YouTube Video Details Scraper — Views, Tags & Metadata in Bulk (No API Key)

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Get complete metadata for any YouTube video in bulk. This YouTube video details scraper — also a YouTube metadata extractor and video data scraper — takes video URLs or bare IDs and returns the exact numbers YouTube hides behind abbreviations (9B → viewCount: 9023750780) plus the full description, every keywords tag, the category, duration, publishDate, channelTitle and thumbnail. Hydrate thousands of video IDs in a single run and export to CSV, JSON or Excel. No login, no cookies, no Google Data API key — it reads the public watch page.

🏆 Why this YouTube video details scraper?

14 fields per video · thousands of videos per run · reads the public watch page (no official YouTube Data API, no key, no login) · residential-proxy ready · export to JSON / CSV / Excel. The unofficial YouTube API alternative for video SEO, competitor analysis and dataset enrichment.

✨ What this Actor does / Key features

• 🔢 Exact view counts — returns the precise integer viewCount (e.g. 9023750780), not the abbreviated 9B shown in search and channel listings.
• ❤️ Like counts (best-effort) — likeCount when YouTube exposes it; null when the creator/category hides it.
• 📝 Full description & tags — the complete description plus every keywords tag the creator set — gold for video SEO research.
• 🏷️ Category & timing — category (e.g. Music, Education), publishDate, formatted duration ("4:42") and lengthSeconds (282).
• 📡 Channel data — channelTitle and channelId for every video.
• 🖼️ Thumbnails — the max-resolution thumbnail URL.
• 🚀 Bulk hydration — paste thousands of watch URLs, youtu.be links, Shorts URLs or bare 11-character IDs in one run.
• 🔑 No official API key — reads the public watch page, so there is no Google API quota, login or cookies to manage.
• 🛡️ Proxy support — RESIDENTIAL Apify Proxy recommended to unlock full details (tags, category, likes) on music/Vevo videos that block datacenter IPs.

🚀 Quick start (3 steps)

1. Configure — paste video URLs or IDs into the videos field (watch links, youtu.be, Shorts, or bare 11-char IDs), optionally toggle includeLikes, and keep the RESIDENTIAL proxy on.
2. Run — click Start. The Actor loads each public watch page, parses the embedded video data and streams one row per video into your dataset.
3. Get your data — open the Output tab and export to JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, or pull it via the Apify API into Make, Zapier, n8n or Google Sheets.

📥 Input

Give the Actor at least one value in videos. Everything else is optional.

Example — hydrate a handful of videos (with likes)

{
  "videos": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJQP7kiw5Fk",
    "https://youtu.be/9bZkp7q19f0",
    "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  ],
  "includeLikes": true
}

Example — bulk-hydrate video IDs from the Channel/Search scraper

{
  "videos": ["kJQP7kiw5Fk", "9bZkp7q19f0", "dQw4w9WgXcQ", "3JZ_D3ELwOQ"],
  "includeLikes": true,
  "maxResults": 0,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"] }
}

Example — quick sample without like counts

{
  "videos": ["https://www.youtube.com/shorts/abc123DEF45"],
  "includeLikes": false,
  "maxResults": 100
}

Field	Type	Description
videos	array	Video URLs or bare 11-character IDs — watch links, youtu.be, Shorts, or IDs. Add as many as you like. Required.
includeLikes	boolean	Also fetch the like count for each video (best-effort — null when hidden). Default true.
maxResults	integer	Cap on videos saved. 0 = unlimited. Default 0.
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify Proxy settings. RESIDENTIAL is strongly recommended — it reliably unlocks full details (tags, category, duration, likes) for every video, including music/Vevo videos that block datacenter IPs.

Tip — building a pipeline? Collect IDs first with the YouTube Channel Scraper (all of a channel's videos) or the YouTube Search Scraper (videos by keyword), then hydrate those videoIds here into full records.

📤 Output

One row per video — 14 fields — exportable to JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML. Here is a trimmed sample record:

{
  "videoId": "kJQP7kiw5Fk",
  "title": "Luis Fonsi - Despacito ft. Daddy Yankee",
  "viewCount": 9023750780,
  "likeCount": 56243495,
  "duration": "4:42",
  "lengthSeconds": 282,
  "category": "Music",
  "publishDate": "2017-01-12T00:00:00-08:00",
  "keywords": ["despacito", "luis fonsi", "daddy yankee"],
  "description": "\"Despacito\" disponible ya en todas las plataformas digitales...",
  "channelTitle": "LuisFonsiVEVO",
  "channelId": "UCLp8RBhQHu9wSsq62j_Md6A",
  "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/kJQP7kiw5Fk/maxresdefault.jpg",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJQP7kiw5Fk",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-07-06T14:00:00.000Z"
}

💡 Use cases

• Video SEO & tag research — pull the tags, titles and descriptions of top-ranking videos for a keyword to reverse-engineer what ranks.
• Competitor content analysis — compare exact views, likes, durations and categories across a set of competitor videos.
• Dataset enrichment — hydrate videoIds from the Channel/Search scrapers into full per-video records.
• Trend & performance tracking — schedule it to snapshot view/like growth over time and chart momentum.
• AI & analytics pipelines — clean, structured per-video facts for models, dashboards and RAG.
• Ad & sponsorship research — screen categories, view counts and channels to shortlist videos and creators for partnerships.

👥 Who uses it

Video SEO & content marketers · YouTube creators & agencies · media & competitive analysts · data scientists building datasets · growth and ad teams · AI/RAG developers enriching video metadata.

💰 Pricing

This Actor runs on a simple pay-per-result model — you pay for the videos you actually extract, with no separate Apify platform fees to calculate. Try it on the free tier first, then scale up. See the Pricing tab on this page for the current rate.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a YouTube API key to get video details?

No — no key, no login, no cookies and no Google Data API quota. The Actor reads each public watch page directly. Only an Apify account is required.

Is this a YouTube API alternative?

Yes — it's an unofficial way to scrape YouTube without an API key, login or Google Data API quota. It reads the public watch page, so it works as a YouTube API alternative for video metadata (views, description, tags, category and more).

Can I scrape YouTube video details without an API or login?

Yes. Paste video URLs or IDs and the Actor returns full metadata with no YouTube API key, no OAuth and no login — just an Apify account.

Are the view counts exact?

Yes — viewCount is the exact integer (like 9,023,750,780), not the abbreviated 9B shown in search and channel listings.

Can I scrape video tags / keywords for SEO?

Yes — the keywords field returns every tag the creator set, alongside the full description and category, making it a YouTube video tags scraper for SEO research.

Can I scrape video details in bulk?

Yes — pass thousands of URLs/IDs in one run. Pair it with the Channel or Search scraper to collect the IDs first, then hydrate them here.

How do I export YouTube video data to CSV or JSON?

Every field is saved as a structured row you can download as CSV, JSON, Excel or HTML, or pull via the Apify API — a simple YouTube data export for spreadsheets and pipelines.

How do I get exact YouTube view counts instead of 9B?

Paste video URLs or IDs and the scraper reads each public watch page to return the exact integer viewCount (like 9,023,750,780) rather than the abbreviated 9B.

Why should I keep the RESIDENTIAL proxy on?

Some videos — especially music/Vevo — block datacenter IPs and hide tags, category, duration and likes. RESIDENTIAL Apify Proxy reliably unlocks full details for every video. Without it, the Actor still returns core fields (title, exact views, channel, date).

Is it legal to scrape YouTube video metadata?

The Actor reads only publicly available data from public watch pages. You are responsible for using the data in compliance with YouTube's terms and applicable laws such as GDPR.

🔗 The complete YouTube & video scraping toolkit by logiover

Pair this scraper with the rest of the YouTube and social-video suite:

Actor	What it does
YouTube Channel Scraper	All videos of a channel
YouTube Search Scraper	Find videos by keyword
YouTube Comments Scraper	All comments for a video
YouTube Influencer Discovery Scraper	Find creators & channels by niche
YouTube Creator Email Finder	Creator business emails for outreach
Instagram Media Downloader	Download Instagram photos & videos
TikTok Hashtag Video Scraper	Videos & stats by TikTok hashtag
TikTok Creator Lead Finder	Discover TikTok creators for outreach
Twitter/X Media Downloader	Download media from X posts
Facebook Video Downloader	Download public Facebook videos

👉 Browse all logiover scrapers on Apify Store — 180+ actors across real estate, jobs, crypto, social media & B2B data.

⏰ Scheduling & integration

Schedule this Actor on Apify to snapshot view/like growth daily or weekly and track video performance over time. Export results to JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, sync to Google Sheets, or push to your database, BI tools and webhooks through the Apify API. Connect it to Make, n8n or Zapier to build automated video-SEO and analytics pipelines.

⭐ Support & feedback

Need engagement rate, comment counts, or chapter/timestamp extraction per video? Found a bug or need an extra field? Open an issue on the Issues tab — response is usually fast. If this Actor saves you time, a ★★★★★ review on the Store page genuinely helps and is hugely appreciated. 🙏

⚖️ Legal

This Actor extracts only publicly available data from public YouTube watch pages and is intended for legitimate research, analytics and SEO use. You are responsible for complying with YouTube's terms of service, GDPR and any applicable local laws.

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📝 Changelog

2026-07-06

• ✨ README overhaul: richer 14-field output sample, ready-to-run example scenarios (single / bulk-hydration / no-likes), full YouTube & social-video cross-promo links, expanded FAQ and clearer quick-start.

2026-07-01

• Maintenance pass: re-verified end-to-end on live data and confirmed successful runs within the 5-minute quality window on the default input.
• Sharpened Store metadata (SEO title & description) and expanded the FAQ with high-intent, long-tail questions for easier discovery in Google and Apify Store search.
• Added ready-to-run example tasks that cover common real-world use cases.

2026-06-15

• Reliability pass: re-verified end-to-end on live data with real-world inputs. Routine maintenance build.

2026-06-07

• Docs: added coverage for using this as a YouTube API alternative, scraping YouTube without an API key, and exporting YouTube video data 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.