# YouTube Scraper - Videos, Channels & Search (No API Key) (`get_anything/youtube-scraper`) Actor

Scrape YouTube videos, channels, playlists and search without the Data API or quotas. Get title, views, likes, comments, duration, date, description, keywords, channel info and thumbnails - plus optional LLM-ready transcripts. Export JSON/CSV for research, competitor analysis and RAG.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/get\_anything/youtube-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Get Anything](https://apify.com/get_anything) (community)
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $4.00 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## YouTube Scraper - Videos, Channels & Search (No API Key)

Extract public YouTube data at scale without the YouTube Data API or its daily quotas. Give it video URLs, channels, playlists or search queries and get clean, structured metadata for every video — plus optional LLM-ready transcripts.

### What it does

- **Videos** — title, description, view count, like count, comment count, duration, publish/upload date, category, keywords, hashtags, live/short flags, and full thumbnail set.
- **Channels** — a channel-level record with name, subscriber count, video count, total views, description and external links.
- **Discovery** — expand channels, playlists and search queries into their videos (capped by `maxVideosPerSource`).
- **Transcripts (optional add-on)** — clean caption text per video, with language preference and optional translation.

### Inputs

| Field | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| `videoUrls` | array | Video URLs or 11-char IDs (watch, youtu.be, Shorts). |
| `channelUrls` | array | `@handle` or `/channel/UC...` URLs. Pulls recent uploads. |
| `playlistUrls` | array | `playlist?list=...` URLs. |
| `searchQueries` | array | Scrapes the top matching videos per query. |
| `videoType` | select | `videos` (default), `shorts`, or `streams` — which channel tab to expand. |
| `maxVideosPerSource` | int | Cap per channel/playlist/search. Default 25. |
| `includeChannelInfo` | bool | Emit a channel record per channel URL. Default true. |
| `includeTranscript` | bool | Fetch transcript per video (add-on). Default false. |
| `languages` / `translateTo` | array / string | Transcript language preference & optional translation. |
| `proxyConfiguration` | proxy | **Residential proxy strongly recommended** — YouTube blocks datacenter IPs. |

### Output

One dataset item per video (and one per channel when `includeChannelInfo` is on). Example video item:

```json
{
  "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "title": "…",
  "channel": "…",
  "channelId": "UC…",
  "viewCount": 1600000000,
  "likeCount": 18000000,
  "commentCount": 2100000,
  "durationSeconds": 213,
  "publishDate": "2009-10-25",
  "category": "Music",
  "keywords": ["…"],
  "hashtags": ["…"],
  "isShort": false,
  "isLive": false,
  "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/…"
}
```

### Use cases

- Competitor and channel analysis (upload cadence, engagement, catalog size)
- Trend and topic discovery via search
- Influencer/creator vetting
- Feeding video metadata + transcripts into RAG / LLM pipelines

### Field availability & notes

Verified live (Sept 2026):

- **Videos — reliable:** title, description, channel, channelId/URL, viewCount, **likeCount**, durationSeconds, publishDate, uploadDate, category, keywords, hashtags, isLive, isShort, isFamilySafe, thumbnails.
- **Videos — not in v1:** `commentCount` is `null`. YouTube loads comment counts lazily via a separate request, so it isn't available from the initial page. (Matches how other scrapers treat comments as a separate paid step.)
- **Transcripts — optional add-on (off by default):** enable `includeTranscript` to also fetch clean caption text per video (with a fresh residential IP per request to avoid rate limits). Uses `youtube-transcript-api` 1.x.
- **Channels — reliable:** channelName, channelId, description, **subscriberCount**, isVerified. `videoCount` is approximate for large channels (YouTube shows it abbreviated, e.g. "1K videos").
- **Channels — may be null in v1:** total channel `viewCount`, `country`, and external `links` live on the lazily-loaded About panel and aren't in the static HTML.
- Engagement/structure fields are best-effort; YouTube changes its page layout often.
- **Use a residential proxy** for reliable results at any volume — YouTube blocks datacenter IPs.

### Monetization (set in Apify Console → Publication → Monetization)

The code already emits pay-per-event charges. Define these events to enable them:

| Event name | When it fires | Suggested price (free tier) |
|---|---|---|
| `video-scraped` | Each video successfully scraped | ~$0.004 |
| `channel-scraped` | Each channel-info record | ~$0.004 |
| `transcript-scraped` | Each video transcript (add-on) | ~$0.005 |

Benchmarks: `streamers/youtube-scraper` charges ~$0.004/video; transcripts elsewhere run $0.048/min.

# Actor input Schema

## `videoUrls` (type: `array`):

One or more YouTube video URLs or 11-character video IDs. Accepts youtube.com/watch?v=..., youtu.be/... and Shorts links.

## `channelUrls` (type: `array`):

Channel URLs to pull recent uploads from (e.g. youtube.com/@handle or youtube.com/channel/UC...). Limited by 'Max videos per source'.

## `playlistUrls` (type: `array`):

Playlist URLs to expand into their videos (e.g. youtube.com/playlist?list=...). Limited by 'Max videos per source'.

## `searchQueries` (type: `array`):

Search YouTube and scrape the top matching videos for each query. Limited by 'Max videos per source'.

## `videoType` (type: `string`):

Which tab to pull when expanding channels: normal videos, Shorts, or live streams.

## `maxVideosPerSource` (type: `integer`):

Cap on how many videos to take from each channel / playlist / search query.

## `includeChannelInfo` (type: `boolean`):

For each channel URL, also output a channel-level record (name, subscribers, video count, description, links).

## `includeTranscript` (type: `boolean`):

Also fetch the transcript / captions for each video as clean text. Charged as a separate add-on per video with a transcript.

## `languages` (type: `array`):

Only used when 'Include transcript' is on. Preferred transcript language codes in priority order, e.g. 'en', 'es', 'ar'. Falls back to any available language.

## `translateTo` (type: `string`):

Only used when 'Include transcript' is on. If set (e.g. 'en'), auto-translate the transcript when the original differs and YouTube offers translation.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

YouTube blocks requests from datacenter IPs. Residential proxy is strongly recommended for reliable results.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "videoUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  ],
  "videoType": "videos",
  "maxVideosPerSource": 25,
  "includeChannelInfo": true,
  "includeTranscript": false,
  "languages": [
    "en"
  ],
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ]
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

One item per video (and per channel, if enabled) in the default dataset.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "videoUrls": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
    ],
    "languages": [
        "en"
    ],
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true,
        "apifyProxyGroups": [
            "RESIDENTIAL"
        ]
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("get_anything/youtube-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "videoUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"],
    "languages": ["en"],
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": True,
        "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
    },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("get_anything/youtube-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "videoUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  ],
  "languages": [
    "en"
  ],
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ]
  }
}' |
apify call get_anything/youtube-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,get_anything/youtube-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/YIqDWvBuYmh4oTnm3/builds/fLZ3IWrOkk9YUU9ja/openapi.json