YouTube Shorts Scraper

Track public creator channels on a schedule and keep only the Shorts that matter to your workflow.

What does YouTube Shorts Scraper do?

YouTube Shorts Scraper reads a channel's Shorts feed and returns one clean dataset record per Short. Use it for competitor content checks, creator research, trend lists, and recurring alerts based on title, hashtag, view, or publish-date filters.

What data can you extract from YouTube Shorts?

• Short identity — video ID, canonical URL, title, thumbnail URL
• Performance — parsed views, source view label, optional exact likes
• Publishing — exact publish timestamp and duration when details are enabled
• Content — description and hashtags
• Creator — channel ID, name, handle, URL, and subscriber count
• Provenance — source channel URL, scrape timestamp, and detail-fetch flag

How to use YouTube Shorts Scraper

1. Add one or more YouTube channel handles or URLs in the input box.
2. Set the maximum Shorts and feed pages per channel.
3. Choose newest, popular, or oldest, then add optional keyword, view, or date filters.
4. Turn on exact Short details when you need publish times, likes, duration, or descriptions.
5. Click Run and download the dataset as JSON, CSV, or Excel, or call it through the dataset API.

How much does it cost?

The actor uses pay-per-result pricing: one billable result is one Short written to the dataset, priced at $0.0015 per Short ($1.50 per 1,000 at the free tier). There is no actor-specific result allowance or run-start charge; Apify account-plan limits still apply. Feed-only mode uses one direct HTML request per channel page. Exact details add one public Short-page request per selected candidate, so leave enrichment off for lightweight recurring checks.

Input

channels is required and accepts handles such as @Apify, usernames such as Apify, or full channel URLs. maxShortsPerChannel and maxPagesPerChannel bound the run. Source sorting is honored before the page budget is applied, and filters run before records are written.

{
  "channels": ["@Apify", "https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast"],
  "maxShortsPerChannel": 20,
  "sortBy": "popular",
  "titleKeywords": ["ai", "scraping"],
  "minViews": 1000,
  "includeVideoDetails": true
}

Output

Each dataset item represents one Short. Feed-only runs populate identity, titles, views, thumbnails, hashtags, and channel data; detail mode also populates exact publish time, likes, duration, and description.

{
  "videoId": "yIXOBAV3Jt8",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yIXOBAV3Jt8",
  "title": "New in Apify: AI that scrapes live data before it answers #ai",
  "viewCount": 1267,
  "likes": 14,
  "publishedAt": "2026-07-30T10:25:47-07:00",
  "durationSeconds": 53,
  "hashtags": ["#ai"],
  "channelName": "Apify",
  "detailsFetched": true
}

Integrations

Use the Apify API from Python or Node.js, schedule recurring runs, trigger webhooks, or connect the dataset to Make, Zapier, or n8n through Apify integrations. See the Apify integrations documentation for workflow examples.

Related actors

• YouTube Scraper — broader YouTube channel and video extraction.
• YouTube Shorts Scraper — established Shorts extraction with per-result pricing.

FAQ

Does this need a YouTube API key or login?

No. The actor reads structured data embedded in public YouTube channel and Short pages.

How does YouTube Shorts Scraper work?

It reads the structured data embedded in public channel and Short pages, then optionally fetches individual Short pages for exact engagement and publish metadata.

Can I use YouTube Shorts Scraper as an API?

Yes. Start a run through the Apify API or client library and read the run's default dataset.

Can I use YouTube Shorts Scraper in Python or Node.js?

Yes. Use the Apify client for either language; the dataset endpoint returns JSON, CSV, or Excel exports.

What does exact detail mode change?

It opens each selected Short page and adds exact publish time, views, likes, duration, description, and detail-page channel fields. This is more expensive than feed-only mode.

How do I monitor only recent Shorts?

Set publishedAfter to an ISO date such as 2026-08-01 or a relative period such as 7 days. The actor fetches detail pages automatically so the cutoff uses the source timestamp.

Are excluded Shorts billed?

No. Keyword, minimum-view, and date filters run before Actor.pushData, so excluded records are not emitted as results.

Can I use this for recurring checks?

Yes. Schedule the actor with a small page and result cap, then compare successive datasets or send each run to a webhook or downstream automation.

Is it legal to scrape YouTube Shorts?

This actor reads public pages and makes no legal or compliance determination. Users are responsible for following applicable law, platform rules, and their own data-use requirements.

Your feedback

Report a reproducible issue or request a field through the Issues tab on the Actor page.