Youtube Comments Scraper

Youtube Comments Scraper

The Youtube Comments Scraper is a production-ready Apify actor that automatically collects YouTube video comments at scale — including text, authors, likes, timestamps, and replies — making it a powerful YouTube comment extractor and YouTube comments downloader for teams that need to scrape YouTube video comments reliably. Built for marketers, developers, data analysts, and researchers, it helps you export YouTube comments to CSV or JSON for sentiment analysis, audience insights, and feedback mining — all without an official API key.

What data / output can you get?

Below are the exact fields this actor saves to the Apify dataset for each comment. You can easily export results to CSV or JSON from the Apify console.

Data field	Description	Example value
cid	Unique YouTube comment ID	Ugzxs4_5UJwAI1xrNF14AaABAg
type	Record type (constant: comment)	comment
publishedTimeText	Relative time when the comment was posted	2 years ago
comment	The comment text content	This video changed my mind!
author	Author username (prefixed with @)	@SomeCreator
avatar	URL to author’s profile image	https://yt3.ggpht.com/…/s88-no-rj
authorIsChannelOwner	Whether the author is the video’s channel owner	true
isVerified	Whether the author is verified	true
voteCount	Number of likes/upvotes on the comment	189000
hasCreatorHeart	Whether the creator hearted this comment	true
replyCount	Number of replies for this comment	42
replyToCid	Parent comment ID (null for top-level comments)	Ugzabc123…
videoId	YouTube video ID the comment belongs to	KrLj6nc516A
pageUrl	Full video URL	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrLj6nc516A
title	Video title	$1 vs $100,000,000 Car!
commentsCount	Total comments count for the video at time of scraping	155000

Note: Some fields may be empty or null if YouTube doesn’t expose them for a given comment (for example, replyToCid on top-level comments). Title falls back to “Unknown Title” when not detected in the page.

Key features

• 🔄 Automatic proxy fallback & resilience
  Smartly handles blocking with a no proxy → datacenter → residential fallback flow, plus retries. Designed as a reliable YouTube comments API scraper without needing official API credentials.

• 🧵 Replies captured with parent linkage
  Collects both top-level comments and replies, preserving parent-child relationships via replyToCid so you can download YouTube comments with replies for thread analysis.

• 🧪 Sort by “Top” or “Newest”
  Choose to scrape top and newest YouTube comments using the sortOrder setting for different analysis scenarios (popular opinions vs. live feedback).

• 📦 Bulk video processing
  A true bulk YouTube comments scraper — add multiple URLs or IDs and process them sequentially in one run.

• 📊 Rich metadata for analysis
  Extracts engagement (voteCount, replyCount, hasCreatorHeart), author info (author, avatar, isVerified, authorIsChannelOwner), and video metadata (videoId, title, pageUrl, commentsCount). Ideal for YouTube comment analysis tooling and downstream sentiment pipelines.

• 🧰 Developer-friendly on Apify
  Use the Apify API to automate runs, integrate with Python scripts, or export datasets programmatically — perfect for “YouTube comments scraper Python” workflows.

• 📤 Easy exporting
  Export YouTube comments to CSV or JSON from the dataset UI for immediate analysis and reporting.

• 🧱 Production-ready
  Includes robust retry logic, timeouts, detailed logging, and incremental dataset writes, making it a stable YouTube comments scraper without API keys or browser extensions.

How to use Youtube Comments Scraper - step by step

1. Sign in to your Apify account and open the “youtube-comments-scraper” actor.
2. Paste your targets into the startUrls field as a simple list:
   • Full URLs (e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID or https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID)
   • Or the 11-character video ID (e.g., VIDEO_ID)
3. Set maxComments to limit per-video results (use 0 to scrape all available comments).
4. Choose sortOrder: top for the most relevant/liked comments, newest for the latest discussions.
5. (Optional) Configure proxyConfiguration. By default, no proxy is used; the actor will automatically fall back if blocked.
6. Click Start. Watch the live logs to see progress, including any proxy fallback events.
7. When the run finishes, open the Dataset to view results and export to CSV or JSON.

Pro Tip: Use the Apify API to trigger runs, pull dataset items, and automate delivery into your BI stack (Make, n8n, or custom pipelines).

Use cases

Use case	Description
Marketing + sentiment analysis	Aggregate comments to evaluate sentiment and themes around campaigns or creators for strategy decisions.
Product feedback mining	Extract user feedback from relevant videos to inform roadmap and CX improvements.
Social listening & brand monitoring	Track discussions, measure engagement, and identify brand mentions across video comments.
Academic & social research	Collect structured comment threads for behavioral studies and discourse analysis.
Competitive intelligence	Compare comment engagement (likes, replies, creator hearts) across competitors’ videos.
Community management	Surface top or newest comments to prioritize moderation and response workflows.
Data engineering pipelines	Automate a YouTube comments API scraper workflow to supply downstream analytics and LLM-based summarization.

Why choose Youtube Comments Scraper?

The Youtube Comments Scraper focuses on accuracy, scale, and reliability — built for real-world data operations.

• ✅ Accurate, structured outputs: Consistent fields for clean ingestion and analysis.
• 🌍 No official API key required: Works out of the box as a YouTube comments scraper without API credentials.
• 📈 Built for scale: Process many videos in one run with incremental dataset writes.
• 🧑‍💻 Developer access: Automate end-to-end via the Apify API and integrate with Python or low-code tools.
• 🛡️ Resilient scraping: Automatic fallback from no proxy → datacenter → residential with retries to minimize blocking.
• 🔌 Easy exports & workflows: Export to CSV/JSON for dashboards or data warehouses.
• 🆚 Better than extensions: More stable and scalable than browser-based plugins or manual tools.

In short: a production-grade YouTube comments extractor that’s dependable for ongoing research and analytics.

Is it legal / ethical to use Youtube Comments Scraper?

Yes — when used responsibly. This actor collects data from publicly available YouTube pages only and does not access private or authenticated content.

Guidelines for compliant use:

• Only scrape public pages and public comment data.
• Respect YouTube’s Terms of Service and avoid excessive request rates.
• Ensure compliance with applicable laws (e.g., GDPR, CCPA) in your region and use case.
• Do not use scraped data for spam or abusive activities.
• Consult your legal team for edge cases or jurisdiction-specific requirements.

Input parameters & output format

Example input (JSON):

{
  "startUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrLj6nc516A",
    "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  ],
  "maxComments": 50,
  "sortOrder": "top",
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}

Input fields

• startUrls (array, required, default: none) — Enter YouTube video URLs or 11-character IDs. Supports multiple items; processed sequentially.
• maxComments (integer, optional, default: 50, minimum: 0) — Maximum comments per video. Set 0 for no limit.
• sortOrder (string, optional, default: "top", enum: ["top","newest"]) — Choose ordering when fetching comments.
• proxyConfiguration (object, optional, default: {"useApifyProxy": false}) — Configure Apify Proxy if needed. Actor automatically falls back from no proxy → datacenter → residential when blocked.

Example output (one record per comment):

{
  "cid": "Ugzxs4_5UJwAI1xrNF14AaABAg",
  "type": "comment",
  "publishedTimeText": "2 years ago",
  "comment": "Subscribe to be in one of my upcoming videos (it's going to be huge!)",
  "author": "@MrBeast",
  "avatar": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/nxYrc_1_2f77DoBadyxMTmv7ZpRZapHR5jbuYe7PlPd5cIRJxtNNEYyOC0ZsxaDyJJzXrnJiuDE=s88-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj",
  "authorIsChannelOwner": true,
  "isVerified": true,
  "voteCount": 189000,
  "hasCreatorHeart": true,
  "replyCount": 763,
  "replyToCid": null,
  "videoId": "KrLj6nc516A",
  "pageUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrLj6nc516A",
  "title": "$1 vs $100,000,000 Car!",
  "commentsCount": 155000
}

Notes:

• type is always “comment”.
• replyToCid is null for top-level comments and populated for replies.
• Some fields may be absent when not provided by YouTube (e.g., avatar, isVerified). Title may fall back to “Unknown Title”.

FAQ

Do I need a YouTube API key to use this?

No. This is a YouTube comments scraper without API keys. It fetches publicly available data directly and includes robust fallback for blocking scenarios.

Can it download replies and keep threads together?

Yes. The actor extracts replies and links them to their parent via replyToCid, so you can download YouTube comments with replies and reconstruct threads.

Can I scrape “Top” vs “Newest” comments?

Yes. Set sortOrder to “top” or “newest” to scrape top and newest YouTube comments depending on your use case.

How many comments can I scrape per video?

You control this via maxComments. Set it to 0 to scrape all available comments, or choose any number for sampling. The default is 50.

Can I filter YouTube comments by keyword?

There isn’t a built-in keyword filter in the input. However, you can filter the exported dataset (CSV/JSON) in your analysis tooling or scripts.

Is there a way to export YouTube comments to CSV?

Yes. After the run finishes, open the Dataset and export as CSV or JSON directly from the Apify console.

Does this work with Python or via an API?

Yes. You can run the actor and fetch results through the Apify API, or integrate with your “YouTube comments scraper Python” workflows to automate pipelines.

Is this a Chrome extension?

No. It’s an Apify-hosted automation (not a YouTube comments scraper Chrome extension), which makes it more stable and scalable for bulk jobs.

What happens if YouTube blocks requests?

The actor automatically falls back from no proxy to datacenter, then to residential proxies with retries, improving success rates in strict regions.

Does it scrape channel-wide comments?

This tool targets YouTube video comments. Provide individual video URLs or IDs to process; each video’s comments are saved with the correct metadata.

Closing thoughts

The Youtube Comments Scraper is built to reliably extract rich YouTube comment data at scale. With automatic proxy fallback, bulk processing, and structured outputs, it’s ideal for marketers, developers, data analysts, and researchers who need dependable pipelines. Automate via the Apify API or plug results into your “YouTube comments analysis tool” stack to accelerate insights. Start extracting smarter — and if you need custom features, reach us at dev.scraperengine@gmail.com.