YouTube Scraper — Videos, Transcripts, Comments & Channels

Extract everything from YouTube in a single Actor: video metadata, full transcripts (with timestamps), comments with reply threads, channel profiles with social links, and search results. No official API keys, no quotas, no browser — fast and low-cost.

Most YouTube scrapers make you run three or four separate Actors (one for metadata, one for transcripts, one for comments…) and bill you separately for each. This one does it all in one call.

Features

• 🎥 Video metadata — title, description, view count, like count, duration, publish date, keywords, thumbnails
• 📝 Transcripts — full text, timestamped segments, and ready-to-use SRT subtitles, with language selection and auto-generated fallback
• 💬 Comments — top comments including reply threads, with author, like count, and creator/verified flags
• 📺 Channels — subscribers, total views, video count, country, join date, external & social links, and recent videos
• 🔍 Search — scrape YouTube search results, optionally enriched with transcripts/comments/channel data
• ⚡ Fast & cheap — fast and lightweight (512 MB)

Input

Provide any combination of video URLs, search queries, and channel URLs, then toggle the add-ons you want.

{
  "videoUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aircAruvnKk"],
  "searchQueries": ["machine learning tutorial"],
  "maxResultsPerQuery": 20,
  "channelUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@3blue1brown"],
  "includeTranscript": true,
  "transcriptLanguage": "en",
  "includeComments": true,
  "maxComments": 100,
  "includeChannel": true
}

Field	Type	Description
videoUrls	array	Video or Shorts URLs (or bare 11-char IDs)
searchQueries	array	Search terms; results scraped as videos
maxResultsPerQuery	integer	Videos to return per search query (default 20)
channelUrls	array	Channel URLs (@handle or /channel/UC…)
includeTranscript	boolean	Attach the transcript to each video
transcriptLanguage	string	Preferred language code, e.g. en, es, de
includeComments	boolean	Attach comments (with replies) to each video
maxComments	integer	Max comments per video incl. replies
includeChannel	boolean	Attach the uploader's channel profile to each video

Output

Each video is one dataset item:

{
  "type": "video",
  "id": "aircAruvnKk",
  "title": "But what is a neural network? | Deep learning chapter 1",
  "viewCount": 23621207,
  "likeCount": 551760,
  "durationSeconds": 1120,
  "publishDate": "2017-10-05T08:11:25-07:00",
  "channel": { "name": "3Blue1Brown", "subscriberCount": 8460000, "links": [ … ] },
  "transcript": {
    "available": true,
    "language": "en",
    "segments": [ { "start": 4.2, "duration": 3.1, "text": "This is a 3." } ],
    "fullText": "This is a 3. It's sloppily written …",
    "srt": "1\n00:00:04,200 --> 00:00:07,300\nThis is a 3.\n…"
  },
  "comments": [
    { "author": "@user", "text": "Great video!", "likeCount": 13000, "replies": [ … ] }
  ]
}

Channels and standalone search results are emitted as type: "channel" and type: "search-result" items.

Common use cases

• Feed transcripts to an LLM for summaries, RAG, or content repurposing
• Comment & sentiment analysis on any video or channel
• Lead generation — pull business emails and social links from channel About pages
• Competitor & trend research across search results and channel catalogs

Integration

Run it from the Apify API, the JavaScript/Python clients, or schedule it in the Apify Console. Export results as JSON, CSV, Excel, or via webhook.

FAQ

Do I need a YouTube API key? No. The Actor works without official YouTube API keys or quotas, using plain HTTP requests instead of the Data API.

How many videos can I get per run? For searches, set maxResultsPerQuery (default 20) per query, and pass any combination of video URLs, search queries and channel URLs in one run to scale up.

Can I download videos or audio? No. This Actor extracts metadata, transcripts, comments and channel data — text and numbers only. It does not download video or audio files.

What's the output format? One JSON dataset item per video (or channel / search-result item), with nested transcript, comment and channel objects. Export as JSON, CSV, Excel or via webhook.

Can I get transcripts and comments too? Yes. Toggle includeTranscript for full text, timestamped segments and ready-to-use SRT subtitles, and includeComments for top comments with reply threads.

Related Actors

Building a media or entertainment dataset? Pair this with our other scrapers:

• TVMaze TV Shows Scraper — TV shows, episodes and cast with IMDb IDs and ratings.
• Spotify Scraper — tracks, artists, albums and playlists with no login or API key.
• Apple Podcasts Scraper — podcast shows and episodes with RSS feeds and artwork.
• Steam Games Scraper — game prices, genres, platforms and Metacritic scores.

Notes

Only public data is scraped. If you hit occasional blocks at scale, enable residential proxies in the input.