YouTube Scraper

Scrape YouTube videos, channels, Shorts, and search results. Extract views, likes, comments, tags, descriptions, thumbnails, engagement metrics, and channel info. No API key required.

Four Scraping Modes

Mode	Input	Output	Use Case
SEARCH	Keywords	Videos from search results	Find videos by topic
CHANNEL	Channel URLs	Channel info + video list	Analyze a creator's content
SHORTS	Channel URLs	Channel info + Shorts list	Track short-form content
VIDEO	Video URLs/IDs	Full video metadata	Deep analysis of specific videos

Features

• Multi-query support — Search multiple keywords in a single run with per-query limits
• Deduplication — Same video found by different queries is only returned once
• Detail enrichment — Toggle includeDetails for likes, comments, tags, category, and full description
• No API key needed — Works without YouTube Data API credentials
• Engagement rate — Automatically calculated from likes + comments / views
• Shorts detection — Identifies YouTube Shorts with is_short flag
• Channel metadata — Subscriber count, video count, handle, verification status
• Thumbnail preview — See thumbnails directly in the Apify dataset table
• Pay-per-result — Only pay for results you get, no monthly fees

Data Extracted

Search results (fast)

Field	Example
title	"React Tutorial for Beginners"
video_url	"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=..."
thumbnail_url	"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/.../hq720.jpg"
view_count	5681802
duration	"1:00:06"
channel_name	"Programming with Mosh"
channel_url	"https://www.youtube.com/@programmingwithmosh"
published_at	"2 years ago"
is_short	false
search_query	"react tutorial"

With includeDetails: true (complete)

All fields above, plus:

Field	Example
like_count	95000
comment_count	1900
engagement_rate	1.705
description	Full video description text
tags	["react", "javascript", "tutorial", ...]
category	"Education"
published_at	"2024-09-16T05:00:00-07:00" (exact ISO date)
channel_subscribers	"4.2M subscribers"

Channel data (channel/shorts modes)

Field	Example
name	"MrBeast"
handle	"@MrBeast"
subscriber_count	"472M subscribers"
video_count	"960 videos"
channel_url	"https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast"

Pricing

Pay-per-result pricing. You only pay for the data you receive.

Event	Price	Description
Search result scraped	$0.001	A video entry from search results
Video details extracted	$0.003	Full metadata from a video page
Channel scraped	$0.001	Channel info with video listings

Examples:

• 1,000 search results = $1.00
• 500 videos with full details = $1.50
• 10 channels + 500 videos = $0.51

No monthly fees. No minimum spend.

Input

Field	Type	Description	Default
mode	string	search, channel, video, or shorts	search
searchQueries	string[]	Keywords to search (search mode)	[]
urls	string[]	YouTube URLs (channel/video/shorts modes)	[]
maxResults	integer	Maximum total results. 0 = unlimited.	100
maxResultsPerQuery	integer	Maximum results per query/URL	100
sortBy	string	relevance, date, views, rating	relevance
includeDetails	boolean	Fetch detail pages for likes, tags, etc.	false
proxyConfiguration	object	Proxy settings	Auto

Usage Examples

Search for videos by keyword

{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQueries": ["web scraping tutorial", "python automation"],
  "maxResults": 100,
  "maxResultsPerQuery": 50,
  "sortBy": "relevance",
  "includeDetails": true
}

Scrape all videos from a channel

{
  "mode": "channel",
  "urls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast"],
  "maxResults": 200
}

Get full details for specific videos

{
  "mode": "video",
  "urls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0"
  ]
}

Scrape Shorts from a channel

{
  "mode": "shorts",
  "urls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast"],
  "maxResults": 50
}

Supported URL Formats

• https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast — Channel by handle
• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA — Channel by ID
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ — Video URL
• https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ — Short URL
• https://www.youtube.com/shorts/abc123 — Shorts URL
• dQw4w9WgXcQ — Just the video ID

Output

Results are exported to the default dataset. A YouTube Videos table view shows thumbnails, titles, views, likes, comments, engagement, and duration at a glance.

Export to JSON, CSV, Excel, or connect via API.

FAQ

Do I need a YouTube API key? No. This scraper works without any API key or credentials.

What's the difference between search mode and search + details? Search mode returns basic data from search results (fast). With includeDetails: true, each video's page is also visited to get likes, comments, tags, category, and full description.

Can I scrape comments? The scraper extracts the total comment count per video. Full comment text extraction is not yet supported.

Does this work with YouTube Shorts? Yes. Use shorts mode with a channel URL, or check the is_short flag in other modes.

How many videos can I scrape? Up to 10,000 per run. For larger volumes, run multiple instances with different queries.

Issues & Feature Requests

If something is not working or you're missing a feature or data field, please open an issue and we'll look into it.