YouTube Channel & Contact Scraper

Apify actor that scrapes a YouTube channel's public About page and returns:

• Channel metadata (handle, channel ID, country, join date, subscriber/view/video counts, avatar, banner, RSS feed)
• All public links the creator has listed (auto-classified by platform: twitter, instagram, tiktok, website, etc.)
• Email addresses found in the description and link list
• A best-effort guess at whether the channel is managed by an MCN, talent agency, or network, with confidence level and the signal that triggered the match

No YouTube Data API key required. Scrapes the public /@handle/about page and parses YouTube's embedded ytInitialData JSON.

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Input

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
channels	string[]	yes	—	Channel URLs, @handles, custom names, or channel IDs (UC…). All forms are accepted; see examples below.
proxyConfiguration	object	no	{ useApifyProxy: true }	Apify proxy config. Recommended for non-trivial volumes.
maxConcurrency	integer	no	5	Number of channels fetched in parallel (1–50).

Accepted channel formats:

{
  "channels": [
    "@MrBeast",
    "https://youtube.com/@LinusTechTips",
    "UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA",
    "veritasium"
  ]
}

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Output

One record per input channel pushed to the default dataset. Failed inputs produce { input, error, scrapedAt } records so nothing is silently dropped.

Sample successful record

{
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@LinusTechTips/about",
  "channelId": "UCXuqSBlHAE6Xw-yeJA0Tunw",
  "handle": "@LinusTechTips",
  "title": "Linus Tech Tips",
  "description": "Tech can be complicated; we try to make it easy. …",
  "canonicalUrl": "http://www.youtube.com/@LinusTechTips",
  "country": "Canada",
  "joinedDate": "Joined Nov 24, 2008",
  "subscriberCount": "16.6M subscribers",
  "videoCount": "6,729 videos",
  "viewCount": "7,438,210,001 views",
  "keywords": "linus tech tips ltt …",
  "avatarUrl": "https://yt3.googleusercontent.com/…",
  "bannerUrl": "https://yt3.googleusercontent.com/…",
  "rssUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCXuqSBlHAE6Xw-yeJA0Tunw",
  "links": [
    { "title": "LTT Store",  "url": "https://www.lttstore.com/" },
    { "title": "Floatplane", "url": "https://www.floatplane.com/" },
    { "title": "Twitter",    "url": "https://twitter.com/linustech" }
  ],
  "socials": {
    "website":   ["https://www.lttstore.com/", "https://www.floatplane.com/"],
    "twitter":   ["https://twitter.com/linustech"],
    "facebook":  ["https://www.facebook.com/LinusTech"],
    "instagram": ["https://www.instagram.com/linustech"],
    "tiktok":    ["https://www.tiktok.com/@linustech"]
  },
  "emails": ["partnerships@linusmediagroup.com"],
  "network": {
    "name": "Linus Media Group",
    "confidence": "high",
    "signals": [
      { "type": "email_domain",  "evidence": "partnerships@linusmediagroup.com" },
      { "type": "link_hostname", "evidence": "https://www.linusmediagroup.com/" }
    ]
  },
  "otherNetworkMatches": [],
  "likelyAgencyManaged": true,
  "agencyEmailDomain": "linusmediagroup.com",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-08T16:28:24.189Z"
}

Output field reference

Field	Type	Notes
sourceUrl	string	The /about URL fetched.
channelId	string	YouTube channel ID (UC…).
handle	string	@handle.
title	string	Channel display name.
description	string	Full description text.
canonicalUrl	string	YouTube's canonical channel URL.
country	string	Reported country.
joinedDate	string	Join date as displayed.
subscriberCount / videoCount / viewCount	string	Display strings (e.g. "16.6M subscribers"); not parsed to numbers.
keywords	string	Channel keywords.
avatarUrl / bannerUrl	string	Largest available image URL.
rssUrl	string	YouTube's RSS feed for the channel.
links	{ title, url }[]	All channel links, with YouTube redirect wrappers unwrapped to the real destination.
socials	object	Links grouped by platform (twitter, instagram, tiktok, facebook, youtube, twitch, discord, patreon, website, …).
emails	string[]	Emails found in description + link titles/URLs. Common false-positive domains (*.youtube.com, *.googleusercontent.com, …) are filtered out.
network	object | null	Detected MCN/agency, see below.
otherNetworkMatches	string[]	Other networks that also matched (rare).
likelyAgencyManaged	boolean	True if a non-personal email domain is exposed and it doesn't match the channel's own brand.
agencyEmailDomain	string | null	The email domain that triggered the heuristic.

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Limitations

• Recall is bounded by what creators publish. A channel managed by Spotter/Jellysmack/Night Media that only links its personal Twitter+Instagram will show as unmanaged — there's no way to detect the relationship from public channel data alone.
• The gated business email is unreachable. YouTube hides the channel's "view email address" behind a CAPTCHA. Emails surfaced by this actor come from the description and link metadata only.
• description_phrase matches are intentionally rare. A bare mention like "I love Spotter's videos" won't match — the description must also contain a management phrase.
• Network domains drift. When you find a hit that exposes a new domain (e.g. an agency rebrands), append it to the existing entry's domains array.