YouTube Shorts Scraper

What does YouTube Shorts Scraper do?

YouTube Shorts Scraper collects the Shorts of any YouTube channel, or single Shorts from their links. For each Short you get its title, link, view count, portrait thumbnail and channel (name, ID, @handle and link). Turn on exact details to also get the exact view count, like count, comment count, publish date and time, length, description, hashtags and category. Paste a channel link, an @handle or a channel ID, pick Latest, Popular or Oldest first, and set how many Shorts you want per channel.

Try it with the prefilled channel: open the Actor, click Start, and MrBeast's 10 latest Shorts arrive in a few seconds. It needs no login, no API key and no YouTube Data API quota. Because it runs on the Apify platform, you also get API access, scheduled runs, integrations (Google Sheets, Make, Zapier, webhooks), run monitoring and automatic retries through Apify Proxy when YouTube refuses a request.

Why scrape YouTube Shorts?

• Short-form content research: see which Shorts of a channel get the most views, likes and comments, and what they are about.
• Influencer marketing: compare creators' Shorts performance in one table before you reach out.
• Trend and hashtag tracking: collect hashtags, descriptions and publish dates to see what topics and formats work.
• Monitoring: schedule a daily run with Latest first to catch new Shorts as soon as they appear.
• Datasets and analytics: export clean JSON or CSV with numbers as numbers and dates as ISO 8601, ready for spreadsheets, BI tools or AI.

How to scrape YouTube Shorts

1. Copy a channel's link from YouTube, such as https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast. An @handle (@MrBeast), a channel ID (UC…) or the link of a single Short works too.
2. Paste it into YouTube channels or Shorts, one per line.
3. Set Max Shorts per channel and pick the order (Latest, Popular or Oldest first).
4. Turn on Add exact views, likes, comments and dates if you need them.
5. Click Start, then download the results when the run finishes.

Input

Everything is set on the Input tab. In JSON, the input looks like this:

{
    "startUrls": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast",
        "@zachking",
        "UCsXVk37bltHxD1rDPwtNM8Q",
        "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Y8IJi7iP5vk"
    ],
    "maxShortsPerChannel": 50,
    "sort": "popular",
    "includeDetails": true
}

Output

One row per Short. Here is a real row from the prefilled run (details off):

{
    "id": "aNI2jv7lBPQ",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aNI2jv7lBPQ",
    "title": "Giving $10,000 To A Random Subscriber",
    "viewCount": 39000000,
    "viewCountIsExact": false,
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aNI2jv7lBPQ/sardefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEdCJUDENAFSEaQAgHyq4qpAwwIARUAAIhCcAHAAQY=&rs=AOn4CLDqSf1sM9piwyQRCuF8YItoIW73hQ",
    "channelId": "UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA",
    "channelName": "MrBeast",
    "channelHandle": "@MrBeast",
    "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-20T07:44:18.907795+00:00"
}

And a real row with exact details on:

{
    "id": "vMGuObY8_sw",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vMGuObY8_sw",
    "title": "Relive NASA's Artemis II Launch",
    "viewCount": 2721102,
    "viewCountIsExact": true,
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vMGuObY8_sw/oar3.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEdCJUDENAFSEaQAgHyq4qpAwwIARUAAIhCcAHAAQY=&rs=AOn4CLDboBlnQdsm1g4-AxrYnOEp1yxhZg",
    "channelId": "UCLA_DiR1FfKNvjuUpBHmylQ",
    "channelName": "NASA",
    "channelHandle": "@NASA",
    "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@NASA",
    "likeCount": 61684,
    "commentCount": null,
    "publishedAt": "2026-04-04T20:39:36+00:00",
    "durationSeconds": 32,
    "description": "L I F T O F F\n\n#Moon #Artemis #Launch #Astronauts",
    "hashtags": ["#Moon", "#Artemis", "#Launch", "#Astronauts"],
    "category": "Science & Technology",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-20T07:45:24.789308+00:00"
}

(NASA turns comments off on its Shorts, so commentCount is null there.) You can download the dataset in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel.

Data fields

likeCount to category are included with exact details on and for Shorts links. For channel Shorts with details off they are left out of the row.

How much does it cost to scrape YouTube Shorts?

YouTube Shorts Scraper uses pay-per-event pricing: you pay only for the rows you get, one per Short. See the Pricing tab for the exact price per 1,000 Shorts. Apify's free plan includes monthly credit you can use to try it.

Channels without Shorts, channels that do not exist, removed Shorts and links that are neither a channel nor a Short are never saved as rows, so you are not charged for them. If you set a maximum cost for a run, the Actor stops as soon as it is reached.

Tips for scraping YouTube Shorts

• Speed: with details off, about 1,000 Shorts in under 10 seconds, since YouTube lists about 48 per request. Details add one request per Short: expect about 5 Shorts a second.
• The order picks the Shorts: with a limit, Latest gives the newest, Popular the most viewed and Oldest the first ones.
• Only need views? Leave details off: the rounded view count comes free with the list and runs are many times faster.
• Everything: set Max Shorts per channel to a large number such as 100000 to read a channel's whole Shorts tab.
• Monitoring: schedule a daily run with Latest and a small limit, and keep only rows whose id you have not seen before.
• Each Short is saved only once per run, even when YouTube lists it twice, you give the same channel twice in different forms, or you also give its link.
• If the run's time limit is close, the Actor stops paging and finishes cleanly with everything collected so far.

FAQ, disclaimers and support

Which channels work? Any public channel with a Shorts tab. A channel without Shorts gives no rows, and the FAILED_INPUTS record says so.

Can I scrape regular videos with it? No. A link to a regular video is listed in FAILED_INPUTS as "this is a regular video, not a Short". For videos, use a YouTube channel or video scraper.

Why is the view count rounded? A channel's Shorts tab only shows rounded counts such as 39M views. Turn on Add exact views, likes, comments and dates for the exact count.

What happens to inputs that return nothing? They are not saved as rows, so you are not charged for them. Each one is listed with its reason (for example this channel has no Shorts or

YouTube has no channel at this address

Is it legal to scrape YouTube Shorts? This Actor collects only data that YouTube shows publicly to anyone without logging in. It does not download videos. Shorts and channels can contain personal data, such as a creator's name and handle, so you are responsible for making sure your use complies with YouTube's Terms of Service and with data protection laws such as the GDPR. Collect only what you need, and if in doubt, ask a lawyer.

Found a problem or need a custom solution? Open an issue on the Issues tab and we will look into it. Custom scrapers and data feeds are available on request.