YouTube Scraper

Scrape YouTube videos, channels, and comments by search query or URL — no API key, no login. A fast, low-cost YouTube data API alternative for research, ASO/marketing, competitor tracking, and building datasets.

Give it a search term, a channel URL, or a video URL and get clean, structured JSON: title, view count, likes, duration, channel, publish date, description, and full comment threads.

Features

• No API key, no quota — no Google Cloud project, no OAuth, and no 10,000-unit daily quota to manage.
• Fast and low-cost — runs finish in seconds.
• Cheapest result price in its class — pay-per-result from $0.25 / 1,000 results, a fraction of the common $2–4 / 1,000.
• Four jobs, one Actor — search, channel uploads, single-video details, and comments.

What you can scrape

Give it	You get
Search queries	Videos matching each query (with sort order)
Channel URL / @handle	That channel's uploaded videos
Video URL (resultsType: videos)	Full details for that video (title, views, likes, description)
Video URL (resultsType: comments)	The video's comments (text, author, likes, replies)

Use cases

• Market & content research — pull the top videos for any topic and analyze titles, views, and recency.
• Channel tracking — export a competitor's or your own channel's uploads and monitor performance over time.
• Comment mining — collect comments for sentiment analysis, feedback, or LLM pipelines.
• Datasets for AI — build structured YouTube datasets to feed models without touching the official API.

Input

Field	Type	Description
searchQueries	string[]	Free-text searches. Each returns videos.
startUrls	list	Video URLs (details or comments) or channel URLs / @handles (uploads).
resultsType	enum	For video URLs: videos (details) or comments. Default videos.
maxItems	integer	Max videos per query/channel. Default 20.
maxComments	integer	Max comments per video (comments mode). Default 50.
sortBy	enum	relevance, date, views, or rating (search).
language	string	Interface language (hl), e.g. en, tr, de.
country	string	Content country (gl), e.g. US, TR, GB.

Examples

Search — top 20 videos for a topic

{
  "searchQueries": ["python pandas tutorial"],
  "maxItems": 20,
  "sortBy": "relevance"
}

Channel uploads

{
  "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd" }],
  "maxItems": 50
}

Comments for a video

{
  "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n61ULEU7CO0" }],
  "resultsType": "comments",
  "maxComments": 200
}

Output

Video item

{
  "type": "video",
  "id": "Z6z_feacXW8",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6z_feacXW8",
  "title": "Galaxy Z Fold 8 Review: Honeymoon's Over",
  "channelName": "Marques Brownlee",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBJycsmduvYEL83R_U4JriQ",
  "channelId": "UCBJycsmduvYEL83R_U4JriQ",
  "viewCount": 3900000,
  "viewCountText": "3.9M views",
  "publishedTimeText": "10 days ago",
  "durationSeconds": 696,
  "durationText": "11:36",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Z6z_feacXW8/hqdefault.jpg",
  "description": "…",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-08-11T15:00:00.000Z"
}

Comment item

{
  "type": "comment",
  "commentId": "UgxPS3MhGkaKAUkcBbp4AaABAg",
  "videoId": "n61ULEU7CO0",
  "text": "This is an absolute banger.",
  "author": "@hikaru_hi",
  "authorChannelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0JPxVytLaypTyvZeJCRdtQ",
  "likeCount": 3700,
  "publishedTimeText": "6 months ago",
  "replyCount": 105,
  "isPinned": false,
  "isHearted": false,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-08-11T15:00:00.000Z"
}

Download the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, or XML, or pull it via the Apify API.

FAQ

Do I need a YouTube / Google API key? No. This Actor reads YouTube's public pages and returns the same data in a clean, structured form — no API key, no OAuth, no quota.

Can I export to CSV or Excel? Yes. Every run's dataset can be downloaded as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML, or fetched from the Apify API.

Does it download videos or transcripts? No. It returns metadata, channel data, and comments — not video files or captions.

What happens if YouTube blocks a request? The Actor retries briefly, then returns whatever it collected (or an empty dataset) — it does not fail the run.

Pricing

Pay-per-event: $0.01 per run start (per GB of run memory) plus $0.25 per 1,000 results. You only pay for results actually returned. See the Pricing tab for current rates.

Disclaimer

This is an unofficial Actor. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by YouTube or Google LLC. All product names, logos, and trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are used here for identification only.

The Actor collects only publicly available information. It does not log in, create accounts, or bypass access restrictions. Output may include information relating to identifiable people (e.g. comment authors). You are the data controller for anything you collect and are responsible for having a lawful basis to process it under applicable law (such as GDPR or KVKK) and for complying with YouTube's Terms of Service.