YouTube Channel Business Email Finder

Give this Actor a list of YouTube channels, or a search keyword, and it returns each channel's business email address when one exists and can be found without signing in. One row of output is one channel; a channel with no address found still returns a row, and you are not billed for it.

This Actor is independent and not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by YouTube or Google LLC.

What it does

Paste channel URLs, @handles, channel IDs, or video/playlist links (the channel is derived automatically) into Channels, or use Search keywords to find channels by topic instead, up to Max channels per keyword each (default 50). For every channel resolved, the Actor checks five places for a business email address, in a fixed order, stopping as soon as it finds one it accepts. Each row carries identity fields, subscriber and view counts, the best address found (or null), and enough detail about where it came from to judge it yourself.

What it finds - and what it doesn't

On a fresh, uncurated 100-channel sample, this Actor found a usable business email for 62 channels out of 100. Of that, 49 points were a verified source (About page, linked website, video descriptions, or community posts) and 13 points were a pattern guess confirmed only by a mail record on the domain. That 62 percent is measured, not a target, and it is never rounded up here or anywhere else.

There is a ceiling above it, also measured. YouTube's own channel data shows 69 percent of channels have a business email address configured - but hides it behind a sign-in wall (signInForBusinessEmail: "Sign in to see email address"). The gap between 62 and 69 is that wall. A scraper that solves CAPTCHAs and signs in reaches those extra addresses; this Actor does neither, so it does not close the gap. When the gate is the only reason a channel came back empty, the record says so with businessEmailGated: true, so you know to follow up by hand if it matters to you.

What gets thrown out matters just as much. The ownership filter rejected 83 addresses that looked like hits but were not the channel's own: 59 belonged to intermediary platforms the channel merely mentioned, 12 were on domains with no plausible tie to the channel, 10 were free-mail addresses found in someone else's page text, and 2 were literal placeholders like example@. Coverage fell across three measurement passes - 65, then 63, then 62 percent - each drop closing a filter hole that handed out an address that was not the channel's own.

Worth noting: one real run, a "woodworking" search of 10 channels, found an email for 9 in 50 seconds - 90 percent, well above 62. One small sample, not a rate to expect.

How it finds emails

Sources are tried in a fixed order, cheapest and most reliable first, stopping at a channel the moment a verified address turns up:

1. About description and link section - free, the panel is already fetched for every channel. verified.
2. Linked website, if set and its robots.txt allows it. A page-body address counts only if it is on the site's own domain or comes from a structural marker such as mailto: or JSON-LD contact data. verified.
3. Descriptions of the 15 most recent videos, fetched in one RSS request. verified.
4. A pattern guess: contact@<the channel's own domain>, kept only if that domain's mail record (MX) accepts mail. The one source with no confirmed address behind it, so it is labelled guessed.
5. Community posts, tried only when nothing above found anything. verified.

Stopping at the first accepted address (verified, or a step 4 guess) does not lower coverage - it only changes which address is reported first, never whether one is found.

Pricing

You are charged when this Actor finds a business email for a channel, and never charged when nothing turns up - that row still comes back, with email: null. A channel is charged at most once, no matter how many addresses it yields; anything past the first is included free in allEmails. Verified and guessed addresses are billed at different rates, guessed priced lower for its lower certainty. Exact per-event prices are on this Actor's Pricing tab in Apify Console.

Output

One record per resolved channel. Key fields:

Field	What it holds
channelId, channelUrl, channelName, handle	Channel identity
subscriberCount, viewCount, videoCount, country, joinedDate	Lead details, from the same free panel as the email
email	Best address found, or null
emailConfidence	verified or guessed, or null
emailSource	channel-about, channel-links, linked-site, video-description, community-post, pattern-guess, or null
emailIsRoleAddress	Whether email is a role inbox (info@, support@) rather than a person
allEmails, emailCount	Every address found, comma-separated, and how many
businessEmailGated	true when YouTube has a business email on file but hides it behind sign-in
linkedSite, siteSkippedReason	The channel's website, and why it was skipped (robots, budget, unreachable, or null)
mxVerified	Whether the guessed address's domain has a working mail record
inputUrl, scrapedAt, contentHash	Source input, scrape time, and a fingerprint excluding scrapedAt so real changes are detectable

A real record, from a live run of this Actor against a "woodworking" search (Run Wjrh6hTe7T4hBhAuf, dataset bOaIgPlkdyEG61loP):

{
  "channelId": "UCQ_bmgSrYsQS0LboA_tZpEw",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ_bmgSrYsQS0LboA_tZpEw",
  "channelName": "Bourbon Moth Woodworking",
  "handle": "@Bourbonmoth",
  "subscriberCount": "1.25M subscribers",
  "viewCount": "145,874,649 views",
  "videoCount": "286 videos",
  "country": "United States",
  "joinedDate": "Joined May 8, 2015",
  "email": "iamupset@bourbonmoth.com",
  "emailConfidence": "verified",
  "emailSource": "linked-site",
  "emailIsRoleAddress": false,
  "allEmails": "iamupset@bourbonmoth.com",
  "emailCount": 1,
  "businessEmailGated": false,
  "linkedSite": "http://www.bourbonmoth.com/",
  "siteSkippedReason": null,
  "mxVerified": false,
  "inputUrl": "ytsearch:woodworking",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-08-14T10:32:09.821Z",
  "contentHash": "66dabf9f7be40255a716c2fe6c2a3740023cb8caff205dfdccfd4b18d1f7d47c"
}

The same run also guessed contact@theweekendwoodworker.com for a channel with no published address: emailConfidence: "guessed", mxVerified: true.

Free preview

Turn on Free preview and the Actor resolves your channel list and reports how many would be billed, without charging anything. Preview only checks the free source (the About panel already fetched for every channel) - it does not visit linked sites, read video descriptions, guess a pattern address, or check community posts. The number reported is a floor: a real run on the same channels can only find as many or more, never fewer.

Limits and honesty

• No CAPTCHA solving, no sign-in. The 69 percent ceiling above is real, and this Actor stops 7 points short of it on purpose rather than automate a login wall.
• No SMTP verification. Confirming a mailbox exists means opening a connection on port 25 and talking to the mail server. That port is closed on this platform - measured, not assumed - so no Actor here can verify a mailbox this way, including competitors that imply they do. A guessed address is checked only to the level an MX record can prove: the domain accepts mail, not "this mailbox exists" - why it is priced lower.
• robots.txt is read and obeyed on every website visited. A disallowed site is skipped entirely (siteSkippedReason: "robots"), and the other four sources still run for that channel.

Frequently asked questions

Why does this find fewer addresses than some competitors claim to? Because those numbers use a different method, not a better one. YouTube shows a channel's business email only after sign-in, behind a wall that also expects a CAPTCHA. A scraper that automates logged-in sessions reaches the extra 7 points between this Actor's 62 percent and the 69 percent ceiling; this Actor does neither.

What does "guessed" mean, exactly? contact@ was tried at the channel's own domain, and its mail record says it accepts mail - nothing more. Nobody has confirmed the inbox exists or that anyone reads it; SMTP verification, which would confirm the mailbox itself, is not possible on this platform (see Limits above). Guessed addresses are labelled guessed in emailConfidence and billed at a lower rate.

Can the same channel be charged twice? No. A channel is billed at most once per run, the moment its best address is found, regardless of how many addresses it has; extras ride along free in allEmails. A channel with no address found is never charged, and with Incremental mode on, a channel already resolved earlier is skipped entirely rather than re-scraped and re-billed.