YouTube Channel Search Scraper

A YouTube channel finder for influencer discovery and creator research. Search by keyword or reusable /results URL — through video results, channel-only search, or both — and get a full profile for each channel: subscriber count, exact video and view counts, country, join date, social and website links, and the first-match evidence (including the source video when a video result found the channel).

Feed it search terms or YouTube search URLs (they can run together), filter by subscriber range, video count or verified badge, and get a clean row per channel. Ideal for finding YouTube influencers in a niche, building creator shortlists, and lead generation.

Filters run before billing — channels you filter out never cost you a thing.

✨ Why use this scraper?

• Video-results discovery. Find channels that uploaded a matching video, not only channels whose name matches the keyword. Channel-only search and both modes are available too.
• Full metrics per channel. Exact video and view counts from each channel's About page, plus the subscriber count as a number (YouTube itself rounds it, e.g. "1.2M").
• Built-in audience filters. Keep only channels within a subscriber range, above a video-count floor, or verified-only. Filtering is free.
• Contact-ready output. The links each channel lists (Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, website and more) and its RSS feed — straight into your outreach pipeline.
• Bulk input. Many search terms per run, or a file/Google Sheet of terms, or full YouTube search URLs.
• Fast and predictable. JSON or CSV, one row per channel, billed per result.

📋 Overview

This Actor turns YouTube keyword searches into a structured list of channels — a channel finder, not a single-channel scraper. For each keyword (or search URL) it collects the matching channels, then enriches each one from its public About page with subscriber, video and view counts, country, join date, keywords/tags, RSS feed, external links, avatar and banner.

It's built for marketers, agencies, and researchers who need to find and qualify YouTube influencers and creators at scale — by niche and subscriber count, with each channel's country in the output. Set a subscriber ceiling to surface micro-influencers, or a floor to keep only established channels.

The dataset shape is one row per channel. Non-matching channels (failed filters) are dropped before they are saved, so you only pay for channels you keep.

📥 Supported inputs

Input type	Example	Notes
Search term	coffee	Any keyword or phrase. Best for discovery.
Multiple search terms	coffee, home workout, k-drama	One run, many niches.
Terms from a file	https://.../terms.txt or a public Google Sheet	One term per line.
YouTube search URL	https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=coffee	Combined with terms. Discovery mode (video / channel / both) is applied to each URL.

Not supported: full video lists, comments, transcripts, playlist contents, private/members-only channels, or anything behind a YouTube login. This Actor returns channels. When a video result is the first match, it also saves that video as sourceVideo evidence.

🎯 Use cases

Audience	What they get
Influencer marketers	A shortlist of creators in a niche, filtered by subscriber size, with each channel's country
Agencies	Lead lists of channels with external links and RSS for outreach
Brand / sponsorship teams	Verified channels above a subscriber floor in a category
Market researchers	The competitive creator landscape for any topic
SEO / content teams	Who owns a keyword space on YouTube, ranked by size
Data teams	Structured channel metrics feeding dashboards or CRMs

🔄 How it works

1. Search — each keyword or search URL is sent to YouTube on the surfaces you chose (video results, channel-only, or both).
2. Paginate — the Actor walks result pages until your per-term / total cap is met, or until the source is exhausted if a cap is empty.
3. Dedup — the first eligible match per channel is kept, with rank, surface, and optional source-video evidence.
4. Enrich — each channel's About page is fetched for subscriber counts (exact where YouTube shows them), exact video and view counts, country, join date, keywords, tabs, links, avatar and banner.
5. Filter — subscriber range, minimum videos, verified-only and exclusions are applied. Dropped channels are never billed.
6. Save — one clean row per surviving channel, in JSON or CSV.

⚙️ Input configuration

Field	Type	Description
discoveryMode	string	both (default), videoResults, or channelFilter.
searchTerms	array	Keywords to search for (one per line). Combined with search URLs.
searchTermsFiles	array	URLs of text/CSV files or a public Google Sheet listing one term per line.
searchUrls	array	Full YouTube /results URLs. Combined with search terms.
maxChannelsPerSearchTerm	integer	Max channels returned per term / URL. Empty = exhaust that source.
maxTotalResults	integer	Global cap on channels across the run. Empty = exhaust every source.
minSubscribers	integer	Keep only channels with at least this many subscribers (0 = off).
maxSubscribers	integer	Keep only channels with at most this many subscribers (0 = off).
minVideos	integer	Keep only channels with at least this many videos (0 = off).
verifiedOnly	boolean	Keep only channels with the Verified badge.
excludedChannels	array	Handles (@name), channel IDs (UC…) or URLs to drop.
languageHint	string	YouTube language code hl (e.g. en).
countryHint	string	YouTube country code gl (e.g. US).
maxConcurrency	integer	Requests in flight at once (default 30, up to 100).
proxy	object	Runs use the actor's built-in residential pool; only your own proxy URLs (Apify Proxy switched off) are honoured.

Example — discover mid-size verified coffee channels:

{
  "discoveryMode": "both",
  "searchTerms": ["coffee roasting", "espresso"],
  "maxChannelsPerSearchTerm": 50,
  "minSubscribers": 100000,
  "verifiedOnly": true,
  "countryHint": "US"
}

Example — from search URLs, capped:

{
  "discoveryMode": "videoResults",
  "searchUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=home%20workout"],
  "maxTotalResults": 30
}

📊 Output overview

Each row is one channel: identity (handle, title, URL, channel ID), audience metrics (subscribers, videos, total views — as both parsed numbers and their original text), profile data (description, country, join date, keywords, tabs, family-safe flag, verified badge), assets (avatar, banner, RSS feed, titled external links), a discoverySource object (keyword or URL, surface, rank, results URL), and sourceVideo when a video result was the first match.

📦 Output sample

Real row (trimmed), from the search term coffee:

{
  "type": "channel",
  "channelId": "UCpDzpaUTbIkdjkCZ9pmfMrA",
  "handle": "@CoffiChannel",
  "title": "Coffi Channel",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@CoffiChannel",
  "description": "Игровой канал ...",
  "isVerified": true,
  "isFamilySafe": true,
  "subscribers": 8190000,
  "subscriberText": "8.19M subscribers",
  "videos": 8304,
  "videoText": "8,304 videos",
  "totalViews": 4259490490,
  "totalViewsText": "4,259,490,490 views",
  "country": "Russia",
  "joinedText": "Joined Jun 23, 2014",
  "joinedDate": "2014-06-23",
  "keywords": ["gta", "gta 5", "cs go", "open case"],
  "rssUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCpDzpaUTbIkdjkCZ9pmfMrA",
  "externalLinks": [
    { "title": "Telegram", "url": "https://t.me/coffiYT" },
    { "title": "VK", "url": "https://vk.com/ocoffi" }
  ],
  "avatarUrl": "https://yt3.googleusercontent.com/ytc/…=s900-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj",
  "bannerUrl": "https://yt3.googleusercontent.com/…=w2560-…-no-nd-rj",
  "discoverySource": {
    "sourceKind": "keyword",
    "value": "coffee",
    "discoverySurface": "video_results",
    "rank": 1,
    "sourceUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=coffee"
  },
  "sourceVideo": {
    "videoId": "abc12345678",
    "title": "Morning brew",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abc12345678",
    "publishedText": "2 weeks ago",
    "viewText": "12,345 views"
  },
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-06T21:18:23.530Z"
}

🗂 Key output fields

Group	Fields
Identity	channelId, handle, title, url
Audience	subscribers, subscriberText, subscriberCountIsExact, videos, videoText, totalViews, totalViewsText
Profile	description, country, joinedText, joinedDate, keywords, tags, tabs, isVerified, isFamilySafe, isUnlisted, isNoindex
Assets & contact	avatarUrl, bannerUrl, thumbnailUrl, avatarImages, rssUrl, externalLinks, ownerUrls, availableCountryCodes
Provenance	discoverySource, sourceVideo, scrapedAt

❓ FAQ

How do I find YouTube channels by keyword and subscriber count? Put your niche keywords in searchTerms (one per line) and set minSubscribers and/or maxSubscribers. For example, {"searchTerms": ["home workout"], "minSubscribers": 10000, "maxSubscribers": 100000} returns channels with 10K–100K subscribers, a common micro-influencer range. Add minVideos or verifiedOnly to tighten the list. Channels outside the range are dropped before they are saved, so they cost nothing.

Does it return channel emails? No. YouTube shows a channel's business email only to signed-in viewers who pass a CAPTCHA, and this Actor reads public pages only. Each row does carry the links the channel lists in externalLinks (website, Instagram, TikTok and others), which are often the quickest route to a contact.

Does this scrape videos or comments? It returns channels. When the first match comes from a video result, that video is stored as sourceVideo evidence. It does not export a channel's full video list, comments, or transcripts.

Are subscriber counts exact? YouTube publishes subscriber counts rounded (e.g. "8.19M"); subscribers is that value parsed to a number, and subscriberText keeps the original. Video counts and total views are exact.

Why did I get fewer channels than my cap? Your filters may have dropped many candidates, or the keyword simply has few channels. The run's RUN_SUMMARY (in the key-value store) breaks down exactly how many were dropped by each filter.

Do filtered-out channels cost me anything? No. Subscriber, video, verified and exclusion filters run before a row is saved, so you're only billed for channels you keep.

Can I search in another language/country? Yes — set languageHint (hl) and countryHint (gl).

What happens when I leave a result limit empty? The Actor keeps searching until that source (or the whole run) is exhausted.

Can I paste terms and search URLs together? Yes. Both lists run in the same job. The first eligible match per channel is kept.

💬 Support

Found an issue or need a field that isn't here? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab and it will be looked at.

🛠 Additional services

Need a tailored export, a scheduled feed into your CRM, or channel enrichment (emails, socials) at scale? Custom work is available — reach out through the Issues tab.

🔎 Explore more scrapers

Search the Apify Store for the sibling YouTube Actors covering search results & video metrics, Shorts, and downloads.

🤖 For AI Agents & LLM Apps

• Purpose: discover YouTube channels by keyword/search URL and return per-channel metrics + links.
• Minimal input (runs as-is):

  { "searchTerms": ["coffee"], "maxTotalResults": 20 }
  

• Output fields: channelId, handle, title, url, description, isVerified, isFamilySafe, subscribers, subscriberText, subscriberCountIsExact, videos, videoText, totalViews, totalViewsText, country, joinedText, joinedDate, keywords[], rssUrl, externalLinks[{title,url}], avatarUrl, bannerUrl, discoverySource{sourceKind,value,discoverySurface,rank,sourceUrl}, sourceVideo|{videoId,title,url,publishedText,viewText}|null, scrapedAt.
• Behaviors: one row per channel; minSubscribers/maxSubscribers/minVideos/verifiedOnly/excludedChannels filter before billing; subscribers is parsed from a rounded value while videos/totalViews are exact.
• Billing: pay per channel saved to the dataset (filtered channels are not billed).

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⚠️ Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by YouTube, Google LLC, or any of their subsidiaries or affiliates. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

The scraper accesses only publicly available YouTube channel pages — no authenticated endpoints, member-only content, or anything behind a YouTube login. Users are responsible for ensuring their use complies with YouTube's Terms of Service, applicable data-protection law (GDPR, CCPA, etc.), and any contractual obligations of their own organisation.

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