YouTube Shorts Scraper

Scrape YouTube Shorts by keyword. Get views, likes, dislikes, comments, music/sound attribution, channel data, and 17+ data points per Short. No API keys, no quotas.

Why this scraper?

Most YouTube scrapers on Apify run a full browser (Puppeteer or Playwright) that gets detected and blocked. This scraper uses Patchright — an undetectable Chromium fork that bypasses YouTube's bot detection natively. Same data, no blocks.

	Browser-based scrapers	This scraper
Bot detection bypass	Needs stealth plugins	Built in (Patchright)
Dislike count	Not available	Included
Comment extraction	Separate tool ($)	Built in
Music/sound data	Not available	Included

What data does it extract?

Video metadata

Field	Type	Description
videoId	string	11-character YouTube video identifier
url	string	Direct link (/shorts/ format)
title	string	Video title including hashtags
description	string	Video description (empty on most Shorts — YouTube hides it without login)
publishDate	string	Publish date (e.g. "Mar 30, 2026")
isShort	boolean	Always true for Shorts
keywords	string[]	Hashtags extracted from the title
thumbnail	string	Thumbnail URL
music	string	Song or sound name ("Original Sound", track name, etc.)

Engagement metrics

Field	Type	Description
viewCount	integer	Exact total views
likeCount	integer	Total likes
dislikeCount	integer	Estimated dislikes via Return YouTube Dislike API
commentCount	integer	Total number of comments

Channel data

Field	Type	Description
channelName	string	Creator's display name
channelId	string	Channel identifier (UCxxxx format)
channelUrl	string	Link to the channel page

Comments (optional)

When includeComments is enabled, each Short includes a comments array:

Field	Type	Description
author	string	Commenter's @handle
text	string	Full comment text
likes	integer	Likes on the comment
publishedTime	string	Relative timestamp ("2 hours ago")

The scraper clicks the comment button to open the Shorts comment panel, then extracts up to 20 visible comments per video.

Use cases

• Trend research — Search by keyword to spot which topics, hashtags, and sounds gain traction before they peak.
• Creator analytics — Pull Shorts from a search term. Benchmark engagement rates and content themes across creators.
• Competitor monitoring — Track what competitors publish and what their audience says in comments.
• Content strategy — Analyze top Shorts in your category. Understand which hooks and formats drive views.
• Music and sound tracking — Identify which songs and audio clips are trending across Shorts.
• Sentiment analysis — Extract comments to measure audience sentiment. Feed them into your NLP pipeline.
• Engagement benchmarking — Compare like-to-view ratios and dislike ratios across videos or niches.

How to use

Search for trending Shorts

{
    "searchQueries": ["cooking hacks", "meal prep ideas"],
    "maxResultsPerQuery": 20
}

Search with comments

{
    "searchQueries": ["funny cats"],
    "maxResultsPerQuery": 10,
    "includeComments": true,
    "maxComments": 5
}

Multiple queries

{
    "searchQueries": ["fitness motivation", "home workout", "gym fails"],
    "maxResultsPerQuery": 30
}

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
searchQueries	string[]	[]	Keywords to search for. #shorts is appended automatically.
maxResultsPerQuery	integer	20	Maximum Shorts per search query. Range: 1–50.
includeComments	boolean	false	Extract top comments per Short. Adds ~3s per video.
maxComments	integer	10	Comments per Short when enabled. Range: 1–20.

At least one search query is required.

Output example

Short with comments

{
    "videoId": "Hh6beuoFjww",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Hh6beuoFjww",
    "title": "cats being cats \ud83e\udd23#youtubeshorts #funnycats #catvideos #shortvideo",
    "description": "",
    "channelName": "Hilarious_cats19",
    "channelId": "UCC1g5eTBsEvHPWWPthcxZ4g",
    "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@Hilarious_cats19",
    "viewCount": 7457,
    "likeCount": 664,
    "dislikeCount": 6,
    "commentCount": 7,
    "subscriberCount": 0,
    "keywords": ["youtubeshorts", "funnycats", "catvideos", "shortvideo"],
    "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Hh6beuoFjww/frame0.jpg",
    "publishDate": "Mar 30, 2026",
    "isShort": true,
    "music": "Original Sound",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-03-30T04:45:47.559Z",
    "comments": [
        {
            "author": "@deeannsmith7775",
            "text": "Love the Voids",
            "likes": 0,
            "publishedTime": "2 hours ago"
        },
        {
            "author": "@arien3776",
            "text": "Jajsjsjs",
            "likes": 0,
            "publishedTime": "4 hours ago"
        },
        {
            "author": "@shanimorgan669",
            "text": "EM WAS SOME STINKY LITTLE PIECES OF PREDDIOUS IS WHAT IT DID",
            "likes": 0,
            "publishedTime": "2 hours ago"
        }
    ]
}

Popular Short (without comments)

{
    "videoId": "V_tjF0lWmsw",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/V_tjF0lWmsw",
    "title": "Brave Chihuahua vs Calm Bulldog: Funny Dog Standoff.\ud83d\ude31",
    "description": "",
    "channelName": "doggo.pranks",
    "channelId": "UCUINei7Oezna9eVO1KjbbHg",
    "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@doggo.pranks",
    "viewCount": 13392,
    "likeCount": 199,
    "dislikeCount": 4,
    "commentCount": 2,
    "subscriberCount": 0,
    "keywords": [],
    "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/V_tjF0lWmsw/frame0.jpg",
    "publishDate": "Mar 29, 2026",
    "isShort": true,
    "music": "Original Sound",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-03-30T04:34:45.872Z"
}

Integrations

Export data in JSON, CSV, or Excel. Connect to your stack:

• Python — pip install apify-client
• Node.js — npm install apify-client
• REST API — trigger runs and fetch results over HTTP
• Webhooks — get notified when a run completes
• Zapier, Make, Airbyte — connect to 1,000+ apps
• Google Sheets — export directly to a spreadsheet
• Scheduled runs — daily, weekly, or custom cron

FAQ

Can I scrape regular YouTube videos, not just Shorts? This scraper is focused on Shorts. For regular videos, use our YouTube Scraper.

Can I scrape dislikes? Yes. Dislike counts come from the Return YouTube Dislike API, a public community project. Very new or low-traffic videos may show zero.

Can I extract comments from Shorts? Yes. Set includeComments to true. The scraper opens the comment panel on each Short and extracts author, text, likes, and timestamp. Up to 20 comments per Short are available.

Why is description empty on Shorts? YouTube doesn't expose the full description for Shorts without being logged in. The title usually contains the relevant hashtags and context.

Why is subscriberCount zero on Shorts? YouTube's Shorts page doesn't display subscriber counts. The channel URL is included so you can look it up separately.

Why is music null on some Shorts? Not every Short uses a tagged audio track. If the creator uploaded their own audio without selecting a sound from YouTube's library, the field will be null.

Is scraping YouTube legal? Scraping publicly available data is generally permissible. Respect YouTube's Terms of Service and privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA).

Can I run this on a schedule? Yes. Use Apify's scheduler for daily, weekly, or cron runs.