YouTube Channel Scraper: Comments & Transcripts

Extract YouTube channel videos, search results, comments, transcripts, channel identity fields, normalized engagement metrics, velocity, quality scores, and outlier signals.

Best for

• SEO and content teams researching topics, titles, transcripts, and hashtags
• Brand monitoring teams collecting comments and channel mentions
• Creator economy analysts comparing video performance and publishing cadence
• Automation users sending YouTube data to Sheets, Make, Zapier, n8n, or BI tools

Quick start

Start with fast listing mode before turning on detail, comments, or transcripts.

{
  "channel": "https://www.youtube.com/@Dior",
  "max_videos": 10,
  "video_details": false,
  "comments_max": 0,
  "transcript_mode": "off",
  "output_mode": "compact",
  "include_run_metadata": true,
  "safe_mode": true,
  "failOnNoResults": true,
  "timeout": 300,
  "useApifyProxy": true
}

Use a smaller detailed run when you need comments or transcripts:

{
  "channel": "https://www.youtube.com/@Dior",
  "max_videos": 3,
  "video_details": true,
  "comments_max": 10,
  "comments_strategy": "auto",
  "transcript_mode": "auto",
  "output_mode": "compact",
  "include_run_metadata": true,
  "safe_mode": true,
  "timeout": 900,
  "useApifyProxy": true
}

Common workflows

• Channel monitoring: collect recent videos, views, dates, hashtags, and channel identity fields on a schedule.
• Competitor analysis: compare views, likes, engagementRate, viewVelocity, performanceScore, and isOutlier.
• Brand comment research: enable comments and use comments_user_search to inspect specific authors or brand mentions.
• SEO and AI workflows: enable transcripts for small runs, then export transcript segments and descriptions to AI summarizers.

Useful input fields

Field	Use
channel	YouTube channel URL, handle, or channel ID.
search_query	Search globally, or within a channel when channel is set.
max_videos	Keep low for detailed runs; increase for listing mode.
video_details	Opens video pages for descriptions, metrics, comments, and transcripts.
comments_max	Comments per video. Use 0 for fast listing runs.
transcript_mode	off, auto, api, ui, or ui_strict.
output_mode	compact for automation, full for research, minimal for light exports.
safe_mode	More stable navigation for large or fragile runs.
useApifyProxy	Recommended for cloud runs and larger channels.

Output fields

The dataset can include:

• channelId
• channelHandle
• channelTitle
• title
• url
• views
• likes
• commentCount
• publishedAtISO
• durationSeconds
• hashtags
• descriptionLinks
• comments
• transcript
• transcriptSegments
• engagementRate
• viewVelocity
• performanceScore
• qualityScore
• qualityWarnings
• extractionStatus

Settings that convert best

• For first runs, use video_details: false, comments_max: 0, and transcript_mode: "off".
• For comments/transcripts, keep max_videos small and increase only after a successful sample run.
• Use output_mode: "compact" for no-code automations.
• Split large channel monitoring into scheduled smaller runs instead of one heavy run.

Cost and runtime expectations

Listing mode is much faster than detail mode. Comments and transcripts require extra navigation and can time out on some videos. If a run is slow or aborted, reduce max_videos, disable transcripts, set comments_max lower, and rerun a small sample before scaling.

Limitations

YouTube may hide likes, comments, transcripts, or exact dates by market, video, age restriction, privacy settings, or UI changes. Transcript extraction is best effort and may require authenticated cookies for some videos. Keep qualityWarnings and extractionStatus in downstream workflows.

Support

If a run returns unexpected data, open an issue from the Actor page with the input used, the run ID, and the result you expected.