YouTube Video & Comments Scraper + AI

Scrape YouTube video data, comments and transcripts — by video URL, search term or channel — then optionally turn the comments into AI insights that most scrapers don't give you: audience sentiment, discussion themes, recurring viewer questions, content ideas and video summaries.

No API key. No quota. The official YouTube Data API limits you to 10,000 units/day and needs a Google Cloud project. This Actor reads public YouTube data directly (via YouTube's internal endpoints) and layers a built-in AI model (billed as platform usage) on top. You don't need to bring your own AI key.

Why this Actor

Most YouTube scrapers just dump raw rows. This one adds the part that takes humans hours: reading the comments and telling you what your audience actually thinks.

• 🤖 AI insights (optional) — comment sentiment, themes, viewer questions, content ideas, summaries. Most scrapers don't offer this.
• 🔑 No API key, no quota — skip Google Cloud setup and the 10k/day cap.
• 🎯 Flexible discovery — direct video URLs, keyword search, or whole channels.
• 💬 Real comment data — author, text, likes, replies, pinned/hearted flags.
• 📝 Transcripts — pull subtitles when available (best-effort).
• 💸 Pay only for what you use — cheap base scraping, premium per AI insight.

What you can do with it

• Creators — see what viewers praise, complain about and ask for; get next-video ideas mined from your own comments.
• Marketers / brands — measure audience sentiment on any video or campaign.
• Researchers — collect comments + transcripts across a topic for analysis.
• Competitor watch — scrape a rival channel's recent videos and read the room.

Input

Provide at least one source: videoUrls, searchTerms or channelUrls.

Field	Type	Description
videoUrls	array	Video URLs (watch, youtu.be, shorts, embed) or bare 11-char IDs.
searchTerms	array	Keywords to search and scrape matching videos.
channelUrls	array	Channel URLs, @handles or UC... IDs — pulls recent videos.
maxVideos	integer	Hard cap on total videos (1–200). Default 25.
maxVideosPerSource	integer	Max videos per search term / channel (1–200). Default 50.
includeComments	boolean	Fetch comments. Default true.
maxCommentsPerVideo	integer	Max comments per video (0–500). Default 100.
commentsSort	string	TOP or NEWEST. Default TOP.
includeTranscript	boolean	Fetch transcript/subtitles when available. Default false.
aiEnrichment	boolean	Master switch for AI insights. Default false.
aiCommentAnalysis	boolean	AI sentiment, themes, praises, complaints, questions, summary.
aiContentIdeas	boolean	AI next-video ideas, title suggestions and hooks.
aiVideoSummary	boolean	AI summary + key points from transcript (or description + comments).
aiLanguage	string	Language for AI output. Default English.
proxyConfiguration	object	Proxy for reaching YouTube. RESIDENTIAL recommended.

Proxy note: YouTube blocks datacenter IPs aggressively. For reliable runs keep the proxy set to Apify Residential (the default). Datacenter proxy may work for small runs but will get rate-limited at scale.

Example input

{
    "searchTerms": ["how to make sourdough"],
    "videoUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"],
    "maxVideos": 15,
    "includeComments": true,
    "maxCommentsPerVideo": 150,
    "commentsSort": "TOP",
    "includeTranscript": false,
    "aiEnrichment": true,
    "aiCommentAnalysis": true,
    "aiContentIdeas": true,
    "aiVideoSummary": false,
    "aiLanguage": "English",
    "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"] }
}

Output

One row per video, with its comments and any AI insights you enabled:

{
    "recordType": "video",
    "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up",
    "channelName": "Rick Astley",
    "viewCount": 1778042476,
    "likeCount": 19130004,
    "durationSeconds": 213,
    "commentsFetched": 150,
    "comments": [
        { "author": "@YouTube", "text": "can confirm: he never gave us up", "likeCount": "248K", "replyCount": "963" }
    ],
    "aiSentiment": { "positive": 78, "neutral": 16, "negative": 6 },
    "aiTopThemes": ["Nostalgia", "Rickroll culture", "Timeless song"],
    "aiViewerQuestions": ["Is the 4K remaster official?"],
    "aiCommentSummary": "Viewers are overwhelmingly positive and playful...",
    "aiContentIdeas": {
        "videoIdeas": ["Behind the scenes of the 4K remaster"],
        "titleSuggestions": ["The Song That Never Dies"]
    }
}

Pricing

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing:

Event	What it covers
Video result	Each video row scraped (with its comments).
AI comment analysis	Per video analyzed with AI.
AI content ideas	Per video with content suggestions.
AI video summary	Per video summarized.

You only pay for the AI features you turn on. Leave AI off and it's a fast YouTube data + comments scraper.

FAQ

Do I need a YouTube / Google API key? No. The Actor reads public data directly — no key, no 10k/day quota.

Do I need an OpenAI/AI key? No. The AI runs on a built-in model billed as platform usage.

Why is residential proxy recommended? YouTube blocks datacenter IPs. Residential proxy keeps runs reliable, especially at scale.

Why did a transcript come back empty? Not every video has captions, and YouTube's transcript endpoint is occasionally restricted. Transcript fetching is best-effort.

Is this affiliated with YouTube? No. It only reads publicly available YouTube data.

Related Actors — build a full pipeline

• Audience research → outreach: Find creators in a niche with this Actor, then feed their channels/sites into the AI Lead Enricher for contact info and a personalized opener.
• Cross-platform listening: Pair with the Google Play / App Store Scraper + AI to compare what users say about an app on stores vs. on YouTube.