YouTube Video & Shorts Comments Scraper with Replies

Get the comments and replies from any YouTube video or Short as clean rows, for sentiment analysis, audience research and brand monitoring.

Use cases, each with a ready-to-run example:

• Export a video's comments together with their replies
• Get the newest comments on several YouTube Shorts at once
• Build a comment dataset for sentiment analysis
• Monitor only the comments from the last 7 days
• Collect comments on a channel's latest videos
• Read what viewers say on the top videos for a search

Paste video URLs or IDs, pick top or newest, and get one row per comment with the text, author, likes, reply count and posted time. Or give a channel, a playlist or a search, and get the comments of its latest or top videos in one run.

You pay $0.25 per 1,000 comments ($0.00025 each), and less on Apify Store discount tiers (Bronze, Silver, Gold), down to $0.175 per 1,000 on Gold. Replies count as comments. Videos with comments turned off, deleted videos and failed fetches are never charged.

At a glance

Topic	Details
Input	YouTube video or Shorts URLs or IDs, and optionally channels, playlists and searches, each giving its latest or top videos
Output	One JSON row per comment or reply: text, author, likes, reply count, posted time, pinned and hearted flags, and the parent ID for replies
Price	$0.00025 per comment, replies included ($0.25 per 1,000), or $0.225 per 1,000 on Bronze, $0.20 on Silver and $0.175 on Gold. No start fee. Videos with no comments and failed fetches are free
Tested	Final test run on 80 videos, 17 of them Shorts: all 68 videos that had comments returned them, 4,366 rows in 4.5 minutes. A run on 57 channels, playlists and searches returned 14,127 rows from 161 videos in 2.5 minutes, and every listed video with comments returned them
Limits	maxComments is 100 per video by default, 0 takes every comment. Replies are off until you turn on includeReplies. YouTube rounds like counts of 1,000 and up

What you get per comment

Field	What it holds
videoId	The video the comment belongs to
commentId	YouTube's comment ID. Replies look like <parentId>.<replyId>
text	The full comment text, with emoji and line breaks kept
authorName, authorChannelId	The commenter's handle and channel ID
authorIsVerified, authorIsChannelOwner	Verified badge, and whether the video's own channel wrote it
likeCount	Likes. YouTube rounds counts of 1,000 and up, so 325K comes back as 325000
replyCount	Replies to this comment, as YouTube shows it
publishedTimeText	Posted time as YouTube shows it, such as 2 days ago
publishedAtApprox	That time turned into a UTC timestamp at run time. Approximate: 2 days ago can be up to a day earlier
isEdited	true when YouTube marks the comment as edited
isReply, parentId	true and the parent comment ID for replies. Replies come right after their parent
isPinned, isHearted	Pinned by the creator, and hearted by the creator
commentUrl	A direct link that opens the video at this comment

With includeVideoInfo on, every row also carries three video fields right after videoId.

Field	What it holds
videoTitle	The video's title
videoViewCount	The exact view count
videoCommentCount	The exact comment count YouTube shows, which includes replies

Rows that come from a channel, playlist or search start with five more fields.

Field	What it holds
input	The channel, playlist or search you gave
sourceType	channel, playlist or search
sourceId	The channel's UC... ID, the playlist ID or the search text
sourceTitle	The channel name, playlist title or search text
position	The video's place in the listing, 1 for the newest upload or the top search result

A video that returns no comments gets one row with a status and a message instead. That row is free.

status	Meaning
no_comments	Comments are turned off, or nobody has commented yet. The message says which
unavailable	The video is deleted, private or the ID is wrong
partial	Some comments came back, but YouTube failed on a later page or on some reply threads. You pay only for the comments you got
error	YouTube kept failing for this video after 5 tries on fresh IPs
invalid_input	The input is not a YouTube link or video ID, or a channel field entry is not a channel or playlist link
not_found	The channel or playlist does not exist
no_videos	The channel, playlist or search has no public videos

Input

{
  "videos": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4z8Hi_uQOkE"
  ],
  "maxComments": 50,
  "sort": "top",
  "includeReplies": true,
  "maxRepliesPerComment": 10
}

Option	Default	What it does
videos		Watch, youtu.be, Shorts, embed and live links, or bare 11-character IDs. A video listed twice is scraped once
channelsAndPlaylists	empty	See Channels, playlists and search below
searchQueries	empty	See Channels, playlists and search below
maxVideosPerSource	10	Videos per channel, playlist or search
includeShorts	false	Channels only. Adds Shorts to the channel's videos
maxComments	100	Rows per video, replies included. 0 means every comment
sort	top	top is YouTube's default order. newest puts the latest comments first. Runs with onlyNewSinceLastRun on always read newest first
includeReplies	false	Adds replies after each parent comment
maxRepliesPerComment	10	Reply cap per thread. 0 means all replies
includeVideoInfo	false	Adds videoTitle, videoViewCount and videoCommentCount to every row, at no extra cost
onlyNewSinceLastRun	false	See Monitoring below
publishedAfter	empty	See Monitoring below

Channels, playlists and search

Besides videos, two optional inputs take comments from many videos at once.

Input	What it takes
channelsAndPlaylists	Channel links in any form (@handle, /channel/UC..., /c/name, /user/name), playlist links with list=..., and bare @handles, UC... channel IDs or PL... playlist IDs. A channel gives its latest videos, a playlist its first ones
searchQueries	YouTube searches, each giving its top videos in YouTube's order
maxVideosPerSource	How many videos to take from each channel, playlist or search. Default 10, 0 means all, up to 20,000
includeShorts	Channels only. Off: regular videos and past live streams. On: every upload, Shorts included

maxComments still applies to each video, so 10 videos at the default 100 comments give up to 1,000 rows per channel. Listing a channel, a playlist or a search is free, and you pay only for comments. A video met twice in one run, through videos or another source, is scraped and charged once. A channel or playlist that does not exist comes back as one free not_found row, and a video with comments off as a free no_comments row with its source fields.

{
  "channelsAndPlaylists": ["@3blue1brown", "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHQObOWTQDPD3MizzM2xVFitgF8hE_ab"],
  "searchQueries": ["receta de paella"],
  "maxVideosPerSource": 3,
  "maxComments": 100,
  "includeVideoInfo": true
}

Monitoring: only new comments and a date cutoff

Two optional inputs turn a scheduled run into a feed of new comments. Both are off by default, and a run without them works exactly as before.

Option	What it does
onlyNewSinceLastRun	Returns only comments this scraper has not returned to you before for the same video and filters, and nothing older than the newest one it returned last time. The first run returns the newest comments up to maxComments and remembers them
publishedAfter	Only comments published on or after a date: 2026-10-01, 2026-10-01T12:00:00Z (UTC), or a relative value such as 7 days

With onlyNewSinceLastRun on, the run reads comments newest first whatever sort says. It stops at the first page that holds nothing new, so a daily run reads only the pages it needs. A publishedAfter cutoff on its own stops early only with sort: "newest", and in top order it reads further to find newer comments. You pay only for the comments returned. YouTube shows only relative times such as 3 days ago, so publishedAfter works on an approximate time, given on every row as publishedAtApprox. The real time can be up to one unit earlier, up to a day for 3 days ago. When the run stops early, new replies on older comment threads are not picked up. The memory is a key-value store named youtube-comments-scraper-monitor in your own Apify account, one record per video and replies setting. Delete that store to start over. A video with nothing new comes back as a free no_comments row. The memory belongs to the video, not to the way you reached it, so a video you monitored through videos keeps its memory when it comes from a channel, a playlist or a search instead. A scheduled run on a channel lists its latest videos each time, and a newly uploaded video returns its newest comments up to maxComments on its first run.

Run it on a schedule

A daily run with onlyNewSinceLastRun: true gives you the new comments on the videos or channels you watch. We ran the same 60 videos on 15 Oct and again on 20 Oct. The 20 Oct run returned 925 comments and replies, and a script found none that the 15 Oct runs had returned. 25 videos with nothing new came back as free no_comments rows.

1. Set your input with onlyNewSinceLastRun: true and click Save as a new task.
2. On the task page, click Actions, then Schedule, and pick how often it runs. Apify's schedules guide covers cron times and time zones.
3. On the task's Integrations tab, choose where each run's results go.

Integration	What it does
Slack	Posts a message to your channel when a run finishes
Google Drive	Saves each run's results as a file in your Drive
Webhook	Sends the finished run, with its dataset ID, to your own URL
Make, Zapier, n8n	Adds each new row to a Google Sheet, a CRM or a database

Each comment has a stable commentId, so a sheet or database can skip rows it already holds.

Output example

This is real output for the input above, from a run on 15 Oct 2026. It shows the first comment on the first video and its first reply.

[
  {
    "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "commentId": "Ugxzbv_ZeZXNRcfwsSF4AaABAg",
    "text": "Is everyone going to ignore the fact that Rick Astley looks like a twelve year old boy but has a uniquely deep voice?",
    "authorName": "@candycake9531",
    "authorChannelId": "UCNLgzvqrGzFi5SEAbVkFchg",
    "authorIsVerified": false,
    "authorIsChannelOwner": false,
    "likeCount": 291000,
    "replyCount": 675,
    "publishedTimeText": "6 years ago",
    "publishedAtApprox": "2020-10-15T06:16:44Z",
    "isEdited": false,
    "isReply": false,
    "parentId": null,
    "isPinned": false,
    "isHearted": false,
    "commentUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&lc=Ugxzbv_ZeZXNRcfwsSF4AaABAg"
  },
  {
    "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "commentId": "Ugxzbv_ZeZXNRcfwsSF4AaABAg.91_2FL04Xww97FrL-edZw3",
    "text": "@Sam The Gamer?",
    "authorName": "@candycake9531",
    "authorChannelId": "UCNLgzvqrGzFi5SEAbVkFchg",
    "authorIsVerified": false,
    "authorIsChannelOwner": false,
    "likeCount": 4300,
    "replyCount": 0,
    "publishedTimeText": "6 years ago",
    "publishedAtApprox": "2020-10-15T06:16:45Z",
    "isEdited": true,
    "isReply": true,
    "parentId": "Ugxzbv_ZeZXNRcfwsSF4AaABAg",
    "isPinned": false,
    "isHearted": false,
    "commentUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&lc=Ugxzbv_ZeZXNRcfwsSF4AaABAg.91_2FL04Xww97FrL-edZw3"
  }
]

This row comes from the final test run on 17 Oct 2026, with @3blue1brown in channelsAndPlaylists, maxVideosPerSource: 3 and includeVideoInfo: true.

{
  "input": "@3blue1brown",
  "sourceType": "channel",
  "sourceId": "UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw",
  "sourceTitle": "3Blue1Brown",
  "position": 1,
  "videoId": "LKrwhjOI8Nc",
  "videoTitle": "There's never been a better time to go into math",
  "videoViewCount": 852735,
  "videoCommentCount": 2543,
  "commentId": "UgwyDGkk9dXgW3_c-UV4AaABAg",
  "text": "Final year of my math degree this is what happens. Incredible comedic timing can't even be mad",
  "authorName": "@blazednewt413",
  "authorChannelId": "UCObAuvVyGm0VE33DT8G57zA",
  "authorIsVerified": false,
  "authorIsChannelOwner": false,
  "likeCount": 452,
  "replyCount": 32,
  "publishedTimeText": "10 hours ago",
  "publishedAtApprox": "2026-10-16T17:18:58Z",
  "isEdited": false,
  "isReply": false,
  "parentId": null,
  "isPinned": false,
  "isHearted": false,
  "commentUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKrwhjOI8Nc&lc=UgwyDGkk9dXgW3_c-UV4AaABAg"
}

A channel that does not exist returns this free row:

{
  "input": "https://www.youtube.com/@thisHandleDoesNotExist_zq81x",
  "status": "not_found",
  "message": "YouTube says this channel or playlist does not exist"
}

A video with comments turned off returns this free row:

{
  "input": "https://youtu.be/XqZsoesa55w",
  "videoId": "XqZsoesa55w",
  "status": "no_comments",
  "message": "Comments are turned off for this video",
  "commentsReturned": 0
}

How well it works

We tested the final build on 80 different videos in one run: music videos, podcasts, news in Tamil and Hindi, live stream replays, sports highlights, small channels and 17 Shorts.

• All 68 videos that had comments returned them, 4,366 comments and replies in total.
• 8 videos had comments turned off and 3 had no comments yet. Each got a free no_comments row.
• 1 made-up video ID got a free unavailable row.
• The run took 4.5 minutes with 100 comments per video and up to 5 replies per thread.

A second run on 17 Oct 2026 took 3 videos from each of 30 channels, 12 playlists and 15 searches, in English, Spanish, French and Hindi, with includeVideoInfo on.

• 56 of the 57 sources returned comments, 14,127 rows from 161 videos, in 2.5 minutes.
• The other source is NASA, whose 3 latest videos all have comments turned off.
• 7 videos had comments turned off and 2 had no comments yet, each with a free no_comments row.
• Every one of the 161 videos came back with its title, view count and comment count.
• A made-up handle got a free not_found row, and a video link in the channel field a free invalid_input row.

In a separate check with no limits, 20 of these videos with fewer than 100 comments returned within 3 rows of the comment count YouTube shows. The small gap comes from comments YouTube still counts but no longer shows, such as held or deleted ones.

Use it from AI agents

The scraper works as a tool through the Apify MCP server in Claude, Cursor, VS Code and other MCP clients. An agent can pass a video link and get back the comments as text it can summarise or classify.

You can also call it through the Apify API or the Python and JavaScript clients, and schedule it or connect it to Make, Zapier and n8n.

Pricing

Prices are per 1,000 comments.

Event	No discount	Bronze	Silver	Gold
Comment or reply returned	$0.25	$0.225	$0.20	$0.175
Comments off, no comments, unavailable video, invalid input or failed fetch	Free	Free	Free	Free

Bronze, Silver and Gold are Apify Store discount tiers, and Apify's Pricing tab shows them as Starter, Scale and Business. Apify decides which tier an account is on.

Set a maximum cost per run in the run options. The scraper stops once that limit is reached.

More from heyitsgautham

Other actors from the same account.

• YouTube Transcript & Subtitles Scraper for specific videos, or when you want every video on a channel or playlist with channel stats and up to 20,000 videos per source.
• YouTube Channel & Playlist Transcripts for every video on a channel or playlist, with channel stats and up to 20,000 videos per source.
• YouTube Search Results & Rank Tracker Scraper for YouTube search results with rank, and channel discovery within a subscriber range.
• YouTube & TikTok Transcripts MCP Server for AI Agents for giving an AI agent YouTube and TikTok transcripts, YouTube search and comments as MCP tools, with nothing to host.

FAQ

Why did I get fewer comments than the video shows? The count on YouTube includes replies, and replies are off by default. Turn on includeReplies and set maxRepliesPerComment to 0 to get all of them.

Why is the first comment in newest order an old one? YouTube always puts the pinned comment first, in both orders.

Why do some Top results look like Newest? On some videos YouTube now limits Top to a few comments the creator featured. When that happens the scraper switches that video to newest order so you still get every comment.

Does it work for Shorts and live streams? Yes. Shorts and finished live streams have the same comments as normal videos. Live chat messages are not comments and are not included.

Are the dates exact? No. YouTube only shows relative times such as 3 weeks ago, and the scraper returns them as shown.

Does it use the official YouTube API? No. It reads the same public comment data the YouTube website shows to logged-out visitors, with no login and no API key. It does not collect emails or phone numbers.

Limitations

• Like counts of 1,000 and up are rounded by YouTube, so 1.2K becomes 1200.
• replyCount can be a little higher than the replies you get, because YouTube counts held and deleted replies.
• Rows from several videos can interleave in the dataset. Group by videoId if you need them apart.
• A channel or playlist link put in videos comes back as a free invalid_input row whose message points to channelsAndPlaylists.
• Mixes (list=RD...) cannot be listed.