YouTube Trending Feed Extractor by Category & Market

Pull video lists for YouTube's Gaming, Music, News, Movies and main Trending sections in any of 31 regional markets, with position, channel, view count, duration and thumbnail for each entry, and a clear label on rows that came from a fallback search.

What this actor does

• Tries YouTube's Gaming, Music, News and main Trending pages first
• Uses a labeled public YouTube search instead when a page can't be read (always for Movies, and for Gaming when the page lists fewer than 10 items), marking every row with sourceType and the fallbackQuery used
• Targets any of 31 regional markets so results reflect what's trending in that country
• Captures playlists and albums alongside individual videos when a category page shows them, and removes duplicates
• Omits any field that has no value for a given row rather than returning null

Output per item

Field	Description
position	Order in the returned list (page order for category pages, search order for search-fallback rows)
type	video, playlist, or album
videoId	YouTube video ID, for video rows
playlistId	YouTube playlist/album ID, for playlist or album rows
url	Link to the video or playlist
title	Video or playlist title
channelName	Channel display name
channelId	Channel's YouTube ID, when resolved
channelUrl	Full channel URL, when resolved
channelHandle	Channel's @handle, when available
isVerified	Whether the channel shows a verified badge (video rows only)
viewCount	View count as a number, when parseable
viewCountText	View count exactly as displayed, e.g. "3.2M views"
publishedTimeText	Relative publish time as displayed, e.g. "2 days ago"
publishedDate	Upload date, when it can be read from the video's own page (video rows)
durationText	Duration as displayed, e.g. "12:34"
durationSeconds	Duration converted to seconds
thumbnailUrl	Highest-resolution thumbnail URL available
badges	Badge labels shown on the item, e.g. "4K", "CC"
isLive	Whether the item is a live stream
category	The input category used for this run
market	The regional market used for this run
sourceType	category_page when read directly, or search_fallback when a fallback search was used
fallbackQuery	The search query used, only present when sourceType is search_fallback
scrapedAt	UTC timestamp of when the record was scraped

Status rows: if a run finds nothing, the dataset gets a single status row instead of video rows. For category: "now" when even the search fallback fails, that row is {success: false, category, market, sourceType: "auth_required", error, scrapedAt}. For any other category with no results, it is {recordType: "status", status: "no_results", category, market, resultCount: 0, scrapedAt}. Filter these out by checking for videoId/playlistId.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
category	string	gaming	Trending section to read: now (main Trending feed), gaming, music, movies, or news
maxResults	integer	50	Maximum number of items to return (1–200)
market	string	US	Regional market (31 options), e.g. US, GB, CA, AU, DE, FR, JP, KR, BR, IN, MX. It sets the region and interface language used for the page or search

Category notes

• gaming reads the YouTube Gaming page; if that page shows fewer than 10 items, a search for "gaming" is used instead.
• news reads the YouTube News page's shelves; if they can't be read, it searches "latest news" (then "world news").
• music reads the YouTube Music channel's playlists and videos; if they can't be read, it searches "official music video" (then "new music").
• now tries the main Trending page, which usually needs a signed-in session; when it's unavailable, it searches "trending videos" (then "popular videos").
• movies always uses a search for "new movie trailer

Search-fallback rows are ordinary search results for that phrase in the chosen market, not YouTube's own trending ranking.

Example: gaming trending in Japan

{
  "category": "gaming",
  "maxResults": 20,
  "market": "JP"
}

Example: main trending feed, US

{
  "category": "now",
  "maxResults": 50,
  "market": "US"
}

Example: music trending in Brazil

{
  "category": "music",
  "maxResults": 20,
  "market": "BR"
}

Use cases

• Daily trend monitoring — schedule runs to track what's rising in Gaming or Music each day
• Content strategy — see which video lengths, formats and titles are performing well right now
• Competitive and creator intelligence — spot which channels keep appearing across trending categories
• Cross-market comparison — run the same category across several market values to compare regional trends
• News-cycle tracking — use news to capture the day's top-story videos

FAQ

Why do some rows say search_fallback? YouTube's main Trending feed and the Movies channel aren't available without signing in, and the other category pages sometimes can't be read either. Rather than returning nothing, the actor runs a public search instead and marks every resulting row with sourceType: "search_fallback" plus the fallbackQuery it used, so you always know where a row came from. Rows read from the category page itself carry sourceType: "category_page".

How many items can one run return? Up to maxResults (200 max). The real number depends on how many items the category page or fallback search shows on the day, after duplicates are removed.

What does market actually change? It sets YouTube's region and interface language for the category page or fallback search, so results lean towards that country instead of a global default.

Are playlists and albums included, or only videos? Category pages that show ranked playlists or albums alongside videos will include them, distinguished by the type field (video, playlist, or album); playlistId is only present on non-video rows.

Are live streams included? Yes. Live items are flagged with isLive: true and usually carry a "LIVE" badge in badges.

Why are fields like durationText or publishedTimeText missing from some rows? Live streams don't have a fixed duration or publish time yet, so those fields are left out of that row rather than filled with a placeholder.

Is this affiliated with YouTube? No. This actor reads YouTube's public pages and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by YouTube or Google.