YouTube Playlist Videos Scraper

Extract public YouTube playlist video lists with titles, channels, positions, durations, thumbnails, URLs, and playlist metadata.

Use this actor when you need a clean dataset from one or more public YouTube playlists for research, audits, curation, monitoring, or reporting.

What does YouTube Playlist Videos Scraper do?

YouTube Playlist Videos Scraper turns public YouTube playlist URLs into structured dataset rows.

Each output item represents one video in a playlist.

The actor collects playlist-level context and video-level metadata in the same row.

You can export the results as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, RSS, or HTML from Apify.

Common jobs include content inventory, playlist backup, competitor research, and recurring monitoring.

Who is it for?

📣 Content marketers can audit brand, competitor, or influencer playlists.

🎓 Educators can catalog course playlists and learning paths.

🧪 Researchers can build repeatable video datasets from public playlist pages.

🎬 Media teams can monitor editorial playlists and content collections.

🧑‍💻 Developers can feed playlist video rows into automations, dashboards, and enrichment pipelines.

Why use this actor?

YouTube playlists are easy to browse manually but slow to copy into a spreadsheet.

This actor saves the repetitive work.

It returns normalized video IDs, video URLs, playlist IDs, titles, positions, thumbnails, channels, and timestamps.

The dataset format is designed for downstream filtering, deduplication, and reporting.

What data can you extract?

Field	Description
playlistUrl	Canonical playlist URL
playlistId	YouTube playlist ID
playlistTitle	Playlist title
playlistOwner	Playlist owner text when available
position	Video position in the playlist
videoId	YouTube video ID
videoUrl	Watch URL with playlist context
title	Video title
descriptionSnippet	Public snippet when available
duration	Video duration text
thumbnailUrl	Video thumbnail URL
publishedAtText	Public relative/date text
channelName	Video channel name
channelUrl	Video channel URL
viewCountText	Public view count text when available
scrapedAt	Extraction timestamp

How much does it cost to scrape YouTube playlist videos?

This actor uses pay-per-event pricing.

You pay a small start fee and then a per-result fee for saved playlist video records.

Exact live pricing is shown on the Apify Store pricing tab.

A small test run with the default prefilled playlist is intentionally cheap.

For large playlist audits, set maxVideosPerPlaylist to the amount of data you actually need.

How to use it

1. Open the actor on Apify.
2. Paste one or more public YouTube playlist URLs.
3. Set the maximum number of videos per playlist.
4. Leave proxy settings at the default unless you have a reason to change them.
5. Click Start.
6. Download the dataset when the run finishes.

Input

The main input is playlistUrls.

You can paste full URLs like:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrEnWoR732-DZV1Jc8bUpVTF_HTPbywpE

You can also use playlist IDs.

PLrEnWoR732-DZV1Jc8bUpVTF_HTPbywpE

Input example

{
  "playlistUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrEnWoR732-DZV1Jc8bUpVTF_HTPbywpE" }
  ],
  "maxVideosPerPlaylist": 25,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": false }
}

Output example

{
  "playlistUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrEnWoR732-DZV1Jc8bUpVTF_HTPbywpE",
  "playlistId": "PLrEnWoR732-DZV1Jc8bUpVTF_HTPbywpE",
  "playlistTitle": "Learn Something New",
  "position": 1,
  "videoId": "MhgLasBFr6o",
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhgLasBFr6o&list=PLrEnWoR732-DZV1Jc8bUpVTF_HTPbywpE&index=1",
  "title": "What was TEKOI? [INCORRECT VERSION]",
  "duration": "6:19",
  "channelName": "CGP Grey",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@CGPGrey",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-17T08:47:04.106Z"
}

Tips for best results

Use public playlists.

Check that the playlist opens in a normal browser without logging in.

Start with a low maxVideosPerPlaylist value for testing.

Increase the limit once the output shape looks right.

Run separate jobs for unrelated playlist groups if you want easier exports.

Integrations

Send results to Google Sheets for editorial calendars.

Send results to Airtable for content databases.

Use webhooks to trigger notifications after a playlist audit finishes.

Use the Apify API to schedule recurring playlist monitoring.

Connect the dataset to BI tools for video catalog analysis.

API usage with Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('fetch_cat/youtube-playlist-videos-scraper').call({
  playlistUrls: [{ url: 'https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrEnWoR732-DZV1Jc8bUpVTF_HTPbywpE' }],
  maxVideosPerPlaylist: 25
});
console.log(run.defaultDatasetId);

API usage with Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('MY_APIFY_TOKEN')
run = client.actor('fetch_cat/youtube-playlist-videos-scraper').call(run_input={
    'playlistUrls': [{'url': 'https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrEnWoR732-DZV1Jc8bUpVTF_HTPbywpE'}],
    'maxVideosPerPlaylist': 25,
})
print(run['defaultDatasetId'])

API usage with cURL

curl -X POST 'https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/fetch_cat~youtube-playlist-videos-scraper/runs?token=MY_APIFY_TOKEN' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"playlistUrls":[{"url":"https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrEnWoR732-DZV1Jc8bUpVTF_HTPbywpE"}],"maxVideosPerPlaylist":25}'

MCP usage

Use the Apify MCP server to run this actor from Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or another MCP-compatible client.

Server URL pattern:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch_cat/youtube-playlist-videos-scraper

Claude Code setup:

$claude mcp add apify-youtube-playlists https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch_cat/youtube-playlist-videos-scraper

Claude Desktop JSON configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify-youtube-playlists": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch_cat/youtube-playlist-videos-scraper"
    }
  }
}

Example prompts:

• "Extract the first 25 videos from this YouTube playlist and summarize the channels."
• "Run the YouTube Playlist Videos Scraper every Monday and compare new video IDs."
• "Export this playlist inventory to a CSV-friendly table."

Limitations

Only public playlist data can be extracted.

Private, deleted, members-only, age-restricted, or region-blocked videos may not appear.

Very large playlists may require multiple runs or future pagination improvements.

Fields depend on what YouTube exposes publicly for each playlist row.

Some metadata, such as exact publish dates or views, may be absent on some playlist pages.

Troubleshooting

If a run returns no items, confirm that the playlist URL contains a list= parameter.

If the playlist opens only after login, the actor cannot access it as public data.

If a playlist is very large, reduce the limit for a first test run.

If YouTube temporarily blocks your run environment, try enabling Apify Proxy.

Legality

Legal and ethical use

This actor extracts publicly available YouTube playlist information.

You are responsible for using the output in compliance with applicable laws, YouTube terms, and privacy rules.

Do not use scraped data for spam, harassment, impersonation, or other abusive workflows.

Related scrapers

Other useful actors from the same catalog:

• YouTube Channel Videos Scraper
• YouTube Search Results Scraper
• YouTube Comments Scraper
• YouTube Transcript Scraper

Use related scrapers when you need data outside playlist video inventories.

FAQ

Can it scrape private playlists?

No. The actor is designed for public playlist pages only.

Can I use playlist IDs instead of URLs?

Yes. Paste the playlist ID in the input list.

Does it download videos?

No. It extracts metadata and URLs only.

Can it monitor changes over time?

Yes. Schedule repeated runs and compare video IDs or positions between datasets.

Why are some fields empty?

YouTube does not show every metadata field for every playlist row. Empty fields mean the public page did not expose that value.

Changelog

Initial version extracts public playlist video rows with playlist and video metadata.

Support

If you need help, open an issue on the Apify actor page and include your run ID, playlist URL, and expected output.

Data export formats

After a run, open the dataset tab.

Choose JSON for APIs.

Choose CSV or Excel for spreadsheets.

Choose HTML for quick review.

Choose RSS if another tool needs feed-style ingestion.

Quality checklist

The default input is intentionally small.

The output is flat and spreadsheet-friendly.

The dataset contains stable IDs for deduplication.

The actor is suitable for one-off exports and recurring playlist audits.