YouTube Scraper Actor (no external APIs)

Scrape YouTube channels, playlists, videos, and search results using Playwright and YouTube’s own page data (DOM + window.ytInitial*). No YouTube Data API and no youtube-transcript-api.

What’s new

• Channel info only mode: set channelInfoOnly = true to scrape only the channel’s “About” data for the URLs you provide (channel or video). The actor will not scrape any videos or run searches in this mode.
• Accepts:
  • Channel URLs (e.g., https://www.youtube.com/@theleaderstalk, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC...)
  • Video URLs (the actor resolves the channel from the video)
  • A single @handle in searchTerms (e.g., ["@theleaderstalk"])

Output in this mode (type: "channel_info"):

• channelName
• channelUrl (prefers handle URL when available)
• channelUsername (handle without the @)
• channelId
• description
• channelLocation
• joinedDate
• channelTotalVideos
• channelTotalViews (numeric) and channelTotalViewsFormatted (with commas)
• numberOfSubscribers (numeric) and subscriberCountText
• socialLinks (array of { title, url })
• avatarUrl
• isMonetized (best-effort)
• sourceUrl (the input you provided)

Other capabilities

• Channel enrichment (when not in channel-only mode):
  • name, URL, ID, @handle, subscriber counts, total views, total videos, location, social links, avatar, description, joined date
• Video details:
  • title, URL, thumbnail, view count, likes (best-effort), comments count (best-effort)
  • release date (ISO), duration (seconds + HH:MM:SS), hashtags
  • optional subtitles scraped via the UI, optional comments
• Search with rich UI filters (applied via YouTube “Filters” menu):
  • sorting, date filter, type, duration
  • feature toggles: HD, Subtitles/CC, Creative Commons, 3D, Purchased, 4K, 360°, Location
• Per-term limits for search (videos/shorts/streams)

Input

Key fields:

• channelInfoOnly (boolean): Only scrape channel About info for provided URLs. If true:
  • Provide one or more channel or video URLs in startUrls, or
  • Provide a single @handle in searchTerms; the actor will treat it as a channel.
• startUrls: URLs to process (channel, video, playlist, search results)
• directUrls: extra URLs to merge into startUrls
• searchTerms: terms to search (ignored when channelInfoOnly is true unless a single @handle is provided)
• Subtitles options: downloadSubtitles, saveSubsToKVS, subtitlesLanguage, preferAutoGeneratedSubtitles, subtitlesFormat
• Search filters (non-channelOnly): searchSortOrder, searchDateFilter, searchVideoType, searchDuration
• Features (non-channelOnly): hd, subtitles_cc, creative_commons, three_d, purchased, four_k, three_sixty, location
• Limits: maxVideosPerTerm, maxShortsPerTerm, maxStreamsPerTerm, maxResults, maxComments
• Filters for post-processing: dateFilter, videoRegex
• proxyConfiguration, verboseLog

Examples

Channel info only

{
  "channelInfoOnly": true,
  "startUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@theleaderstalk" },
    { "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zslTD2Mq00E" }
  ],
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true }
}

Channel + videos (not channel-only)

{
  "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@LofiGirl" }],
  "maxResults": 50,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true }
}

Search with filters

{
  "searchTerms": ["traveler", "ai trends 2025"],
  "maxVideosPerTerm": 15,
  "maxShortsPerTerm": 8,
  "maxStreamsPerTerm": 2,
  "searchSortOrder": "relevance",
  "searchDateFilter": "this_year",
  "searchVideoType": "video",
  "searchDuration": "any",
  "hd": true,
  "subtitles_cc": true,
  "downloadSubtitles": true,
  "fetchFullVideoDetails": true,
  "maxResults": 30,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true }
}

To search for the keyword

{
  "startUrls": [],
  "searchTerms": ["marketing"],
  "maxResults": 10,
  "maxVideosPerTerm": 10,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": false },
  "verboseLog": false
}

Notes and limitations

• YouTube does not expose subscriber usernames publicly; this actor cannot collect them.
• Likes and comments counts can be hidden; values are best‑effort.
• Layouts vary by region; enable Apify Proxy for more consistent results.

Local development

pip install -r requirements.txt
python -m playwright install --with-deps chromium
python main.py