YouTube Channel Email & Contact Scraper — Emails, Phones, Socials

This Apify Actor helps creators, marketers, agencies, and sales teams collect public contact details from YouTube channels. It accepts either specific channel URLs or niche search queries, then returns one structured record per channel with channel metadata, primary email, all discovered emails, phone number, website, social links, source URLs, and scrape timestamps. That one-record format makes it easy to build outreach lists, enrich CRM leads, or pass the data into an AI workflow through Apify MCP. An optional BYOK cookie path can attempt YouTube’s gated “View email address” unlock when you explicitly enable it (cookies + optional 2Captcha). See docs/PHASE0_BYOK_INQUIRY_UNLOCK.md for live spike status.

Best fit and connected workflows

Use this Actor when your starting point is a YouTube channel list or a topic you want to turn into a channel list.

It fits well when you want to:

• enrich a known list of YouTube creator URLs with contact fields
• discover channels by niche, keyword, or industry, then extract contact details
• build outreach lists for brand deals, sponsorships, podcast bookings, or agency prospecting
• capture public business emails, phones, and social profiles from channel About pages
• follow linked websites and link aggregators such as Linktree, Beacons, Bio.link, Campsite, and Bento to collect additional contact points

For channel discovery first, the verified upstream workflow is YouTube Search Scraper - Videos, Channels & Playlists. That Actor can help you find public YouTube records, and this Actor can then enrich the channel URLs with contact data.

Practical scenario

Maya works at a small creator agency. She starts with a list of 12 YouTube channel URLs from a campaign brief. She runs this Actor with those URLs and keeps website following enabled. The output gives her email, all_emails, phone, website, social_instagram, and subscriber_count for each channel. She uses the primary email to prepare outreach, checks email_sources to see where the address was found, and uses source_url to verify the channel page before sending messages.

Input

You can provide channel URLs, niche search queries, or both. The Actor also supports a maximum channel count, website following, link aggregator following, and proxy configuration.

Field	Type	Purpose
channelUrls	array of strings	Specific YouTube channel names, handles, URLs, or video URLs. Each URL is treated as one channel to scrape.
searchQueries	array of strings	Niche or keyword searches used to discover matching channels on YouTube.
maxResults	integer	Maximum number of channels to extract across all inputs.
scrapeWebsite	boolean	Follows the linked website from the channel About page to find more public contact details.
followLinkAggregators	boolean	Follows pages such as Linktree, Beacons.ai, Bio.link, Campsite, and Bento when present in channel About sections.
proxyConfiguration	object	Proxy settings for the run. The Actor uses Apify Residential proxies by default.
unlockBusinessInquiryEmail	boolean	Optional. Leave off for most runs. When true, attempts YouTube’s gated “View email address” unlock as a fallback after the public path finds no email. Requires caller cookies.
youtubeSessionCookies	string (secret)	Optional. Logged-in YouTube/Google session cookies for the unlock path only. Never invent these.
maxInquiryUnlocksPerRun	integer	Cap on unlock attempts per run (default 10, max 50). Keep small for tests.

Focused input example

{
  "channelUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd",
    "https://www.youtube.com/@aliabdaal"
  ],
  "maxResults": 2,
  "scrapeWebsite": true,
  "followLinkAggregators": true
}

Output

The Actor stores channel contact records in the default dataset. Each item is one channel record with public metadata and contact fields.

Field	Type	Purpose
channel_name	string or null	Display name shown on YouTube.
channel_handle	string or null	Channel handle such as @CreatorName.
channel_url	string	Canonical channel URL.
subscriber_count	string or null	Subscriber count as displayed by YouTube.
video_count	string or null	Public video count from the About page.
total_views	string or null	Total public views shown by YouTube.
country	string or null	Country or region listed on the About page.
description	string or null	Truncated About-page description text.
email	string or null	Primary business email found for the channel.
all_emails	array or null	All discovered email addresses for the channel.
phone	string or null	Public phone number, if listed.
website	string or null	Main website listed on the channel About page.
social_instagram	string or null	Instagram profile URL.
social_twitter	string or null	Twitter or X profile URL.
social_tiktok	string or null	TikTok profile URL.
social_facebook	string or null	Facebook page or profile URL.
social_linkedin	string or null	LinkedIn profile or company page URL.
social_telegram	string or null	Telegram URL.
social_whatsapp	string or null	WhatsApp contact URL.
email_sources	array	Where the email was found: youtube_about, external_website, link_aggregator, and/or youtube_inquiry_unlock.
source_url	string	The YouTube About page URL used as the primary source.
scraped_at	string	ISO 8601 timestamp for the extraction moment.

Illustrative output record

{
  "channel_name": "Marques Brownlee",
  "channel_handle": "@mkbhd",
  "channel_url": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd",
  "subscriber_count": "18M subscribers",
  "video_count": "1,400 videos",
  "total_views": "3,000,000,000 views",
  "country": "United States",
  "description": "Technology videos and reviews.",
  "email": "business@example.com",
  "all_emails": [
    "business@example.com"
  ],
  "phone": "+1-800-555-0123",
  "website": "https://example.com",
  "social_instagram": "https://instagram.com/example",
  "social_twitter": "https://twitter.com/example",
  "social_tiktok": "https://tiktok.com/@example",
  "social_facebook": null,
  "social_linkedin": null,
  "social_telegram": null,
  "social_whatsapp": null,
  "email_sources": [
    "youtube_about",
    "external_website"
  ],
  "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd/about",
  "scraped_at": "2026-03-28T14:30:00.000Z"
}

How it works

This Actor uses two input paths:

1. It can take specific channel URLs, including handle URLs, channel IDs, and video URLs.
2. It can take search queries for channel discovery by niche or keyword.

For each channel, it extracts public contact and profile data from the YouTube About page. When enabled, it also follows the linked website on the About page and link aggregator pages to collect additional public emails and social links. The dataset output is structured for contact list use, and the key-value store exposes run outcome and run summary records.

Pricing

Pricing note: inquiry-email-unlocked ($0.12) is scheduled to become effective on 2026-10-10 (Apify public-Actor notice window). Until then, unlock may succeed in the dataset without that named charge. result-found ($0.05) is unchanged and live.

This Actor uses Pay per event pricing plus Apify platform usage (usage pass-through). Check the live Pricing tab before a large job.

Event	When it charges	Price
result-found (Channel Result)	A channel record is persisted with a public-path email (About, mailto, website, or link aggregator)	$0.05
inquiry-email-unlocked	Optional BYOK unlock succeeds for a channel that had no public email	$0.12
apify-actor-start	Actor start (memory-scaled)	$0.00005

Example: ten channels with public emails → ten result-found events ($0.50) plus start and platform usage. Unlock is never charged when it fails or when a public email was already found.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

This Actor is available through Apify MCP and can be called by agentic tools that understand Apify Actors and datasets.

Actor identity: khadinakbar/youtube-channel-email-extractor

Tool description: Discover YouTube channels by URL or niche, then return public contact records containing emails, phones, websites, social profiles, and source provenance. Prefer public-only. Enable unlockBusinessInquiryEmail only when the user explicitly asks for emails behind YouTube’s “View email address” button and provides session cookies. Never invent cookies. Never enable unlock for smoke tests.

Default agent objective: Prefer public-only. Set unlockBusinessInquiryEmail only if the user explicitly asks for emails behind YouTube’s “View email address” button and provides session cookies. Never invent cookies. Never enable unlock for smoke tests.

User says	Agent sets
“Get emails for these channels”	Public path only (unlockBusinessInquiryEmail false)
“Cannot find View email address” / “business inquiry email”	Ask for cookies if missing; then unlock=true + cookies + low maxInquiryUnlocksPerRun
“Test the actor” / MCP probe	Unlock off; use prefill

Find 20 YouTube channels about AI startups and extract the primary email, all emails, website, and social profiles for each channel. Use website and link aggregator following when available. Return the dataset items and tell me which source each email came from. Leave inquiry unlock off unless I supply YouTube session cookies.

When an agent uses this Actor, it can interpret the structured dataset fields directly:

• email is the primary contact value
• all_emails shows every discovered email
• email_sources identifies whether contact data came from the YouTube About page or an external website
• source_url points to the channel About page used for extraction
• scraped_at captures when the record was collected

If you are scraping a large list, use maxResults to keep the run scoped to the number of channels you want. If you are combining discovery and enrichment, the agent can pass search queries first and then read the dataset results from the run.

API example

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({
  token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN,
});

const run = await client.actor('khadinakbar/youtube-channel-email-extractor').call({
  searchQueries: ['fitness influencers', 'tech review channels'],
  maxResults: 5,
  scrapeWebsite: true,
  followLinkAggregators: true,
});

const datasetItems = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(datasetItems.items);

Best results and outcome guidance

Start with a narrow input. If you already know the creators, use channelUrls. If you are exploring a niche, use searchQueries. Keep scrapeWebsite and followLinkAggregators enabled when you want the broadest collection of public contact fields. For outreach workflows, review email_sources and source_url before exporting the dataset to your CRM or automation stack.

Continue the workflow

• Then use YouTube Channel Scraper - Profiles and Videos to extend YouTube Channel Email & Contact Scraper — Emails, Phones, Socials research with a complementary enrichment contract.
• Then use YouTube Channel Video Scraper — Metrics & Shorts to extend YouTube Channel Email & Contact Scraper — Emails, Phones, Socials research with a complementary enrichment contract.

Design note

I found that the live contract exposes both results and output records in the output schema, while the dataset itself is centered on one structured channel contact record per item. That made it clear the README should describe the dataset as the main record source and the key-value store as execution metadata.

Optional: unlock business inquiry email (BYOK)

Most users leave this off. The default path already collects public emails from the channel About page, mailto links, linked websites, and Linktree-style aggregators.

Turn on unlockBusinessInquiryEmail only when you need the address behind YouTube’s View email address button. That control is login-gated (and often captcha-gated). When enabled, unlock requires:

1. Set unlockBusinessInquiryEmail to true
2. Paste your own logged-in YouTube/Google session into youtubeSessionCookies (Cookie header string or JSON map)
3. Accept a separate $0.12 inquiry-email-unlocked charge only when unlock succeeds for a channel with no public email

How to supply cookies (high level): sign in to YouTube in your browser, copy the request Cookie header for youtube.com from DevTools (or an export extension you trust), and paste it into the secret field. Use a session you own. Do not share passwords. Cookies are not written to the dataset or OUTPUT.

Limits: unlock runs only as a fallback after the public path finds nothing for that channel; maxInquiryUnlocksPerRun caps attempts; captcha, expired cookies, and daily anti-abuse limits can still yield email: null with no unlock charge. Automation with a logged-in session may violate YouTube’s terms — that risk sits with the caller.

Agent / outcome contract: if unlock was attempted and failed, expect warnings such as inquiry_unlock_blocked, cookies_expired, or captcha_failed in OUTPUT / RUN_SUMMARY. Read those records — SUCCEEDED alone is not the business result. Successful unlock rows include youtube_inquiry_unlock in email_sources.

FAQ

When should I use channelUrls instead of searchQueries?

Use channelUrls when you already have creator links, handles, or video URLs. Use searchQueries when you want the Actor to discover channels by niche, topic, or industry first.

Can I combine URLs and niche searches in one run?

Yes. The input contract supports both fields together, which is useful when you want to enrich known creators and also discover related channels in the same workflow.

What does one result record represent?

One result record represents one YouTube channel with its public metadata and contact fields, including the channel page, email sources, and scrape timestamp.

How does this Actor connect to a discovery workflow?

A common workflow is to use YouTube Search Scraper - Videos, Channels & Playlists to find public YouTube channel URLs first, then pass those URLs into this Actor for contact enrichment.

Does this unlock YouTube’s “View email address” button?

Only if you turn on the optional BYOK path (unlockBusinessInquiryEmail + your youtubeSessionCookies). Otherwise no — the default contract is public About/website/aggregator contacts only.

Do I need Google cookies for a normal run?

No. Leave unlock off. Prefill and MCP probes stay public-only on purpose.

Where do the email sources come from?

The dataset may include youtube_about, external_website, link_aggregator, and (when BYOK unlock succeeds) youtube_inquiry_unlock. These help you see how the address was obtained before outreach.

Responsible use

Use public contact data carefully and in line with applicable laws, platform terms, and recipient expectations. Review source provenance before outreach, keep your lists scoped to the contacts you need, and maintain your own compliance process for email, phone, and CRM usage. Caller-supplied YouTube sessions used for optional inquiry unlock are the caller’s responsibility; use unlock only for lawful, authorized outreach.