YouTube Comments Scraper & API: Video Comments Export

Export YouTube comments of any video or Short: comment text, likes, reply count and date, plus the video's title, link and total comment count on every row. Paste YouTube links (youtube.com/watch?v=…, youtu.be/…, /shorts/…) or video IDs.

It calls a commercial data API instead of driving a browser: no proxies, no CAPTCHAs, no YouTube API key or quota. Comment authors' names, channel links and profile pictures are not collected: you get what viewers say, not who they are.

What you get, in short: the top and recent comments, up to 700 per video, replies not included (each comment carries its reply count).

Typical uses

• Sentiment analysis and AI summaries: feed clean comment text to an LLM, a BI tool or an AI agent (MCP) to see what viewers like, ask and complain about.
• Product and brand research: read the comments under product reviews, launches and ads, yours or your competitors'.
• Creators and social media teams: turn on Only new comments, schedule a daily run and get the new comments on your videos, never the same one twice, in Slack or a spreadsheet.
• Content ideas: collect the questions viewers ask under the top videos of your niche.

What you get

One row per comment:

Field	Description
input	The video as you gave it
videoId, videoTitle, videoUrl	YouTube video ID, title and link
videoCommentsCount	Total number of comments shown on the video
position	Position of the comment in YouTube's order (the order YouTube serves them in)
text	Comment text
likes, replyCount	Likes on the comment and number of replies (the replies themselves are not included)
publishedAt	Approximate comment date (UTC, ISO 8601), computed from the relative date YouTube shows
publishedText	Date as YouTube shows it, e.g. "1 year ago"
observedAt	When the data was fetched (UTC)

Missing values are always null, never guessed. A video that is not found, is private, has comments turned off or no comment yet gets one free row with found: false, a notFoundReason and a note (the blocks requested for it are still charged, see Pricing).

Input

{
  "videos": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gEoh3sk2AE",
    "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  ],
  "maxCommentsPerVideo": 100
}

• videos: one per line, up to 500: a YouTube video link (watch?v=, youtu.be/, /shorts/, /live/, /embed/) or an 11-character video ID. Channel and playlist links are not accepted. Duplicates are removed for free.
• maxCommentsPerVideo: 20 to 700 (default 100). Comments are fetched in blocks of 20, so the number is rounded up to the next block (50 asks for 60).
• onlyNewComments (optional, monitoring): return only comments never delivered to you before for the same video. See below.
• monitorName (optional): name of the key-value store in your account that remembers delivered comments (default plainrows-youtube-comments-monitor).

Chain it with YouTube Search Scraper

Find videos for a keyword with YouTube Search Scraper, then paste its url or videoId column into videos here, as they are. In n8n, Make or Zapier, map the url of each result to the videos list of this tool.

Monitor videos: get only new comments

Turn on Only new comments ("onlyNewComments": true) and add an Apify schedule (daily, for example). The first run returns the comments it finds and remembers them in a key-value store of your own Apify account (as one-way fingerprints, not the text or the author); each later run returns and bills only comments it has never delivered. A video with nothing new gets a free row with notFoundReason: "no-new-comments". The blocks requested are still charged on every check (the data source bills them either way).

• YouTube decides which comments it serves and in which order: a new comment is not always within the first blocks on busy videos. For those, ask for more comments per check (200 to 700).
• Each run reads only the first maxCommentsPerVideo comments YouTube serves. Set it above the number of new comments you expect on a video between two runs: if more new comments arrive than that, the older new ones are not read again and are missed. When a check finds a full page of comments and none of them was delivered before, the run warns you (more than … new comments since the last run, also counted in videosPossiblyMissingComments in the run summary): raise maxCommentsPerVideo or run the check more often. When a check reads new comments that your limit leaves out (comments are read in blocks of 20, so a limit of 30 reads 40), the run warns too (… new comments beyond your limit were not delivered this run, counted in commentsBeyondLimitNotDelivered in the run summary): they come with a later run only if still among the comments it reads.
• Use a different monitorName per monitoring task to keep separate histories, or a new name to start over.

Output example

Row from a real run on 2026-10-11 (a sourdough baking video):

{
  "input": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gEoh3sk2AE",
  "found": true,
  "videoId": "4gEoh3sk2AE",
  "videoTitle": "Bake the Perfect Sourdough Bread: A Step-by-Step Guide",
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gEoh3sk2AE",
  "videoCommentsCount": 3254,
  "position": 1,
  "text": "Making this bread is like getting a part time job.",
  "likes": 3100,
  "replyCount": 113,
  "publishedAt": "2024-10-11T13:37:20.000Z",
  "publishedText": "2 years ago",
  "observedAt": "2026-10-11T13:37:17.202Z",
  "schemaVersion": "1.0"
}

Pricing

Pay per result, no subscription, no proxy costs. See the Pricing tab for current prices. Three events, nothing else:

• Comment: one per comment returned, cheaper on higher Apify plans.
• Block of 20 comments requested: comments are fetched in blocks of 20 per video, and the data source bills us every block requested. So 100 comments = 5 blocks. A block is charged once YouTube has answered, even if the video has fewer comments than you asked for, or is not found. Tip: set maxCommentsPerVideo to what you need to pay for fewer blocks (with Only new comments, keep it above the number of new comments expected between two runs).
• Actor start: a small fixed fee per run, charged by Apify when the run starts.

Example, 100 comments of one video at free Apify plan prices, run start included: about $0.037, i.e. under $0.0004 per comment.

Duplicates and values that are not a video link or ID cost nothing beyond the start fee (a well-formed but wrong 11-character ID is sent to YouTube and its blocks are charged), and requests YouTube does not answer are not charged. The run never spends more than the maximum cost you set.

Free Apify plan: each run returns up to 60 comments for up to 2 videos, so you can check the output. A paid Apify plan removes these limits.

Use it from code, automations or AI agents

API (one call, results returned directly):

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/plainrows~youtube-comments-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"videos": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"], "maxCommentsPerVideo": 100}'

Results take about a minute per batch of videos (the data source queues the requests).

n8n, Make, Zapier: use the Apify integration, pick plainrows/youtube-comments-scraper, schedule it daily with Only new comments and send new comments to Slack or Google Sheets.

AI agents (MCP): add https://mcp.apify.com?tools=plainrows/youtube-comments-scraper to Claude, Cursor or any MCP client. The agent gets a typed tool and pays per result.

What this is not

• No author names, channel links, profile pictures or author IDs (privacy by design, in line with GDPR data minimisation).
• No replies: only top-level comments, with their reply count.
• Not every comment ever written, and no sort option: the top and recent comments YouTube shows, up to 700 per video and run. Use Only new comments to build a history over time.
• Not a search tool: to find videos by keyword, use YouTube Search Scraper first.
• Not affiliated with YouTube or Google.

Run summary

Each run stores a summary in the key-value store (OUTPUT): videos submitted and run, blocks of comments charged, how many returned nothing, comments billed, requests YouTube did not answer, monitored videos that probably got more new comments than maxCommentsPerVideo since the last run (videosPossiblyMissingComments), new comments read but left out by that limit (commentsBeyondLimitNotDelivered), duplicates and invalid values (with the reason, e.g. NOT_A_VIDEO_LINK), and anything skipped because of the free-plan or budget limit.

FAQ

How do I export the comments of a YouTube video? Paste its link or ID and run: one row per comment with text, likes, reply count and date, ready for Excel, Google Sheets or JSON.

Does it work with YouTube Shorts? Yes: paste the /shorts/… link as it is.

How many comments per video? Up to 700 per video per run, in the order YouTube serves them. For a running history, schedule it with Only new comments.

Does it include replies or author names? No. Each comment has its reply count, but replies, author names and channel links are not collected.

Do I need a YouTube API key? No. No API key, no quota, no Google account.

More PlainRows tools

Same pay-per-result pricing, same clean JSON, built to chain together in n8n, Make, Zapier or AI agents.

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Compared with other APIs: YouTube comments API without a Google Cloud project

Support

Missing a field or found a bug? Open an issue on this page. Issues are read and answered.