💬 YouTube Comment Finder & Scraper - Extract Comments with Metadata

🚀 Extract and scrape YouTube video comments with advanced filtering and metadata. Get comment text, author details, likes, replies, timestamps, verified badges, and more. Perfect for sentiment analysis, market research, and content insights!

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📋 Table of Contents

• ✨ Features
• 🎯 Use Cases
• ⚡ Quick Start
• 📊 Input Parameters
• 📤 Output Format
• 🔧 Configuration Options
• 📈 Performance & Limits
• 💡 Best Practices
• ❓ FAQ
• 🛠️ Troubleshooting
• 📞 Support & Resources

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✨ Features

💬 Comment Extraction Capabilities

• ✅ Bulk Comment Scraping - Extract thousands of comments from multiple videos
• ✅ Pagination Support - Automatically fetch all comments with continuation tokens
• ✅ Sort Options - Get top comments or newest comments first
• ✅ YouTube Shorts Support - Full compatibility with YouTube Shorts videos
• ✅ Batch Processing - Process multiple videos in a single run
• ✅ Custom Limits - Control how many comments to extract per video

📊 Rich Metadata Extraction

• ✅ Author Information - Username, channel ID, profile picture URL
• ✅ Engagement Metrics - Likes count, reply count for each comment
• ✅ Timestamps - Published date, relative time (e.g., "2 days ago")
• ✅ Verification Status - Verified badge, artist badge, creator badge
• ✅ Channel Owner Detection - Identify comments from video creator
• ✅ Reply Tokens - Extract nested replies with continuation tokens

🌍 Global & Regional Support

• ✅ Multi-Region Access - Support for 25+ countries worldwide
• ✅ Multi-Language Support - Comments in 20+ languages
• ✅ Geo-Specific Content - Region-specific comment filtering
• ✅ Unicode Support - Full emoji and special character support

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🎯 Use Cases

Use Case	Description	Key Benefits
📊 Sentiment Analysis	Analyze audience reactions and opinions	Understand viewer sentiment, identify trends, gauge reception
🔍 Market Research	Study competitor videos and audience feedback	Competitive intelligence, customer insights, product feedback
🤖 AI Training Data	Collect comments for machine learning models	Large-scale datasets, diverse opinions, real user content
📈 Engagement Analytics	Track comment patterns and engagement rates	Measure video performance, identify viral content, track growth
🎓 Academic Research	Study social media behavior and communication	Research data, behavioral patterns, linguistic analysis
🛡️ Content Moderation	Monitor comments for brand safety	Identify spam, detect harmful content, protect brand reputation
💼 Influencer Analysis	Evaluate influencer audience engagement	Verify authenticity, measure influence, assess partnerships
📱 Social Listening	Monitor brand mentions and customer feedback	Real-time feedback, crisis management, customer service

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⚡ Quick Start

1️⃣ Basic Usage - Extract Top Comments

{
  "video_urls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw"
  ],
  "sort_by": "top",
  "max_comments": 100
}

2️⃣ Extract Newest Comments

{
  "video_urls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw"
  ],
  "sort_by": "newest",
  "max_comments": 500
}

3️⃣ Bulk Extraction from Multiple Videos

{
  "video_urls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw",
    "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "jNQXAC9IVRw"
  ],
  "geo": "US",
  "lang": "en",
  "sort_by": "top",
  "max_comments": 200
}

4️⃣ Extract All Available Comments

{
  "video_urls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw"
  ],
  "sort_by": "top"
}

Note: Leave max_comments empty to extract all available comments

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📊 Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description	Default	Example
video_urls	Array	✅ Yes	YouTube video URLs or video IDs	-	["https://youtube.com/watch?v=..."]
geo	String	❌ No	ISO 3166-2 country code	"US"	"US", "IN", "GB"
lang	String	❌ No	Language/locale code	"en"	"en", "es", "hi"
sort_by	String	❌ No	Sort order: top or newest	"top"	"top", "newest"
max_comments	Integer	❌ No	Max comments per video	All	100, 500, 1000

🔗 Supported URL Formats

• ✅ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
• ✅ https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID
• ✅ https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_ID
• ✅ https://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID
• ✅ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
• ✅ Direct video ID: VIDEO_ID (e.g., jNQXAC9IVRw)

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📤 Output Format

💬 Comment Data Structure

{
  "source": "youtube",
  "input_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw",
  "video_id": "jNQXAC9IVRw",
  "comment_id": "UgzuC3zzpRZkjc5Qzsd4AaABAg",
  "author_name": "@SanDiegoZoo",
  "author_channel_id": "UCC5NfQ6Mf0dq_eEwv4P_hWA",
  "author_thumbnail": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/...",
  "text": "We're so honored that the first ever YouTube video was filmed here!",
  "published_time_text": "5 years ago",
  "publish_date": "2020-11-07",
  "published_at": "2020-11-07T00:00:00Z",
  "likes_count": "4.3M",
  "reply_count": 985,
  "is_verified": true,
  "is_artist": false,
  "is_creator": false,
  "is_channel_owner": false,
  "reply_token": "Eg0SC2pOUVhBQzlJVlJ3GAYy..."
}

📋 Output Fields Explained

Field	Type	Description
source	String	Always "youtube"
input_url	String	Original input URL
video_id	String	YouTube video ID
comment_id	String	Unique comment identifier
author_name	String	Comment author's username
author_channel_id	String	Author's YouTube channel ID
author_thumbnail	String	Author's profile picture URL
text	String	Comment text content
published_time_text	String	Human-readable publish time
publish_date	String	ISO date (YYYY-MM-DD)
published_at	String	ISO 8601 timestamp
likes_count	String	Number of likes (formatted)
reply_count	Integer	Number of replies
is_verified	Boolean	Has verified badge
is_artist	Boolean	Has artist badge
is_creator	Boolean	Has creator badge
is_channel_owner	Boolean	Is video uploader
reply_token	String	Token to fetch replies

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🔧 Configuration Options

🌍 Supported Countries (Geo Codes)

Region	Code	Region	Code	Region	Code
🇺🇸 United States	US	🇮🇳 India	IN	🇬🇧 United Kingdom	GB
🇩🇪 Germany	DE	🇯🇵 Japan	JP	🇧🇷 Brazil	BR
🇨🇦 Canada	CA	🇫🇷 France	FR	🇪🇸 Spain	ES
🇷🇺 Russia	RU	🇦🇺 Australia	AU	🇮🇹 Italy	IT
🇳🇱 Netherlands	NL	🇹🇷 Türkiye	TR	🇮🇩 Indonesia	ID
🇲🇽 Mexico	MX	🇰🇷 South Korea	KR	🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia	SA
🇦🇪 UAE	AE	🇵🇰 Pakistan	PK	🇧🇩 Bangladesh	BD
🇳🇬 Nigeria	NG	🇵🇭 Philippines	PH	🇻🇳 Vietnam	VN
🇹🇭 Thailand	TH	🇪🇬 Egypt	EG	🇿🇦 South Africa	ZA

🗣️ Supported Languages

Language	Code	Language	Code	Language	Code
English	en	Spanish	es	French	fr
German	de	Hindi	hi	Japanese	ja
Korean	ko	Portuguese	pt	Russian	ru
Arabic	ar	Italian	it	Indonesian	id
Turkish	tr	Vietnamese	vi	Thai	th
Chinese	zh	Polish	pl	Dutch	nl
Swedish	sv	Norwegian	no	-	-

📊 Sort Options

Option	Description	Best For
top	Most popular comments first	Finding highly-engaged comments, viral content
newest	Most recent comments first	Real-time monitoring, latest feedback

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📈 Performance & Limits

⚡ Speed & Efficiency

Metric	Value	Notes
Processing Speed	~20-50 comments/second	Depends on pagination
API Response Time	1-3 seconds per page	~20 comments per page
Batch Processing	Unlimited videos	Process multiple videos in one run
Max Comments	100,000+ per video	Limited only by available comments
Pagination	Automatic	Seamless continuation token handling

💰 Cost Optimization Tips

1. Set max_comments - Limit extraction to reduce runtime costs
2. Use sort_by: "top" - Get most valuable comments first
3. Batch Videos - Process multiple videos in single run
4. Monitor Progress - Check logs to track extraction status

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💡 Best Practices

✅ Recommended Configurations

🎯 For Sentiment Analysis

{
  "video_urls": ["VIDEO_URL"],
  "sort_by": "top",
  "max_comments": 500
}

Extract top 500 most-liked comments for representative sentiment

📊 For Real-Time Monitoring

{
  "video_urls": ["VIDEO_URL"],
  "sort_by": "newest",
  "max_comments": 100
}

Get latest 100 comments for recent feedback

🔍 For Comprehensive Analysis

{
  "video_urls": ["VIDEO_URL"],
  "sort_by": "top"
}

Extract all available comments (leave max_comments empty)

🚀 Performance Tips

1. Start Small - Test with max_comments: 100 before full extraction
2. Use Pagination - Actor automatically handles pagination
3. Monitor Costs - Check Apify usage dashboard regularly
4. Batch Wisely - Group related videos together
5. Filter Later - Extract all data, filter in post-processing

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❓ FAQ

Q: How many comments can I extract?

A: You can extract unlimited comments! Set max_comments to control the limit per video, or leave it empty to extract all available comments. Most videos have 100-10,000 comments, but viral videos can have millions.

Q: Does this work with YouTube Shorts?

A: Yes! The actor fully supports YouTube Shorts. Just provide the Shorts URL or video ID.

Q: Can I extract comment replies?

A: The actor extracts top-level comments and provides reply_token for each comment. You can use this token to fetch nested replies in a separate request.

Q: What's the difference between 'top' and 'newest' sorting?

A:

• Top: Comments sorted by popularity (most likes first) - Best for sentiment analysis
• Newest: Comments sorted by recency (latest first) - Best for real-time monitoring

Q: How do I handle videos with millions of comments?

A: Set a reasonable max_comments limit (e.g., 1000-5000) to avoid long runtimes. For most use cases, the top comments provide sufficient insights.

Q: Can I extract comments from private or deleted videos?

A: No, the actor can only extract comments from publicly available videos.

Q: What happens if a video has comments disabled?

A: The actor will return an empty dataset for that video and log a warning message.

Q: Are there any rate limits?

A: The actor includes built-in rate limiting and retry logic to handle API throttling automatically.

Q: Can I use this for commercial purposes?

A: Yes, but ensure compliance with YouTube's Terms of Service and data privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA, etc.).

Q: How accurate are the like counts?

A: Like counts are provided as-is from YouTube's API. They may be abbreviated (e.g., "4.3M" instead of exact numbers).

Q: Can I extract comments in specific languages only?

A: The lang parameter sets the locale for the request, but YouTube returns all comments regardless of language. You'll need to filter by language in post-processing.

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🛠️ Troubleshooting

🚨 Common Issues & Solutions

Issue	Possible Cause	Solution
❌ "No video URLs provided"	Empty video_urls array	Add at least one valid YouTube URL or video ID
❌ "Invalid YouTube URL"	Malformed URL	Check URL format, ensure it's a valid YouTube link
⚠️ "No comments found"	Comments disabled or no comments	Verify video has comments enabled and available
⏱️ Long runtime	Large max_comments value	Reduce max_comments or process fewer videos
🔄 "Rotating to next key"	API rate limiting	Normal behavior - actor automatically retries

🔍 Debugging Steps

1. Verify Video URL - Open the URL in a browser to confirm it works
2. Check Comments - Ensure the video has comments enabled
3. Review Logs - Check actor run logs for detailed error messages
4. Test Single Video - Start with one video before batch processing
5. Reduce Limits - Lower max_comments to test faster

📝 Error Messages Explained

• "No provider keys found" - keys not configured (contact support)
• "HTTP 400" - Invalid request parameters
• "HTTP 429" - Rate limit exceeded (actor will retry automatically)
• "HTTP 500" - YouTube API error (temporary, will retry)

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📞 Support & Resources

🆘 Need Help?

• 📧 Report Issues - Found a bug? Report it via Apify Console
• 💬 Community Support - Join the Apify Discord community
• 📖 Documentation - Visit Apify Docs for comprehensive guides
• 🎯 Best Practices - Check our blog for optimization tips

🔗 Useful Resources

• Apify Platform Documentation
• YouTube Data API
• Apify SDK Documentation
• Web Scraping Best Practices

📊 Related Actors

• YouTube Video Scraper

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🏆 Why Choose This Actor?

✅ Fast & Reliable - Optimized for speed with automatic retry logic
✅ Rich Metadata - Extract 15+ data points per comment
✅ Pagination Support - Automatically fetch all comments
✅ Global Coverage - 25+ countries, 20+ languages
✅ Batch Processing - Process unlimited videos
✅ Cost Effective - Efficient API usage and resource management
✅ Well Maintained - Regular updates and bug fixes
✅ Great Support - Responsive support team

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🏷️ Find Me

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🚀 Start extracting YouTube comments now and unlock powerful audience insights!

Built with ❤️ using Apify Platform | Optimized for Performance & Reliability