YouTube Comments Scraper

Export all YouTube comments and replies from any video in bulk. This YouTube comment scraper — also a YouTube comment exporter and comment extractor — pulls every comment and reply with the author, text, likes and dates, with no login, no cookies and no Google API key.

One run can return tens of thousands of comments from a single popular video, ready for sentiment analysis, audience research and brand monitoring. Paste video URLs or IDs and export to CSV, JSON or Excel.

No login · No cookies · No YouTube Data API key · No quota · Unlimited comments per video

YouTube comments scraper · YouTube Data API alternative · Scrape YouTube comments without API key · Export YouTube comments to CSV · YouTube comment dataset JSON

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What you get

Each comment (and reply) is saved as one structured row with these fields:

• author — comment author name (e.g. @musicfan)
• authorChannelId — the author's channel ID
• authorIsVerified — verified-badge flag
• authorIsCreator — true when the video's creator posted it
• text — full comment text
• likeCount — like count, normalized to an integer (243K → 243000)
• replyCount — number of replies on the thread
• publishedTime — relative publish time ("1 year ago")
• isReply — whether the row is a reply or a top-level comment
• parentCommentId — the parent comment a reply belongs to
• videoTitle, videoId, videoUrl — the source video
• scrapedAt — scrape timestamp (use as the reference for relative dates)

Export every field to CSV, JSON, Excel, HTML or RSS, or pull it via the Apify API and integrations (Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets).

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Use cases

• Sentiment analysis — export every comment on a launch, trailer or review and run NLP/LLM sentiment scoring.
• Brand & reputation monitoring — track what audiences say under your own or a competitor's videos.
• Audience & market research — mine feature requests, complaints and the exact language your customers use.
• Creator & influencer analytics — measure real engagement quality, not just view counts.
• Content moderation & AI datasets — pull comments for spam/abuse filtering or to assemble conversational training data.

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How to use

No code required — extract YouTube comments in under a minute:

1. Open the actor on Apify and click Try for free.
2. Paste your video URLs or IDs into the videos field — full youtube.com/watch?v=… links, youtu.be/… short links, Shorts URLs, or bare 11-character IDs. Add as many as you like.
3. (Optional) Set sortBy to top or newest, toggle includeReplies, and set maxCommentsPerVideo.
4. Click Start and watch comments stream into the dataset.
5. Export to CSV, Excel or JSON, or pull them via the Apify API into your app.

Prefer the API? Start a run with a single POST to the Apify Run Actor endpoint and read results from the dataset — perfect for automating a YouTube comment export on a schedule.

Input fields

Field	Type	Default	Description
videos (required)	string[]	—	Video URLs or 11-char IDs (watch, youtu.be, Shorts all supported).
maxCommentsPerVideo	integer	1000	Cap per video (top-level + replies). 0 = unlimited.
sortBy	string	top	top (highest engagement) or newest.
includeReplies	boolean	false	Also fetch replies (tagged with parentCommentId).
maxResults	integer	0	Global cap across all videos. 0 = unlimited.

Example input

{
  "videos": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "https://youtu.be/9bZkp7q19f0"
  ],
  "maxCommentsPerVideo": 5000,
  "sortBy": "newest",
  "includeReplies": true
}

Example output

{
  "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "videoTitle": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up",
  "text": "This song is timeless 🔥",
  "author": "@musicfan",
  "authorIsVerified": false,
  "likeCount": 1240,
  "replyCount": 7,
  "publishedTime": "2 months ago",
  "isReply": false,
  "parentCommentId": null,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-22T07:30:00Z"
}

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How it works

This YouTube comment extractor talks to YouTube's internal data layer (the same one the website uses), fetching a fresh access key on each run so it keeps working as YouTube changes. It loads the comment section, paginates with continuation tokens until the video is exhausted or your cap is hit, and resolves replies through the parent/reply comment-ID convention. Built-in retries handle hiccups; videos with comments disabled are skipped gracefully.

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FAQ

Do I need a YouTube API key or login to scrape comments?

No. There's no login, no cookie, and no YouTube Data API key — and none of the official API's comment quota limits.

How many YouTube comments can I scrape?

As many as the video has publicly. Viral videos return tens of thousands. Use maxCommentsPerVideo to cap cost.

Does it scrape replies too?

Yes. Set includeReplies: true; replies carry isReply: true and a parentCommentId linking them to the top-level comment.

Why is the date "2 years ago" instead of an exact date?

YouTube only exposes a relative time on comments. Use the scrapedAt timestamp as the reference point to convert it.

Is this a YouTube Data API alternative for comments?

Yes. It works as a YouTube Data API alternative — no Google Cloud project, no API key, and none of the official quota limits, so you can scrape YouTube comments without an API key.

How do I export YouTube comments to CSV or JSON?

Run the actor, then download the dataset as CSV, JSON or Excel from the run's Storage tab, or pull the YouTube comment dataset via the Apify API. Every field exports as one structured row.

Can I scrape YouTube comments without login or cookies?

Yes. There is no login, no cookies and no account needed — paste video URLs or IDs and the comment extractor pulls public comments and replies directly.

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Limits & notes

• Published time is relative ("2 years ago"), and like counts are abbreviated by YouTube (parsed to integers in likeCount).
• Only public comments are returned; disabled or members-only comments yield nothing for that video.
• includeReplies can multiply volume on threads with thousands of replies — cap it with maxCommentsPerVideo.

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The complete YouTube scraping toolkit

• YouTube Channel Scraper — every video of a channel
• YouTube Search Scraper — find videos by keyword
• YouTube Video Details Scraper — exact views, likes, tags
• YouTube Creator Email Finder — creator business emails for outreach

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Pricing & support

Pay-per-result — you only pay for the comments you actually get. No proxy fees, no YouTube API costs. Need a whole channel's comments in one click, exact timestamps, or built-in sentiment scoring? Open an issue on the actor's page.

Collects only publicly visible comment data. You are responsible for using it in line with YouTube's Terms and applicable privacy laws (GDPR/CCPA) — avoid using personal data for unsolicited contact.

📝 Changelog

2026-06-07

• Docs: added coverage for using this as a YouTube Data API alternative, scraping comments without an API key or login, and exporting the comment dataset to CSV/JSON.

2026-06-05

• 🛡️ Reliability fix: results are no longer dropped by strict output validation — runs now complete cleanly even at high volume (thousands of results).
• ⚡ Stability & performance hardening; fresh rebuild.

2026-06-04

• Verified live & refreshed build — reliability/maintenance pass.