# YouTube Channel Email & Lead Scraper (`schnellscrapers/youtube-channel-email-lead-scraper`) Actor

Bulk-enrich YouTube channels with identity, activity stats, business email when public, and 8 social profile URLs. 97% reachable contact coverage across verified channels. Built for cold-outreach agencies and creator-economy sales teams.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/schnellscrapers/youtube-channel-email-lead-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Nate Schnell](https://apify.com/schnellscrapers) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, Social media
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, NaN bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $60.00 / 1,000 channel records

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

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

## 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

## YouTube Channel Email & Lead Scraper

**Turn a list of YouTube channels into a clean lead-gen dataset.** Pass channel handles, IDs, or URLs — get back identity, activity stats, business email (when public), and every social/website link the channel exposes.

Verified against 89 real channels (mega creators, mid-tier creators, edu, news, gaming, music) in May 2026:

- **97%** of channels yielded at least one reachable contact path
- **12%** had a plaintext business email in their description (e.g. `business@MKBHD.com`)
- **55%** had a gated business email signal (YouTube confirms an email exists behind sign-in — high-value triage signal for manual lookup)
- **64%** had Instagram, **62%** had Twitter, **76%** had a website link
- **100%** of valid channels yielded full identity (channel ID, handle, name, joined date, avatar)

### What you get per channel

```json
{
  "channelId": "UCBJycsmduvYEL83R_U4JriQ",
  "handle": "@mkbhd",
  "name": "Marques Brownlee",
  "subscriberCount": "21000000",
  "videoCount": "1821",
  "viewCount": "5395779547",
  "country": "United States",
  "businessEmail": "business@MKBHD.com",
  "hasGatedBusinessEmail": "true",
  "description": "MKBHD: Quality Tech Videos | YouTuber | Geek...",
  "joinedDate": "Mar 21, 2008",
  "vanityUrl": "http://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd",
  "keywords": "MKBHD MarquesBrownlee Marques Brownlee",
  "avatarUrl": "https://yt3.googleusercontent.com/...",
  "rssUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=...",
  "websiteUrl": null,
  "instagramUrl": "http://instagram.com/MKBHD",
  "twitterUrl": "http://twitter.com/MKBHD",
  "tiktokUrl": null,
  "facebookUrl": null,
  "patreonUrl": null,
  "linkedinUrl": null,
  "discordUrl": "http://discord.gg/MKBHD",
  "linksJson": "[{\"title\":\"Twitter\",\"url\":\"http://twitter.com/MKBHD\",\"host\":\"twitter.com\"}, ...]"
}
````

Numeric fields (`subscriberCount`, `videoCount`, `viewCount`) are normalized to integer strings — `"21M subscribers"` becomes `"21000000"`. Compact suffixes (K, M, B), comma-grouped digits, and accessibility labels are all handled.

Social URLs are unwrapped from YouTube's `/redirect` proxy — you get the actual `instagram.com/handle` URL, not the obfuscated tracking link.

### Common workflows

**1. Cold outreach lead enrichment.**  Pass 1,000 creator handles → keep the 12% with plaintext email + the 55% with a gated email signal worth manual lookup + everyone with an Instagram/Twitter for DM outreach. Realistic conversion-ready list per 1,000 channels: ~600–700.

**2. Influencer due-diligence.** Verify a channel's join date, subscriber count, country, and social presence before sending a sponsorship offer. Useful for catching dead channels and bot inflation.

**3. Creator-economy SaaS onboarding.** Bulk-enrich a customer's competitor list with full social graph and activity stats — no manual copy-paste from YouTube About pages.

**4. Newsletter / podcast partnership sourcing.** Pull country + business email + website for a vertical (gaming, food, fitness) to build a tier-1 partnership pipeline.

### Input

```json
{
  "channels": ["@mkbhd", "@veritasium", "UCBJycsmduvYEL83R_U4JriQ", "https://www.youtube.com/@kurzgesagt"],
  "extractEmailOnly": false,
  "maxItems": 1000,
  "maxConcurrency": 4,
  "requestTimeoutSecs": 45,
  "proxyMode": "none"
}
```

| Field | Type | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| `channels` | string\[] | — | Handles (`@mkbhd`), channel IDs (`UC...`), or full URLs. The actor normalizes everything to a `/about` URL. |
| `startUrls` | object\[] | — | Alternative input form. Standard Apify `{ "url": "..." }` objects. |
| `extractEmailOnly` | boolean | `false` | If `true`, only emit records where `businessEmail` is non-null. |
| `maxItems` | integer | `100` | Hard cap on records pushed to the dataset. |
| `maxConcurrency` | integer | `4` | Browser concurrency. Increase if you bump memory; decrease if you see CPU throttling. |
| `requestTimeoutSecs` | integer | `60` | Per-channel timeout. 404s fail in <1s regardless. |
| `proxyMode` | enum | `none` | `none` works for YouTube at small/medium volume. Use `apify_proxy_datacenter` for higher throughput, `apify_proxy_residential` only if you see blocks. |

### Output

Dataset is plain JSON, one record per channel. Field reference:

- **Identity** (100% reliable on valid channels): `channelId`, `handle`, `name`, `vanityUrl`, `joinedDate`, `avatarUrl`, `rssUrl`
- **Activity** (97% reliable): `subscriberCount`, `videoCount`, `viewCount`, `country`, `description`, `keywords`
- **Contact** (variable, see coverage notes): `businessEmail`, `hasGatedBusinessEmail`
- **Social graph**: `websiteUrl`, `instagramUrl`, `twitterUrl`, `tiktokUrl`, `facebookUrl`, `patreonUrl`, `linkedinUrl`, `discordUrl`
- **Full link dump**: `linksJson` — JSON string array of every external link with title, url, host

Every field is `string | null`. Numeric fields are normalized integer strings. Boolean fields are `"true"` / `"false"` strings (for clean CSV export compatibility).

### What this actor does NOT do

- It does not log in to YouTube. The plaintext `businessEmail` field is only populated when a creator puts their email in their public channel description (~12% of channels). When YouTube has a business email behind their "Sign in to see email address" gate, we surface `hasGatedBusinessEmail: "true"` — but we don't bypass the gate.
- It does not scrape video lists, comments, or analytics. One channel = one record. If you need video-level data, use a dedicated YouTube Video Scraper actor.
- It does not deduplicate. Pass each channel once.

### Performance & cost

Validated on Apify cloud, May 2026, 100-channel run, 4096 MB:

- **3.8s per channel** average (single-CPU concurrency; bump memory to 8192 MB for 4-6× concurrent)
- **$0.001 per channel** actual Apify compute cost
- **404 / missing channels** fail in <1s (no 30s timeout drag)
- **0 crashes** across 100 channels including 11 intentionally-bad handles

### Quickstart

```bash
## Run locally (requires Apify CLI + node 22)
apify call --input '{"channels": ["@mkbhd", "@veritasium"]}'

## Or via the API
curl -X POST 'https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/<actor-id>/runs?token=<your-token>' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"channels": ["@mkbhd", "@veritasium"]}'
```

### Maintenance

If YouTube changes the embedded `ytInitialData` structure (specifically `channelMetadataRenderer` or `aboutChannelViewModel`), the parser may stop yielding some fields. The actor will degrade gracefully — `channelId`, `handle`, and at least one of identity/activity will still resolve — but I'll ship an update within 48 hours of detection. Open an issue on Apify Console for any field that suddenly drops below its baseline.

# Actor input Schema

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

List of YouTube channel handles (@mkbhd), channel IDs (UCxxx), or full channel URLs. The actor normalizes each entry to a /about page before fetching.

## `startUrls` (type: `array`):

Alternative input: paste full channel URLs. Use this OR `channels`.

## `extractEmailOnly` (type: `boolean`):

Filter the output dataset to channels where business\_email is non-null. Recommended for cold-outreach workflows.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Upper bound on records pushed to the dataset.

## `maxConcurrency` (type: `integer`):

Headless Chromium concurrency. Lower if you are using residential proxies.

## `requestTimeoutSecs` (type: `integer`):

Maximum time per channel page before giving up.

## `proxyMode` (type: `string`):

YouTube tolerates direct traffic; use residential only if you see blocks at scale.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "channels": [
    "@mkbhd",
    "@veritasium",
    "@mrbeast"
  ],
  "extractEmailOnly": false,
  "maxItems": 100,
  "maxConcurrency": 4,
  "requestTimeoutSecs": 60,
  "proxyMode": "none"
}
```

# 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": [
        "@mkbhd",
        "@veritasium",
        "@mrbeast"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("schnellscrapers/youtube-channel-email-lead-scraper").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": [
        "@mkbhd",
        "@veritasium",
        "@mrbeast",
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("schnellscrapers/youtube-channel-email-lead-scraper").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": [
    "@mkbhd",
    "@veritasium",
    "@mrbeast"
  ]
}' |
apify call schnellscrapers/youtube-channel-email-lead-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

```

## OpenAPI specification

```json
{
    "openapi": "3.0.1",
    "info": {
        "title": "YouTube Channel Email & Lead Scraper",
        "description": "Bulk-enrich YouTube channels with identity, activity stats, business email when public, and 8 social profile URLs. 97% reachable contact coverage across verified channels. Built for cold-outreach agencies and creator-economy sales teams.",
        "version": "0.1",
        "x-build-id": "Rwr9EPs3dUmjHeoPv"
    },
    "servers": [
        {
            "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2"
        }
    ],
    "paths": {
        "/acts/schnellscrapers~youtube-channel-email-lead-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "run-sync-get-dataset-items-schnellscrapers-youtube-channel-email-lead-scraper",
                "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": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK"
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "/acts/schnellscrapers~youtube-channel-email-lead-scraper/runs": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "runs-sync-schnellscrapers-youtube-channel-email-lead-scraper",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor and returns information about the initiated run in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$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": {
                                    "$ref": "#/components/schemas/runsResponseSchema"
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "/acts/schnellscrapers~youtube-channel-email-lead-scraper/run-sync": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "run-sync-schnellscrapers-youtube-channel-email-lead-scraper",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for completion, and returns the OUTPUT from Key-value store in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$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",
                "properties": {
                    "channels": {
                        "title": "Channels",
                        "type": "array",
                        "description": "List of YouTube channel handles (@mkbhd), channel IDs (UCxxx), or full channel URLs. The actor normalizes each entry to a /about page before fetching.",
                        "items": {
                            "type": "string"
                        }
                    },
                    "startUrls": {
                        "title": "Start URLs (advanced)",
                        "type": "array",
                        "description": "Alternative input: paste full channel URLs. Use this OR `channels`.",
                        "items": {
                            "type": "object",
                            "required": [
                                "url"
                            ],
                            "properties": {
                                "url": {
                                    "type": "string",
                                    "title": "URL of a web page",
                                    "format": "uri"
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    },
                    "extractEmailOnly": {
                        "title": "Only emit channels with a discoverable business email",
                        "type": "boolean",
                        "description": "Filter the output dataset to channels where business_email is non-null. Recommended for cold-outreach workflows.",
                        "default": false
                    },
                    "maxItems": {
                        "title": "Maximum records",
                        "minimum": 1,
                        "maximum": 10000,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "Upper bound on records pushed to the dataset.",
                        "default": 100
                    },
                    "maxConcurrency": {
                        "title": "Maximum concurrent browsers",
                        "minimum": 1,
                        "maximum": 32,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "Headless Chromium concurrency. Lower if you are using residential proxies.",
                        "default": 4
                    },
                    "requestTimeoutSecs": {
                        "title": "Request timeout (seconds)",
                        "minimum": 10,
                        "maximum": 300,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "Maximum time per channel page before giving up.",
                        "default": 60
                    },
                    "proxyMode": {
                        "title": "Proxy mode",
                        "enum": [
                            "none",
                            "apify_proxy_datacenter",
                            "apify_proxy_residential"
                        ],
                        "type": "string",
                        "description": "YouTube tolerates direct traffic; use residential only if you see blocks at scale.",
                        "default": "none"
                    }
                }
            },
            "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
                                    }
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
```