YouTube Channel Scraper - Profiles and Videos

Scrape public YouTube channel profiles and recent video listings by channel URL, channel ID, or @handle. This actor is built for AI agents, media researchers, creator analysts, and growth teams that need clean channel metadata without browser clicks or YouTube Data API quota work.

What It Extracts

Field	Description
channelName	Public YouTube channel display name
handle	Public @handle when YouTube exposes it
channelId	Canonical YouTube channel ID
channelUrl	Canonical channel URL
description	Public channel bio/about text
subscriberCount	Numeric subscriber count when available
videoCount	Numeric total video count when available
viewCount	Numeric total channel views when exposed
joinedDateText	Public joined date text when exposed
country	Public channel country when exposed
avatarUrl / bannerUrl	Best available public channel images
rssUrl	YouTube RSS feed URL for the channel
keywords	Public channel tags or keywords
externalLinks	Public website and social links from the channel
publicEmail	Public email when the configured provider exposes one
recentVideos	Capped recent regular videos and optional Shorts

When To Use It

Use this actor when you already know the channels you want to inspect and need a structured profile record for each channel. It is a good fit for creator due diligence, influencer shortlists, competitor channel monitoring, YouTube portfolio enrichment, CRM enrichment, media research, and AI-agent workflows that need reliable JSON from one or more channel URLs.

Use youtube-search-scraper when you need to discover channels by keyword first. Use youtube-comments-scraper for comment threads, youtube-transcript-extractor for transcripts, and youtube-channel-email-extractor when the main goal is contact discovery.

Input

{
  "channelUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@Apify", "@MrBeast"],
  "maxVideosPerChannel": 5,
  "includeShorts": false,
  "maxShortsPerChannel": 0,
  "sortVideosBy": "latest",
  "providerMode": "auto",
  "country": "US",
  "language": "en"
}

Input Notes

• channelUrls accepts full YouTube channel URLs, @handles, /channel/UC... IDs, and bare handles.
• maxVideosPerChannel controls regular videos per channel. Set it to 0 for profile-only runs.
• includeShorts and maxShortsPerChannel add Shorts when you need them.
• providerMode defaults to auto. If owner-managed provider secrets are configured, the actor tries ScrapeCreators and SociaVault before direct YouTube extraction. If not, it uses direct YouTube extraction.
• country and language localize YouTube labels. They do not filter channels by geography.

Output Example

{
  "type": "channel",
  "source": "youtube",
  "input": "https://www.youtube.com/@Apify",
  "channelId": "UCTgwcoeGGKmZ3zzCXN2qo_A",
  "handle": "@Apify",
  "channelName": "Apify",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTgwcoeGGKmZ3zzCXN2qo_A",
  "handleUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@Apify",
  "description": "Welcome to Apify's official YouTube channel.",
  "subscriberCount": 14000,
  "subscriberCountText": "14K subscribers",
  "videoCount": 248,
  "videoCountText": "248 videos",
  "viewCount": null,
  "viewCountText": null,
  "joinedDateText": null,
  "country": null,
  "avatarUrl": "https://yt3.googleusercontent.com/example=s900-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj",
  "bannerUrl": null,
  "rssUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCTgwcoeGGKmZ3zzCXN2qo_A",
  "keywords": ["web scraping", "automation"],
  "externalLinks": ["https://apify.com/"],
  "publicEmail": null,
  "recentVideos": [
    {
      "kind": "video",
      "videoId": "qMquIcJWZag",
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMquIcJWZag",
      "title": "Build on Apify",
      "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/qMquIcJWZag/hqdefault.jpg",
      "viewCount": 2500,
      "viewCountText": "2.5K views",
      "publishedTimeText": "7 months ago",
      "durationText": "8:31",
      "durationSeconds": 511
    }
  ],
  "videoCountReturned": 1,
  "warnings": [],
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-12T08:00:00.000Z"
}

Pricing

This actor uses predictable Pay Per Event pricing and Apify platform usage billing.

Event	Price
Actor start	$0.00005 per run, scaled by RAM
Channel profile	$0.006 per channel record
Channel video	$0.0015 per video or Short listed

Example: 10 channels with 5 videos each costs about $0.135 in PPE events before Apify platform usage. Set maxVideosPerChannel to 0 for profile-only runs.

API Example

apify call khadinakbar/youtube-channel-scraper --input='{
  "channelUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@Apify"],
  "maxVideosPerChannel": 5
}'

MCP And AI-Agent Use

Tool description: Scrape public YouTube channel profiles and capped recent videos by URL, channel ID, or @handle. Use for creator research, competitor monitoring, and channel enrichment. Do not use for keyword discovery or comments. Returns one channel record with counts, links, and videos. Charged $0.006/channel + $0.0015/video.

This actor is narrow on purpose. Agents can call it with one known channel, inspect a concise record, and decide whether to chain into transcript, comments, or email extraction actors.

Reliability Notes

The actor uses a direct YouTube HTTP path with consent cookies and Apify residential proxy support. When owner-managed ScrapeCreators or SociaVault secrets are configured, providerMode: "auto" can use provider endpoints first and fall back to direct YouTube when needed.

YouTube may hide or localize some fields. Direct scraping often returns channel metadata, subscriber text, video count text, avatar, RSS URL, keywords, links, and recent videos. Provider-backed runs may return additional fields such as total views, joined date, country, and public email when those providers expose them.

Limits

• Public channel data only.
• No login-only data, private analytics, Studio metrics, or private subscriber lists.
• Recent videos are capped by maxVideosPerChannel.
• Shorts are optional and capped separately.
• Keyword discovery is intentionally out of scope.

Legal And Compliance

This actor extracts publicly available YouTube channel data. You are responsible for using the output in accordance with applicable laws, YouTube terms, privacy rules, and your own compliance requirements. Do not use scraped data for spam, harassment, credential collection, or unlawful profiling.