YouTube Video Details Scraper

Overview

The YouTube Video Details Scraper is an Apify actor that extracts comprehensive metadata from a single YouTube video or Short. It provides detailed information such as title, uploader, views, comments, subtitles, and more, with flexible options to filter Shorts and customize output.

Features

• Comprehensive Metadata: Extracts title, video ID, uploader, upload date, duration, view count, like count, description, categories, tags, thumbnail, URL, subtitles, chapters, and comment count.
• Shorts Support: Identifies Shorts with a short boolean attribute; options to include only Shorts or exclude them.
• Comments Extraction: Optionally fetches comments with author, text, likes, and timestamp.
• Subtitles: Optionally retrieves available subtitles in multiple languages.
• Proxy Support: Configurable proxy to avoid YouTube rate-limiting.
• Output Formats: Data stored in Apify’s dataset, exportable as JSON or CSV, with a table view in Apify UI.
• Cross-Language Access: Run via Apify’s REST API or SDKs (Python, Node.js, etc.) for integration with any language.

Input Configuration

The actor accepts a JSON input with the following fields:

Field	Type	Description	Required	Default
video_url	String	YouTube video or Shorts URL (e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abc123)	Yes	-
include_comments	Boolean	Fetch video comments (increases runtime)	No	false
include_subtitles	Boolean	Fetch available subtitles	No	false
shorts_only	Boolean	Only process if the video is a Short	No	false
exclude_shorts	Boolean	Skip if the video is a Short	No	false
proxy	String	Proxy URL (e.g., http://user:pass@host:port)	No	""

Note: shorts_only and exclude_shorts are mutually exclusive.

Example Input:

{
    "video_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8ipUgXH6jw",
    "include_comments": true,
    "include_subtitles": true,
    "shorts_only": false,
    "exclude_shorts": false,
    "proxy": "http://user:pass@proxy.example.com:8080"
}

Output Format

The actor outputs data to Apify’s dataset, viewable as a table in the Apify UI or exportable as JSON/CSV. Each record contains:

Field	Type	Description	Format
title	String	Video title	Text
video_id	String	Unique video ID	Text
uploader	String	Uploader name	Text
uploader_id	String	Uploader ID	Text
upload_date	String	Upload date (YYYYMMDD)	Date
duration	Integer	Duration in seconds	Number
view_count	Integer	Number of views	Number
like_count	Integer	Number of likes	Number
description	String	Video description	Text
categories	Array	Video categories	JSON
tags	Array	Video tags	JSON
thumbnail	String	Thumbnail URL	Text
url	String	Video URL	Text
subtitles	Object	Subtitles (if requested)	JSON
chapters	Array	Video chapters	JSON
comment_count	Integer	Number of comments	Number
short	Boolean	Is the video a Short	Boolean
comments	Array	List of comments (if requested)	JSON
error	String	Error message if scraping failed	Text

Example Output:

{
  "title": "React Native vs Flutter - I built the same chat app with both",
  "video_id": "X8ipUgXH6jw",
  "uploader": "Fireship",
  "uploader_id": "@Fireship",
  "upload_date": "20211004",
  "duration": 612,
  "view_count": 2343818,
  "like_count": 60982,
  "description": "A side-by-side comparison of React Native and Flutter. I built a mobile chat app with both frameworks to understand differences in developer experience, tooling, code, and performance. \n\n🔥 Use discount code O2LdtRD6 for 30% off fireship.io/pro \n\n#flutter #react #versus\n\n🔗 Resources\n\nPerformance Comparison https://medium.com/swlh/flutter-vs-native-vs-react-native-examining-performance-31338f081980\n\nReact Native Demo https://fireship.io/lessons/react-native-firebase-chat-demo/\nFlutter Chat Demo https://fireship.io/lessons/flutter-firebase-chat-demo/\n\n📚 Chapters\n\n00:00 React Native vs Flutter\n00:57 Language\n01:41 Ecosystem\n02:04 Philosophy\n02:42 Architecture\n04:00 Developer Experience\n05:45 Tooling\n07:39 Code\n09:13 Performance\n\n\n🎨 My Editor Settings\n\n- Atom One Dark \n- vscode-icons\n- Fira Code Font\n\n🔖 Topics Covered\n\n- Comparing Flutter to React Native\n- Mobile app development\n- Native iOS and Android Development\n- Cross-platform app performance",
  "categories": [
    "Science & Technology"
  ],
  "tags": [
    "webdev",
    "app development",
    "lesson",
    "tutorial"
  ],
  "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/X8ipUgXH6jw/maxresdefault.webp",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8ipUgXH6jw",
  "subtitles": null,
  "chapters": [
    {
      "start_time": 0.0,
      "title": "React Native vs Flutter",
      "end_time": 57.0
    },
    {
      "start_time": 57.0,
      "title": "Language",
      "end_time": 101.0
    },
    {
      "start_time": 101.0,
      "title": "Ecosystem",
      "end_time": 124.0
    },
    {
      "start_time": 124.0,
      "title": "Philosophy",
      "end_time": 162.0
    },
    {
      "start_time": 162.0,
      "title": "Architecture",
      "end_time": 240.0
    },
    {
      "start_time": 240.0,
      "title": "Developer Experience",
      "end_time": 345.0
    },
    {
      "start_time": 345.0,
      "title": "Tooling",
      "end_time": 459.0
    },
    {
      "start_time": 459.0,
      "title": "Code",
      "end_time": 553.0
    },
    {
      "start_time": 553.0,
      "title": "Performance",
      "end_time": 612
    }
  ],
  "comment_count": 1500,
  "short": false
}