YouTube Shorts Scraper: exact views, likes and publish date

Give it a channel and get its Shorts, newest first, with the exact view count, exact like count, comment count, publish time and length for each one. You can also paste single Shorts links.

YouTube's Shorts tab only shows rounded numbers like "7.8M views" and no dates at all. This tool opens each Short and reads the full figures: 7,834,989 views and 311,767 likes, published 2025-09-04 at 12:26 Pacific. We checked 8 random rows against each Short's own page a few minutes later, and all 8 matched on title, date and length. Views and likes were just behind the live counters, as they should be.

You pay per Short delivered. Channels that don't exist, bad links and videos that won't load cost nothing.

What you get

{
  "videoId": "oeHtfMFdzIY",
  "title": "Phone Camera PSA",
  "viewCount": 7834989,
  "likeCount": 311767,
  "commentCount": "4.1K",
  "commentsOff": false,
  "publishedAt": "2025-09-04T12:26:55-07:00",
  "durationSeconds": 86,
  "channelName": "Marques Brownlee",
  "channelHandle": "@mkbhd",
  "hashtags": null,
  "position": 31,
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oeHtfMFdzIY"
}

Each row also carries the description, channel ID, thumbnail link and the channel you entered. Rows are flat, so they open straight in Excel or Google Sheets.

Quick start

1. Add channels as @handle, a channel link or a UC... ID. Or paste Shorts links in the second box.
2. Set how many Shorts you want per channel.
3. Click Start.

Use cases

• Find which Shorts actually took off for a creator, by exact views and likes per day since posting.
• Vet creators before a deal. Likes against views on their last 50 Shorts says more than subscriber count.
• Track a competitor's Shorts output: how often they post, how long the videos run, what's working.

Pricing

Pay per Short delivered, plus Apify's small start fee per run. Set a maximum cost per run and the scraper stops at your limit.

FAQ

Why not just read the Shorts tab? The tab rounds everything ("7.8M views") and shows no dates. You can't work out views per day from that, and views per day is the number that tells you what's working.

How many Shorts can I get per channel? Up to 1,000, newest first. Set Max Shorts per channel to what you need; each Short is read separately, so smaller runs finish faster.

Can I paste single Shorts instead of a channel? Yes. Use the second box for youtube.com/shorts/... links or 11-character video IDs.

Something broke? Open an issue with the channel or link. I answer within a day.

Limitations

• Comment counts come as YouTube shows them ("4.1K"), not exact. When a channel turns comments off, commentCount is empty and commentsOff is true.
• Hashtags come from the title and description only. Many Shorts have none.
• Each Short is read one at a time, so 1,000 Shorts take a while. A 120-Short run on Apify took about 12 minutes.
• No comments, no video downloads, no transcripts. This tool returns the stats.
• If YouTube asks to confirm you're not a bot, we try again later from a different ordinary connection. We don't get around those checks. Shorts that still won't load are listed in RUN_SUMMARY and not charged.

Export or use as an API

Download any run's results from the Storage tab as CSV, Excel, JSON or XML.

To call it from your own code, send your input to Apify's API and get the rows back in one request:

POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/leathered_latch~youtube-shorts-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN

It also plugs into Make, Zapier and n8n through Apify's integrations, and AI agents can find and run it through Apify's MCP server.

Your responsibility

How you use the output is your call, and so is the legal side of it. Copyright covers titles, descriptions and thumbnails if you republish them. Channel names and handles can be personal data once you store them. YouTube's own terms apply too. If you're unsure about a use, check with a lawyer first.

If you own content that shows up in these results and want it handled differently, open an issue on the Issues tab. We answer within 14 days.

Data source and credit

Every row comes from YouTube (Google LLC). We don't own this data, and we don't take credit for it. The Shorts, titles and descriptions belong to the creators who made them.

This tool reads only what YouTube shows to any logged-out visitor. No logins, no private data. Each row keeps a link back to the Short (the url field), so you can check any result and credit the creator when you use it.

Not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by YouTube or Google. All names and trademarks belong to their owners.

Changelog

• 0.1 First release. Exact views and likes per Short, publish time, channel listing with paging, direct links.