YouTube Scraper — Search, Channels, Shorts & Comments (No API Key)

Scrape YouTube like an API, without a YouTube Data API key or quota. One actor covers the three things people need most:

• YouTube search scraper — results for any keyword with YouTube's own filters (videos, Shorts or channels; upload date; duration; sort by views).
• YouTube channel scraper — every video, Short or live stream of a channel, latest, most popular or oldest first.
• YouTube comments scraper — comments of any video or Short, top or newest first, with replies, likes and reply counts.

Fast HTTP scraping through the JSON API youtube.com itself uses — no browser, no login, no cookies. Built for creator research, influencer discovery, competitor tracking, trend and keyword research, sentiment analysis and AI/LLM datasets.

What you get

Videos and Shorts (type: "video")

Field	Example
title, videoId, url	"Apify Tutorial For Beginners", 3rrpfW0bEdc, watch or /shorts/ link
channelName, channelId, channelUrl, channelVerified	"Speak About Digital", UCqD-…, https://www.youtube.com/@SpeakAboutDigital
views, viewsText	44508, "44,508 views"
durationSeconds, durationText	641, "10:41"
publishedText	"3 years ago"
thumbnail, description (snippet), badges
isShort, isLive
searchQuery or sourceChannel, position	what was scraped and the rank

With Add a row with each video's details (for the videos you list for comments): exact views, publishedDate ("Oct 24, 2009"), channelSubscribersText and the full description.

Channels (type: "channel", from channel searches): channelName, handle, subscribers, channelVerified, description, channelUrl, thumbnail.

Comments (type: "comment")

Field	Example
text, commentId, videoId
author, authorChannelId, authorIsChannelOwner, authorVerified	"@bdr8823"
likes, likesText, replyCount	70000, "70K", 654
publishedText	"7 years ago"
heartedByCreator	true if the creator hearted it
isReply, parentId	replies point to their parent comment

{
    "type": "video",
    "videoId": "3rrpfW0bEdc",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rrpfW0bEdc",
    "title": "Apify Tutorial For Beginners | How To Use Apify",
    "channelName": "Speak About Digital",
    "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@SpeakAboutDigital",
    "views": 44508,
    "durationSeconds": 641,
    "durationText": "10:41",
    "publishedText": "3 years ago",
    "isShort": false,
    "searchQuery": "apify tutorial",
    "position": 1
}

Export to JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, or use the Apify API, webhooks, Make, Zapier, n8n or Google Sheets.

How to use

1. Add search queries, channels and/or videos (for comments). Mix them freely in one run.
2. Set the limits (0 = everything YouTube returns) and filters.
3. Run. Results arrive at about 20 per request; a few hundred videos or comments take seconds.

Examples

Most-viewed Shorts about a topic this month:

{
    "searchQueries": ["air fryer recipes"],
    "searchType": "shorts",
    "uploadDate": "month",
    "maxResultsPerQuery": 200
}

A creator's 100 most popular videos:

{
    "channelUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd"],
    "channelSort": "popular",
    "maxChannelVideos": 100
}

1,000 newest comments with replies, for sentiment analysis:

{
    "videoUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"],
    "maxCommentsPerVideo": 1000,
    "commentsSort": "newest",
    "includeReplies": true
}

Find channels in a niche (influencer discovery):

{
    "searchQueries": ["vegan cooking"],
    "searchType": "channel",
    "maxResultsPerQuery": 100
}

FAQ

Do I need a YouTube API key? No, and there is no daily quota. The actor reads the same data youtube.com shows to visitors.

Are view and like counts exact? Search and channel views are exact where YouTube shows them exactly ("44,508 views"); on channel tabs and Shorts YouTube only shows rounded numbers ("6M views"), which the actor converts to 6000000 and keeps the original text in viewsText. Comment likes are rounded the same way by YouTube ("70K"). The video-details row has the exact view count.

Why is the publish date relative ("3 years ago")? That is what YouTube lists in search and on channel pages. The video-details row adds the exact date.

Does it download videos or transcripts? No. It collects metadata and comments only.

Do I need proxies? The default Apify Proxy is enough; if YouTube limits it, the actor switches to residential proxies by itself.

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