YouTube Channel Scraper

Scrape YouTube channel stats, video metadata, and search results — no API key, no quota limits.

Channel info · Video titles & views · Likes · Descriptions · Search by keyword · JSON & CSV export

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What You Get

• ✅ Channel name, description, subscriber count, total video count
• ✅ Channel avatar, keywords, and canonical URL
• ✅ Per-video: title, view count, published date, duration, thumbnail URL
• ✅ Video likes count and full description
• ✅ Search YouTube by keyword — returns matching videos and channels
• ✅ Sort search results by relevance, date, or view count
• ✅ Supports @handle URLs, /c/ URLs, and /channel/ URLs

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Use Cases

📊 Competitor Channel Analysis

Audit a competitor's YouTube presence — subscriber count, video frequency, and which videos get the most views.

{
  "channelUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd", "https://www.youtube.com/@LinusTechTips"],
  "maxVideos": 30,
  "sortBy": "relevance"
}

🔍 Content Research by Keyword

Find the most-watched videos on any topic to understand what content performs best before investing in production.

{
  "searchQueries": ["python tutorial for beginners", "react hooks explained"],
  "maxVideos": 20,
  "sortBy": "views"
}

📈 Influencer Discovery

Find YouTube channels in a niche by searching for relevant keywords — collect subscriber counts and video stats to qualify potential partners.

🤖 AI Training Data

Build video metadata datasets — titles, descriptions, view counts — for recommendation system training or content classification models.

📰 Journalism & Research

Track how quickly videos on a topic accumulate views, and collect full descriptions and timestamps for media analysis.

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Quick Start

1. Click Try for free above
2. Add channel URLs in the Channel URLs field (supports @handle, /c/, /channel/ formats)
3. Or add keyword phrases in Search Queries to find videos by topic
4. Set maxVideos to control how many videos to collect per channel or search
5. Choose Sort (relevance, date, or views)
6. Run and download as JSON or CSV

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Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
channelUrls	string[]	—	YouTube channel URLs (any format: @handle, /c/, /channel/)
searchQueries	string[]	—	Keyword search queries
maxVideos	number	20	Max videos to collect per channel or search
sortBy	string	"relevance"	Sort order: relevance, date, or views

At least one of channelUrls or searchQueries must be provided.

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Output JSON Examples

Channel record:

{
  "type": "channel",
  "channelId": "UCBcRF18a7Qf58cCRy5xuWwQ",
  "name": "MKBHD",
  "description": "Quality Tech Videos.",
  "channelUrl": "http://www.youtube.com/c/mkbhd",
  "subscribers": "18.8M subscribers",
  "totalVideos": "1.2K videos",
  "keywords": "tech review gadgets phones",
  "avatar": "https://yt3.googleusercontent.com/..."
}

Video record:

{
  "type": "video",
  "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "title": "iPhone 16 Pro Review: The One to Get",
  "views": "3,240,000 views",
  "publishedDate": "Oct 15, 2024",
  "likes": "127,000 likes",
  "description": "After two weeks with iPhone 16 Pro...",
  "channelName": "MKBHD",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/maxresdefault.jpg"
}

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Pricing

Volume	Estimated cost
2 channels, 20 videos each	~$0.03
10 channels, 30 videos each	~$0.15
5 search queries, 20 videos each	~$0.10

Apify free tier includes $5/month of compute.

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Why This Scraper

No YouTube Data API quota. The YouTube Data API v3 limits you to 100 search units per day on the free tier — roughly 100 search queries. This actor uses YouTube's internal InnerTube API, which has no per-key quota restrictions.

Handles any channel URL format. Pass https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd, https://www.youtube.com/c/mkbhd, or https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBcRF18a7Qf58cCRy5xuWwQ — the actor resolves all of them to a browseId automatically.

Rich video details. Beyond the channel listing (title, views, duration), the actor fetches detailed info for each video including likes, full description, and exact publish date.

Channel + keyword search in one tool. Scrape specific channels, search by keyword, or do both in a single run.

No browser required. Uses YouTube's lightweight JSON API rather than Playwright — faster and cheaper than browser-based scrapers.

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FAQ

Q: Does this scrape private or unlisted videos? A: No. Only publicly visible videos appear in channel listings and search results.

Q: Can I scrape YouTube comments? A: The current version focuses on channel info and video metadata. Comment scraping would require additional requests per video.

Q: Why are subscriber counts returned as strings like "18.8M subscribers"? A: YouTube's InnerTube API returns subscriber counts as formatted display strings. Parse them in your downstream tool if you need integer values.

Q: Can I sort a channel's videos by most viewed? A: The sortBy parameter applies to search results. Channel video listings return the channel's default order (typically newest first).

Q: Does this work for YouTube Shorts? A: Shorts appear in channel video listings and are included in results like regular videos when they are publicly visible.

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