YouTube Channel Video Scraper

A powerful Apify actor that extracts video information from YouTube channels. This tool allows you to scrape video IDs, titles, and URLs from multiple YouTube channels in a single run. If you focus on one channels and need more features please see https://apify.com/runtime/youtube-channel-scraper

Features

• Extract video data from multiple YouTube channels simultaneously
• Get video IDs, titles, and direct URLs
• Extract view counts (e.g., "12K views", "1.2M views")
• Extract publication dates (e.g., "2 weeks ago", "1 month ago")
• NEW: Convert views to integers (e.g., "2.5K views" → 2500)
• NEW: Convert dates to days (e.g., "1 month ago" → 30)
• NEW: Filter videos by publication date (last 1, 7, 15, 30, 60, or 90 days)
• NEW: Filter videos by minimum views (e.g., only videos with 1000+ views)
• Handles infinite scrolling and lazy loading
• Simple and efficient data collection
• JSON output format for easy integration
• No API key required

Use Cases

• Content research and analysis
• Video cataloging
• Channel monitoring
• Data collection for analytics
• Content aggregation
• Channel Activity Tracking: Use filterByDays to follow a channel's recent activity and update your database periodically (e.g., daily or weekly) to track only the latest content without re-scraping the entire channel history

Input Format

Provide an array of YouTube channel URLs in the following format:

https://www.youtube.com/@channelname

Basic Input Example:

{
    "urls": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/@channel1",
        "https://www.youtube.com/@channel2"
    ]
}

Advanced Input Options:

{
    "urls": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/@channel1"
    ],
    "convertViewsToInteger": true,
    "convertDateToDays": true,
    "filterByDays": 30,
    "minViews": 1000
}

Input Parameters:

• urls (required): Array of YouTube channel URLs

  • Supports formats: @channelname, /c/channelname, /channel/channelname
  • Automatically normalizes to /videos endpoint

• convertViewsToInteger (optional, default: false):

  • If true, converts view strings to integers
  • Example: "2.5K views" → 2500, "1.2M views" → 1200000
  • Supports: K (thousands), M (millions), B (billions)

• convertDateToDays (optional, default: false):

  • If true, converts date strings to number of days
  • Example: "1 month ago" → 30, "2 weeks ago" → 14
  • Approximations: 30 days/month, 365 days/year

• filterByDays (optional, default: 60):

  • Filters videos published within the last N days
  • Options: 0 (all videos), 1, 7, 15, 30, 60, 90
  • Default: 60 (returns videos from the last 60 days)
  • Example: 30 returns only videos from the last 30 days
  • Note: The scraper will automatically stop scrolling early when enough recent videos are found, optimizing performance
  • Use Case: Perfect for tracking channel activity and keeping your database updated periodically. Instead of scraping the entire channel history each time, you can run the scraper daily/weekly with filterByDays: 7 to capture only the latest content, making it ideal for monitoring channels and staying up-to-date with new releases

• minViews (optional, default: 0):

  • Filters videos with at least this number of views (integer)
  • Set to 0 or leave empty to disable this filter
  • Example: 1000 returns only videos with at least 1000 views
  • Note: Works with both string format ("2.5K views") and integer format (if convertViewsToInteger is enabled). The filter automatically converts view strings to integers for comparison.
  • Use Case: Useful for finding popular content, filtering out low-engagement videos, or focusing on videos that have reached a certain view threshold

Output Format

The actor returns a structured JSON array containing channel information and their respective videos:

[
    {
        "title": "Channel1 - YouTube",
        "videos": [
            {
                "id": "RfTgYhUU791",
                "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfTgYhUU791",
                "title": "Video one of page",
                "views": "12K views",
                "publishedDate": "2 weeks ago"
            },
            {
                "id": "RfTgYhUU792",
                "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfTgYhUU792",
                "title": "Video two of page",
                "views": "1.2M views",
                "publishedDate": "1 month ago"
            }
            // ... more videos
        ]
    }
]

Data Fields Explained

Each video object contains the following fields:

• id: Unique YouTube video identifier
• url: Direct link to the video
• title: Video title as displayed on YouTube
• views: View count (format depends on convertViewsToInteger option)
  • Default: String format (e.g., "12K views", "1.2M views", "500 views")
  • With convertViewsToInteger: true: Integer (e.g., 12000, 1200000, 500)
• publishedDate: Publication date (format depends on convertDateToDays option)
  • Default: String format (e.g., "2 weeks ago", "1 month ago", "3 days ago")
  • With convertDateToDays: true: Number of days (e.g., 14, 30, 3)

Note: View counts and publication dates are extracted from YouTube's metadata and may not be available for all videos depending on YouTube's display settings.

Example Output with Conversions:

With convertViewsToInteger: true and convertDateToDays: true:

{
    "id": "RfTgYhUU791",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfTgYhUU791",
    "title": "Video Title",
    "views": 2500,
    "publishedDate": 14
}

With filterByDays: 30:

• Only videos published within the last 30 days are included in the output

Advanced Usage

For more advanced features and channel-specific scraping, check out our dedicated YouTube Channel Scraper.

Limitations

• Rate limiting may apply based on YouTube's policies
• Some channels may have restricted access
• Video count may be limited by YouTube's pagination

Support

For questions, issues, or feature requests, make an issue.

⚠️ Legal Disclaimer

This project is intended for educational and research purposes only. Use of this Actor must comply with Youtube's Terms of Service and robots.txt policies.

• Compliance: Ensure your scraping activities do not violate Youtube's policies.
• Ethical Considerations: Avoid aggressive scraping practices that might harm Youtube's infrastructure.
• Intended Use: For commercial or production use, consider exploring Youtube's official API solutions.

Related Resources

• YouTube Channel Scraper
• Youtube Shorts Scraper
• Vimeo Video Scraper