YouTube Channel Search Scraper

Discover YouTube channels from keywords or reusable /results URLs — from video results, channel-only search, or both — and get a full profile for each: exact subscriber, video and view counts, country, join date, 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), add subscriber/video/verified filters, and get a clean row per channel. Ideal for creator discovery, influencer research, 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.
• Exact metrics per channel. Real subscriber, video and view counts pulled from each channel's About page — not just the rounded "1.2M" from search.
• 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. External links (Instagram, TikTok, website, email links) and RSS feed for every channel — 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. For each keyword (or search URL) it collects the matching channels, then enriches each one from its public About page with exact counts, location, 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 creators at scale — by niche, size, and location — rather than scraping a single known channel.

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 and 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 exact subscriber, 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	Max parallel requests (default 10).
proxy	object	Proxy configuration. Defaults to Apify Residential (US).

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

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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