# Free YouTube Channel Email Extractor (`s-r/free-youtube-channel-email-reveal`) Actor

Extract business email addresses from YouTube channels — multi-layer approach: channel description regex + linked-website crawl. Honest no-email reporting (never guesses).

- **URL**: https://apify.com/s-r/free-youtube-channel-email-reveal.md
- **Developed by:** [SR](https://apify.com/s-r) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation
- **Stats:** 4 total users, 4 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, NaN bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per usage

This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-usage

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are a software tools running on the Apify platform, for all kinds of web data extraction and automation use cases.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

In JavaScript/TypeScript projects, use official [JavaScript/TypeScript client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js.md):

```bash
npm install apify-client
```

In Python projects, use official [Python client library](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python.md):

```bash
pip install apify-client
```

In shell scripts, use [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md):

````bash
# MacOS / Linux
curl -fsSL https://apify.com/install-cli.sh | bash
# Windows
irm https://apify.com/install-cli.ps1 | iex
```bash

In AI frameworks, you might use the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp.md).

If your project is in a different language, use the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).


# README

## Free YouTube Channel Email Extractor

Extract business email addresses from any YouTube channel — **multi-layer
fallback** so you get the highest possible hit-rate without paying for
incumbent CAPTCHA-solving services.

Honest "no email found" reporting (never fabricates / guesses), per-result
`email_source` field so you can filter low-confidence results.

### How it works

**Layer 1 — Channel description** (free, fast)
Parse the channel's `/about` page, extract the description, and regex
out any email addresses. Roughly 30% of channels paste their business
email directly in the description.

**Layer 2 — Linked websites** (paid via PPE, slower)
If Layer 1 finds nothing, fetch each website linked from the channel
(Linktree, official site, etc.), extract markdown text, and regex emails
from there. Lifts hit-rate by ~25% additional.

**Layer 3 — Logged-in reveal** (opt-in, requires Google session cookie)
For the ~30% of channels where the email sits behind YouTube's "View
email address" button, supply a logged-in YouTube session via the
`google_login_cookie` input. The actor opens `/about` as the logged-in
user, clicks the reveal button, and intercepts the revealed email. Uses
[Patchright](https://github.com/Kaliiiiiiiiii-Vinyzu/patchright) (a
stealth fork of Playwright) to avoid bot detection.

### What you get per channel

```json
{
  "input": "@MrBeast",
  "channel_about_url": "https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast/about",
  "channel_handle": "@MrBeast",
  "channel_name": "MrBeast",
  "channel_id": "UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA",
  "description": "SUBSCRIBE FOR A COOKIE!...",
  "linked_websites": ["https://feastables.com", "https://shopmrbeast.com"],
  "all_emails": ["press@mrbeast.com"],
  "email": "press@mrbeast.com",
  "email_source": "description",
  "duration_seconds": 1.4
}
````

The `email_source` field tells you the confidence level / data source:

| Value | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `description` | Layer 1 — high confidence, channel owner literally wrote it in the channel description |
| `linked_website` | Layer 2 — medium confidence, found on a site the channel links to |
| `login_reveal` | Layer 3 — high confidence, revealed via YouTube's official "View email address" flow using your supplied session cookie |
| `not_found` | All enabled layers came back empty |

### Input

| Field | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| `channels` | required | Array of `@handle`, channel URL, or channel ID (`UCxxx...`) |
| `follow_linked_websites` | true | Layer 2 — crawl linked sites for emails |
| `max_linked_per_channel` | 3 | Cap how many linked URLs to fetch per channel |
| `google_login_cookie` | none | Layer 3 — paste your YouTube session as a Cookie header (`SAPISID=...; __Secure-3PSID=...; LOGIN_INFO=...`) or JSON `{name: value}`. When empty, Layer 3 is skipped |
| `concurrency` | 10 | Concurrent channel lookups (1-25). Layer 3 internally caps at 3 concurrent browsers |

### Use cases

- **YouTube creator outreach at scale** — pull thousands of channels, get
  the contactable ones in one batch
- **Influencer marketing pipelines** — feed niche keyword lists into a YT
  search, then run their channels through this Actor for outreach
- **Sponsorship prospecting** — find creators in your category, get their
  business email, send pitch
- **Brand-safety audits** — verify a sponsored creator's stated contact
  matches what's publicly visible

### How to get a `google_login_cookie`

Open YouTube in Chrome while signed in, open DevTools → Network → click
any request to `youtube.com` → Headers → Request Headers → copy the
entire `cookie:` value. Paste that string into the
`google_login_cookie` field.

The cookies you specifically need are:
`SAPISID`, `__Secure-3PSID`, `__Secure-3PSIDCC`, `__Secure-3PAPISID`,
`HSID`, `SSID`, `APISID`, `LOGIN_INFO`. Pasting the full Cookie header
is fine — extra cookies are harmless.

> **Important:** Use a YouTube account you don't mind being rate-limited.
> Heavy scraping with one account can lead to temporary throttling on that
> account. Rotate sessions for high-volume runs.

### Why this beats single-layer YouTube email scrapers

Most YouTube email scrapers either (a) only hit the description (low
hit-rate), or (b) try to bypass YouTube's CAPTCHA with paid solvers at
$0.001-0.003 per solve and still fail ~30% of the time, then bill you
anyway. This Actor:

- **Never charges for empty results** with `minimalMaxTotalChargeUsd` cap
- **Returns `email_source` for every hit** so you can filter low-quality
  data downstream
- **Never fabricates** — no fake "guess pattern" emails like
  `firstname.lastname@brand.com` that clutter your CRM
- **You bring your own session cookie for Layer 3** — no shared CAPTCHA
  budget that runs dry mid-batch

### Limits

- **Layers 1+2 alone**: ~55-60% hit rate
- **All three layers** (with valid session): ~85% hit rate
- Some channels have NO email anywhere (~15%) — we return `not_found` honestly
- YouTube rate-limits aggressive scraping; concurrency is capped at 25
- Layer 3 is **best-effort** — even with valid auth, YouTube may
  reCAPTCHA the reveal button on suspicious sessions / fresh IPs
- Layer 3 takes ~10-15 seconds per channel due to browser automation overhead

### Related Actors

- **[Free YouTube Transcript Downloader](https://apify.com/s-r/free-youtube-transcript)** — pair with this to qualify channels by content

# Actor input Schema

## `channels` (type: `array`):

List of channel handles (@channelname), channel URLs, or channel IDs (UCxxxx).

## `follow_linked_websites` (type: `boolean`):

Layer 2: If true, fetch each website linked from the channel page (Linktree, official site, etc.) and extract emails. Slower but raises hit-rate by ~25%.

## `max_linked_per_channel` (type: `integer`):

Cap how many linked URLs we fetch per channel during Layer 2.

## `google_login_cookie` (type: `string`):

Optional. Paste a logged-in YouTube session as either a Cookie header string ('SAPISID=...; \_\_Secure-3PSID=...; LOGIN\_INFO=...') or a JSON object {name: value}. When supplied, the actor opens /about as the logged-in user, clicks 'View email address', and intercepts the revealed email. Leave empty to skip Layer 3.

## `concurrency` (type: `integer`):

Concurrent channel lookups (1-25). Capped at 25 to stay under YouTube rate limits. Layer 3 (browser-based reveal) is internally capped at 3 concurrent browsers regardless of this setting.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "channels": [
    "@MrBeast",
    "https://www.youtube.com/@LinusTechTips",
    "UCxXOCwEDh4uxyADIemPDvgg"
  ],
  "follow_linked_websites": true,
  "max_linked_per_channel": 3,
  "concurrency": 10
}
```

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "channels": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("s-r/free-youtube-channel-email-reveal").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "channels": ["https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("s-r/free-youtube-channel-email-reveal").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "channels": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd"
  ]
}' |
apify call s-r/free-youtube-channel-email-reveal --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=s-r/free-youtube-channel-email-reveal",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

```json
{
    "openapi": "3.0.1",
    "info": {
        "title": "Free YouTube Channel Email Extractor",
        "description": "Extract business email addresses from YouTube channels — multi-layer approach: channel description regex + linked-website crawl. Honest no-email reporting (never guesses).",
        "version": "0.1",
        "x-build-id": "Zf1TDVI5FIvfsK52j"
    },
    "servers": [
        {
            "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2"
        }
    ],
    "paths": {
        "/acts/s-r~free-youtube-channel-email-reveal/run-sync-get-dataset-items": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "run-sync-get-dataset-items-s-r-free-youtube-channel-email-reveal",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for its completion, and returns Actor's dataset items in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK"
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "/acts/s-r~free-youtube-channel-email-reveal/runs": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "runs-sync-s-r-free-youtube-channel-email-reveal",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor and returns information about the initiated run in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK",
                        "content": {
                            "application/json": {
                                "schema": {
                                    "$ref": "#/components/schemas/runsResponseSchema"
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "/acts/s-r~free-youtube-channel-email-reveal/run-sync": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "run-sync-s-r-free-youtube-channel-email-reveal",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for completion, and returns the OUTPUT from Key-value store in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK"
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    },
    "components": {
        "schemas": {
            "inputSchema": {
                "type": "object",
                "required": [
                    "channels"
                ],
                "properties": {
                    "channels": {
                        "title": "YouTube channels",
                        "type": "array",
                        "description": "List of channel handles (@channelname), channel URLs, or channel IDs (UCxxxx).",
                        "items": {
                            "type": "string"
                        }
                    },
                    "follow_linked_websites": {
                        "title": "Crawl linked websites for emails",
                        "type": "boolean",
                        "description": "Layer 2: If true, fetch each website linked from the channel page (Linktree, official site, etc.) and extract emails. Slower but raises hit-rate by ~25%.",
                        "default": true
                    },
                    "max_linked_per_channel": {
                        "title": "Max linked sites per channel",
                        "minimum": 1,
                        "maximum": 10,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "Cap how many linked URLs we fetch per channel during Layer 2.",
                        "default": 3
                    },
                    "google_login_cookie": {
                        "title": "Google session cookie (opt-in Layer 3)",
                        "type": "string",
                        "description": "Optional. Paste a logged-in YouTube session as either a Cookie header string ('SAPISID=...; __Secure-3PSID=...; LOGIN_INFO=...') or a JSON object {name: value}. When supplied, the actor opens /about as the logged-in user, clicks 'View email address', and intercepts the revealed email. Leave empty to skip Layer 3."
                    },
                    "concurrency": {
                        "title": "Max concurrency",
                        "minimum": 1,
                        "maximum": 25,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "Concurrent channel lookups (1-25). Capped at 25 to stay under YouTube rate limits. Layer 3 (browser-based reveal) is internally capped at 3 concurrent browsers regardless of this setting.",
                        "default": 10
                    }
                }
            },
            "runsResponseSchema": {
                "type": "object",
                "properties": {
                    "data": {
                        "type": "object",
                        "properties": {
                            "id": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "actId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "userId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "startedAt": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "format": "date-time",
                                "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z"
                            },
                            "finishedAt": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "format": "date-time",
                                "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z"
                            },
                            "status": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "example": "READY"
                            },
                            "meta": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "origin": {
                                        "type": "string",
                                        "example": "API"
                                    },
                                    "userAgent": {
                                        "type": "string"
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "stats": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "inputBodyLen": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 2000
                                    },
                                    "rebootCount": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "restartCount": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "resurrectCount": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "computeUnits": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "options": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "build": {
                                        "type": "string",
                                        "example": "latest"
                                    },
                                    "timeoutSecs": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 300
                                    },
                                    "memoryMbytes": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 1024
                                    },
                                    "diskMbytes": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 2048
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "buildId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "defaultKeyValueStoreId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "defaultDatasetId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "defaultRequestQueueId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "buildNumber": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "example": "1.0.0"
                            },
                            "containerUrl": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "usage": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 1
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_SERPS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "usageTotalUsd": {
                                "type": "number",
                                "example": 0.00005
                            },
                            "usageUsd": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "number",
                                        "example": 0.00005
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_SERPS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    }
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
```