YouTube Video Search Scraper

Type the phrases you would type into YouTube's own search box and get the answer as a table: title, channel, exact view count, length, upload age, the snippet YouTube shows under the title, and the link — in YouTube's own ranking order, with the rank stored on every row.

No account, no API key, no quota.

What one row looks like

{
  "query": "python tutorial",
  "rank": 1,
  "videoId": "x7X9w_GIm1s",
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7X9w_GIm1s",
  "title": "Python in 100 Seconds",
  "description": "Python is arguably the world's most popular programming language...",
  "channelName": "Fireship",
  "channelId": "UCsBjURrPoezykLs9EqgamOA",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsBjURrPoezykLs9EqgamOA",
  "viewCount": 3100447,
  "viewCountText": "3,100,447 views",
  "publishedText": "4 years ago",
  "durationText": "2:24",
  "durationSeconds": 144,
  "isLive": false,
  "badges": ["4K"],
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/x7X9w_GIm1s/hq720.jpg",
  "estimatedResults": 2238166,
  "searchUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=python+tutorial",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-24T12:03:41+00:00"
}

20 fields. Views in the dataset tab: Results, Channels, Research, All fields.

The limit that matters, stated up front

YouTube never answers "no results". Ask it for something that does not exist and it will still hand back twenty videos — measured on 2026-09-24, the phrase qzxwvfoo nonsense query 12345 returned seventeen videos including Baby Shark. The only thing that tells you the difference is YouTube's own count, and it is on every row:

phrase	estimatedResults
python tutorial	2,441,088
python tutorial, uploaded today	2,480
nonsense	160

So: read estimatedResults before you trust the tail of a long answer. This Actor does not pretend a padded answer is a match, and it does not hide the number that gives it away.

Filters, applied by YouTube before it answers

filter	what it does
Sort by	relevance, upload date, view count, rating
Uploaded within	last hour, today, this week, month, year
Video length	under 4 minutes, 4 to 20, over 20
Must have	HD, 4K, subtitles, Creative Commons, live, 360°, HDR
Minimum views	applied here, before the row is stored — a quiet video is never charged
Skip live streams	they have no length and no final view count
Language / Country	hl and gl; YouTube ranks differently per country

These are YouTube's own filters, sent with the request, not a filter applied to a page we already paid for. And because the filter blob is built rather than copied, the run re-reads its own answer to check the filter actually bit and reports it in the run summary. A filter that silently does nothing would bill you for everything; this one says so instead.

Input

field	what it does
Search phrases	one per line, as you would type them
Maximum videos in total	ceiling for the whole run
Maximum per phrase	so one broad phrase cannot eat the run

Each phrase is searched separately, and every row says which phrase it came from and where it ranked in that answer.

What it does not do

• It does not return channels or playlists — videos only, by default. That is what the ranking order is worth reading for.
• It does not give exact numbers YouTube rounds. viewCount is filled only when YouTube states an exact figure; when it only says 3.1M views, the row keeps the text and leaves the number empty rather than inventing one.
• It does not log in, so it sees what a signed-out visitor sees.

Free plan

Everything works on the free plan: the same fields, the same filters. Filtered and dropped videos cost nothing there either.