• Published date and thumbnail URL
• Video description (first 500 chars)
• Tags list and category
• YouTube Shorts detection

Use Cases

1. Influencer Research — Analyze potential influencer partners by examining their subscriber growth, engagement rates, and content consistency across recent videos.

2. Competitor Analysis — Track competitor channels to understand their upload frequency, video performance, and content strategy over time.

3. Content Strategy — Study successful channels in your niche to identify trending topics, optimal video lengths, and high-performing content formats.

4. Agency Reporting — Automate the collection of client channel metrics for regular performance reports without manual data entry.

5. Brand Partnership Research — Evaluate potential brand partners by analyzing their audience size, engagement metrics, and content quality before outreach.

Sample Output

Channel Record

{
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd",
  "channelName": "Marques Brownlee",
  "handle": "@mkbhd",
  "subscriberCount": "19.3M subscribers",
  "subscriberCountNumber": 19300000,
  "totalViews": "4,613,201,035 views",
  "totalViewsNumber": 4613201035,
  "totalVideoCount": "1,823 videos",
  "totalVideoCountNumber": 1823,
  "joinDate": "Mar 22, 2008",
  "country": "United States",
  "channelDescription": "MKBHD uploads quality videos about technology...",
  "avatarImageUrl": "https://yt3.googleusercontent.com/...",
  "bannerImageUrl": "https://yt3.googleusercontent.com/...",
  "channelCategory": "Science & Technology",
  "isVerified": true,
  "socialLinks": ["https://twitter.com/MKBHD"],
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-08T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Video Record

{
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd",
  "channelName": "Marques Brownlee",
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "videoTitle": "Galaxy S25 Ultra Review: The Best Samsung Phone?",
  "viewCount": "5,234,567 views",
  "viewCountNumber": 5234567,
  "likeCount": "182K likes",
  "likeCountNumber": 182000,
  "commentCount": "12,345 comments",
  "commentCountNumber": 12345,
  "durationSeconds": 1245,
  "durationFormatted": "20:45",
  "publishedDate": "Jan 22, 2026",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/maxresdefault.jpg",
  "videoDescription": "The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is here with a new chip...",
  "tags": ["samsung", "galaxy s25", "review", "android"],
  "category": "Science & Technology",
  "isShorts": false,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-08T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Pricing

Event	Price	Description
Channel Scraped	$0.005	Per channel — includes full channel metadata + N latest videos

Example cost: 10 channels × 20 videos each = $0.05 total

The per-channel pricing keeps costs simple and predictable. You pay once per channel regardless of how many videos are scraped.

Configuration

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
channelUrls	string[]	[]	YouTube channel URLs or @handles to scrape
searchKeywords	string[]	[]	Keywords to search for channels
maxChannels	number	10	Max channels per search keyword
maxVideosPerChannel	number	20	Videos to scrape per channel (max 100)
includeShorts	boolean	false	Include YouTube Shorts in results
proxyConfiguration	object	{ useApifyProxy: true }	Proxy settings

How to Scrape YouTube Channels (Step by Step)

1. Click Try for free / Run.
2. Add YouTube channel URLs or @handles (e.g. @mkbhd), or enter search keywords to find channels automatically.
3. Set Max Videos Per Channel and Max Channels from Search — start small to test.
4. Toggle Include Shorts if you want Shorts in the results, then click Run.
5. When the run finishes, export your data as JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML, or pull it via the Apify API.

Known Limitations

• Subscriber count hidden: Some smaller or private channels hide subscriber counts. The Actor returns null for these fields.
• YouTube rate limiting: Very large runs (100+ channels) may experience temporary blocks. The Actor uses session pools and random delays to mitigate this.
• Like counts: YouTube sometimes displays abbreviated like counts (e.g., "123K"). The Actor stores both the raw text and parsed numeric value.
• Shorts duration: YouTube Shorts may not always report accurate duration data due to platform limitations.
• Search mode: Channel search results may vary by region and are subject to YouTube's search algorithm ranking.

Resources

• Apify Platform
• Crawlee Documentation
• Playwright API

Responsible Use

This Actor is intended for lawful collection of publicly available information only. Users are responsible for ensuring their use complies with the source website's terms, robots.txt, applicable privacy laws, including India's DPDP Act, and all local regulations.

Do not use this Actor to collect, store, sell, or misuse personal data without a lawful basis. The Actor author is not responsible for misuse by end users.