YouTube Email Finder: Channel Email Scraper for Creator Contacts

This YouTube email finder returns the public business email of a creator from their channel description or from the website they link to. Use it to build sponsorship, PR and influencer outreach lists from a list of channels: supply handles, channel URLs or channel IDs and receive one row per nonempty input, including channels without a published email. Addresses come from the retrieved content. The Actor does not construct addresses from a person's name or invent a contact when none is available.

YouTube Channel Email Extractor is the name this Actor has carried since its first release; the input fields, output fields and price are unchanged, so existing integrations keep working.

How the YouTube email finder works

The first step reads the channel's public About information. It extracts the channel name, ID, description, linked websites and any email addresses published there. When that already provides an address, the website step is skipped. When no address is available and website checking is enabled, the Actor follows linked destinations, checks distinct website hosts and can look at common contact pages on the first host. Social platform links are retained in the output but are excluded from the website contact crawl.

A linked website can contain a support address, a shop contact or a general business contact. The result identifies the extraction source; it does not promise that every address belongs to the same department or that a mailbox accepts messages. Review the channel and the linked destination before using the result for your particular purpose.

Input

The required channels field is an array of strings. Handles such as @LinusTechTips, YouTube channel URLs (with or without https://, including www. and m. addresses) and channel IDs such as UCHnyfMqiRRG1u-2MsSQLbXA are accepted. Surrounding whitespace is removed and blank entries are ignored. One unusable entry does not stop the run: it returns its own free error row and the other channels are still delivered. Input order is preserved. Repeated channels produce repeated rows and are processed separately; the Actor does not deduplicate the submitted list.

follow_linked_websites defaults to true. Disable it when you want only the public channel information and addresses printed there. max_linked_per_channel defaults to 3 and accepts integers from 1 to 10. It controls the maximum number of distinct website hosts checked and also limits the returned link list to four times that number, with a maximum of 25 links.

concurrency defaults to 10 and accepts integers from 1 to 25. It is an upper bound. Actual simultaneous work can be lower when necessary to complete requests within the available processing budget. There is no extra charge for enabling website checks or increasing this setting: the billing unit is a successfully retrieved channel.

google_login_cookie remains an accepted secret input for compatibility. Login reveal is unavailable in this version. A nonempty value adds a warning; extraction from public descriptions and linked websites continues. Channels that publish no public address return not_found. You can leave this field empty for all supported public extraction paths.

This is the actual standard input used in the local measurement:

{
  "channels": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd"
  ]
}

The default shown in the input editor is a prefilled channel URL. It does not substitute for supplying channels in a custom request.

Output

This row was obtained from the standard input above; its duration describes that particular request:

{
  "input": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd",
  "channel_about_url": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd/about",
  "channel_handle": "@mkbhd",
  "channel_name": "Marques Brownlee",
  "channel_id": "UCBJycsmduvYEL83R_U4JriQ",
  "description": "MKBHD: Quality Tech Videos | YouTuber | Geek | Consumer Electronics | Tech Head | Internet Personality!\n\nbusiness@MKBHD.com\n\nNYC",
  "linked_websites": [
    "http://twitter.com/MKBHD",
    "http://facebook.com/MKBHD",
    "http://instagram.com/MKBHD",
    "https://goo.gl/B3AWV5",
    "http://shop.MKBHD.com/"
  ],
  "all_emails": [
    "business@mkbhd.com"
  ],
  "email": "business@mkbhd.com",
  "email_source": "description",
  "duration_seconds": 4,
  "error": null
}

When the description has no address, the linked website step can find one. This row comes from a real request for https://www.youtube.com/@kurzgesagt with max_linked_per_channel: 3 (description and link list shortened here). Both addresses were found on the creator's own linked sites; neither is a personal mailbox, so the first one found is selected:

{
  "input": "https://www.youtube.com/@kurzgesagt",
  "channel_handle": "@kurzgesagt",
  "channel_name": "Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell",
  "channel_id": "UCsXVk37bltHxD1rDPwtNM8Q",
  "linked_websites": [
    "https://shop.kgs.link/cool",
    "https://kgs.link/music-facebook",
    "https://kgs.link/newsletter"
  ],
  "all_emails": [
    "support-eu@kurzgesagt.org",
    "kurzgesagt@dftba.com"
  ],
  "email": "support-eu@kurzgesagt.org",
  "email_source": "linked_website",
  "error": null
}

email is the selected address or null. all_emails contains the distinct addresses found in encounter order, converted to lowercase. When several addresses exist, addresses with business or contact terms are preferred, followed by addresses on a nonpersonal domain, followed by the first remaining address.

email_source is description, linked_website or not_found for supported public extraction. The historical login_reveal value remains in the dataset schema for compatibility. description contains at most 500 characters. linked_websites contains the original normalized outgoing links; these can differ from the final destinations reached after redirects.

A channel without an email can still have valid name, ID, description and website fields. Such a row has error: null. A failed channel request has an error such as fetch_failed http 404, null channel details and empty email and link arrays. An entry that cannot be turned into a YouTube channel address gets fetch_failed http 0. This is a real row for a handle that does not exist:

{
  "input": "@zzqx-no-such-channel-8817342",
  "channel_handle": "@zzqx-no-such-channel-8817342",
  "channel_name": null,
  "channel_id": null,
  "linked_websites": [],
  "all_emails": [],
  "email": null,
  "email_source": "not_found",
  "duration_seconds": 2.6,
  "error": "fetch_failed http 404"
}
``` Additional profile fields (`source`, `fetched_at`, `platform`, `profile_url`, `profile_id`, `handle`, `name`, `bio`, `links` and `emails`) are available alongside the original fields.

The key-value store keeps `summary` with `itemCount` and `errorCount`. Input errors are written to `errors` using the historical `bad_input` code. A failed channel row does not increase the summary's input-error count. `OUTPUT` includes delivery counts, billing results and any warnings. If website checks cannot all be completed, warnings explain the incomplete part while the available channel rows remain delivered.

## Use cases

- **Sponsorship and influencer outreach.** Agencies and brands collect the business address of every creator on a shortlist before a campaign, instead of opening each About tab by hand.
- **PR and product seeding.** Communications teams find the press or partnership contact of reviewers in a niche, such as tech, gaming or science channels.
- **Lead lists for creator services.** Editors, thumbnail designers, music licensors and talent managers turn a list of channels into a contact list with the source of every address.
- **CRM enrichment.** Add the channel ID, name, description, outgoing links and contact email to creator records that only hold a handle or URL.
- **Checking a list before a mailing.** Rows with `email_source: not_found` show which creators publish no public address, so you do not waste a send on a guessed one.

## YouTube email finder compared with other options

| | This Actor | Opening each About tab by hand | Browser extensions | Influencer databases |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Input | List of handles, URLs or IDs | One channel at a time | One open channel page | Their own creator index |
| Source of the email | Channel description and the creator's linked website | Description | Usually the description | Often unclear |
| Reports where each address came from | Yes, `email_source` | Manual notes | Rarely | Rarely |
| Guessed addresses | Never | Never | Varies | Sometimes pattern-based |
| Output | Dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel, and API access | Spreadsheet you build | Copy and paste | Export within a subscription |
| Cost | Per successfully retrieved channel | Your time | Subscription or limited free use | Monthly subscription |

The difference with a plain channel email scraper is the second step: many creators publish their business contact only on their own site or shop. When the description has no address, the Actor follows the creator's own links and checks common contact pages, and it tells you that the address came from a linked website.

## Pricing

The unchanged price is **$0.012 per successfully retrieved channel**, under the `channel` event. A channel with no email is charged when its public channel information was retrieved successfully. A channel request that fails is free, including an unknown handle returning HTTP 404 and an entry that is not a usable YouTube address. Blank input and input errors produce no channel charges. There is no separate charge per email, website, redirect or contact page.

Free-plan users receive at most ten channel rows per run. Paying users retain their requested list. Results are delivered before event charging, and the run output reports what was charged. Large lists are collected in continuation steps within the run's overall timeout; warnings explain when some work remains.

## FAQ

### Does a missing email mean the channel lookup failed?

No. A valid channel can publish no public address. It returns `email: null`, `email_source: not_found` and `error: null`. A fetch failure has a populated error field and is excluded from channel charges.

### Can I disable linked website checks?

Yes. Set `follow_linked_websites` to `false`. The Actor still returns the channel's public metadata and its outgoing links, subject to the configured link-list limit, but checks no linked pages for addresses.

### Are duplicate inputs removed?

No. Each nonempty entry is processed independently and keeps its place in the output. Remove repeated channels from the input yourself if you want a unique list.

### Can this version reveal an address that requires login?

No. The compatibility field is accepted, but public extraction is the supported path. A supplied value adds a warning, and an address that is not publicly available remains `not_found`.

### Why can the address from a linked website change?

Creators can change pages and link destinations, and a website can expose different contact addresses on different pages. The extraction source and full address list help you inspect what was actually published at retrieval time. The Actor never guarantees a particular address indefinitely.

### Is this YouTube email finder free?

Not entirely. You can try it on the Apify free plan, which returns up to ten channel rows per run. Each successfully retrieved channel costs $0.012, whether or not an email was found, on every plan. Failed lookups, blank entries and input errors are free.

### Does it show the email behind the "View email address" button?

No. That button sits behind a YouTube sign-in and a challenge, and this version reads only what a channel publishes publicly: the description and the creator's linked websites. Channels that publish their address only behind that button return `email_source: not_found`.

### How many channels can I check in one run?

There is no fixed upper limit on the `channels` list for paying users. Large lists are processed in continuation steps within the run's timeout, and warnings in `OUTPUT` say when some work remains. Split very large lists over several runs if you need every row in one go.

### What happens if one channel in my list is wrong?

That channel gets its own row with an error such as `fetch_failed http 404` (unknown handle) or `fetch_failed http 0` (not a usable YouTube address). It is not charged, and every other channel in the list is processed and delivered as usual.