Youtube Trending Scraper

Youtube Trending Scraper

The Youtube Trending Scraper is a fast, reliable YouTube trending videos scraper that captures real-time top videos by country and category — then enriches each result with titles, channels, views, likes, comments, and more. It solves the pain of tracking YouTube trends across regions by automating discovery and extraction into a clean dataset, acting as a YouTube trends extractor and YouTube trending videos API alternative via Apify. Built for marketers, developers, analysts, and researchers, it scales from quick spot checks to large, multi-country trend analyses.

What data / output can you get?

Below are the primary fields pushed to the dataset for each video. These map directly to the actor’s output structure.

Data type	Description	Example value
type	Record type (always “video”)	"video"
id	YouTube video ID	"2dmCaK0qslM"
title	Video title	"Ultimate Gaming Setup 2026"
status	Extraction status	"OK"
url	Canonical watch URL	"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dmCaK0qslM"
description	Video description text	"We built the ultimate desk setup..."
duration	Length in seconds (may be null if unknown)	8940
views	View count (string)	"1487513"
likes	Like count (string)	"124690"
comments	Comment count (string)	"1K"
channel.id	Channel ID	"UCE-8FgcXvnAsb2EG1FizSyg"
channel.name	Channel name	"TechWorld"
channel.handle	Channel handle (if available)	"@techworld"
channel.url	Channel URL (null if unavailable)	"https://www.youtube.com/@techworld"
channel.subscriberCount	Subscribers (string, if available)	"4.81M subscribers"
channel.badges	Channel badges	["Verified"]
keywords	Keywords/tags array	["gaming","setup","PC"]
category	Category label	"Gaming"
thumbnails	Thumbnails array with dimensions	[{"url":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/2dmCaK0qslM/maxresdefault.jpg","width":168,"height":94}]
embedUrl	Embed URL	"https://www.youtube.com/embed/2dmCaK0qslM"
isLive	Live content flag	false
isFamilySafe	Family-safe flag	true
isRatingsAllowed	Ratings allowed (always true in output)	true
isPrivate	Private flag (always false)	false
isExclusive	Exclusive flag (always false)	false
isEmbeddable	Embeddable flag	true
isUnlisted	Unlisted flag (always false)	false
publishDate	ISO publish timestamp (if found)	"2026-03-30T08:10:00Z"
uploadDate	ISO upload timestamp (if found)	"2026-03-30T08:10:00Z"
relativeDate	Reserved placeholder (null)	null

Notes:

• Results are stored in the Apify dataset; you can export to JSON, CSV, or Excel from the platform.
• Extra metadata like channel badges and thumbnail dimensions are included when available.

Key features

• 🔄 Intelligent proxy fallback

  • Starts with your chosen preference and can automatically step up through datacenter → residential proxies when YouTube is picky. Retries per video with graceful, silent handling to keep your runs stable.

• 🌍 Multi-country, category-scoped trends

  • Scrape YouTube trending by country (US, GB, IN, JP, …) and filter by vertical chart: music, gaming, movies, sports, or entertainment. Perfect for a YouTube trending by country scraper workflow.

• 🎯 Flexible sampling controls

  • Limit results per country row with maxVideosPerInput (default 10). Set 0 for unlimited to build a full YouTube trending dataset.

• 🧠 Robust data extraction

  • Merges HTML meta, ytInitialPlayerResponse, and ytInitialData to capture titles, views, likes, comments, keywords, categories, thumbnails, channel IDs/handles, and timestamps — a dependable YouTube trending analytics tool.

• ⚙️ Developer-friendly

  • Run in Apify, call via API, and integrate with your pipelines. Use it as a YouTube trending videos API alternative in Python, JavaScript, Make, n8n, or internal ETLs.

• 🚦 Production-ready reliability

  • Concurrency governance, 30s request timeouts, retries, and logging ensure consistent runs at scale — a stable YouTube trending crawler for real workloads.

How to use Youtube Trending Scraper - step by step

1. Create or log in to your Apify account.
2. Open the Youtube Trending Scraper actor (youtube-trending-scraper) in the Apify Console.
3. Add your inputs:
   • In startUrls, enter 2-letter country codes (one per line). You can also paste a youtube.com link with &gl=XX to use a specific region code.
   • Choose contentType from: music, gaming, movies, sports, entertainment.
   • Set maxVideosPerInput (0 = unlimited; default 10).
   • Optionally configure proxyConfiguration (recommended for YouTube trending web scraping).
4. Start the run.
5. Monitor logs for progress, proxy switching, and extraction details.
6. Review results in the Dataset tab.
7. Export your YouTube trending dataset to JSON, CSV, or Excel for analysis or automation.

Pro tip: Chain this actor with your analytics or BI stack to build a YouTube trending topics scraper workflow that refreshes on a schedule.

Use cases

Use case name	Description
Marketing + trend scouting	Track what’s trending by country and category to inform content calendars and campaign themes.
Competitive analysis	Monitor top videos in gaming, music, sports, and entertainment to benchmark formats and hooks.
Content planning for creators	Scrape YouTube trending videos to spot patterns in titles, thumbnails, and topics before publishing.
Regional insights for brands	Compare “what’s hot” across regions to localize messaging and creative.
Data science pipelines	Feed structured trends into models for virality prediction and topic clustering.
Academic research	Build a reproducible YouTube trending dataset for media, culture, or network analysis studies.
Automation/API workflows	Use via Apify API as a YouTube trending data scraper endpoint in Python or serverless jobs.

Why choose Youtube Trending Scraper?

Positioned for precision and reliability, this tool delivers clean, structured output without brittle browser automation.

• ✅ Accurate, merged extraction from multiple page data sources
• 🌐 Country-based trending coverage with vertical categories
• 📈 Scales from quick samples to unlimited runs per region
• 💻 API- and developer-friendly for Python/SDK integrations
• 🛡️ Smart proxy logic for resilient YouTube trending web scraping
• 💾 Easy dataset exports for downstream analytics
• 🔧 More reliable than ad-hoc extensions and fragile scrapers

In short, it’s a dependable YouTube trending videos scraper built for production-grade workflows.

Is it legal / ethical to use Youtube Trending Scraper?

Yes — when done responsibly. This actor collects publicly available information from YouTube watch pages and trending listings.

Guidelines:

• Only use public data, and avoid private/unlisted content.
• Respect YouTube’s Terms of Service and your jurisdiction’s regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA).
• Use results for analysis, research, or operations that comply with applicable policies.
• Consult your legal team for edge cases or sensitive applications.

The actor does not access private profiles, authenticated data, or gated endpoints.

Input parameters & output format

Example JSON input

{
  "startUrls": ["US", "GB", "IN"],
  "contentType": "gaming",
  "maxVideosPerInput": 10,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}

Input parameters

• startUrls (array, required)
  • Description: Put one 2-letter country code per line (US, GB, IN, BD, JP, …). Each line = that region’s trending chart. Unknown text defaults to US; a youtube.com link with &gl=XX uses region XX.
  • Default: none
• contentType (string)
  • Description: Which vertical chart to read: music, gaming, movies, sports, or entertainment. Default is gaming—switch to music or sports to match what you’re tracking.
  • Default: "gaming"
  • Allowed values: "music", "gaming", "movies", "sports", "entertainment"
• maxVideosPerInput (integer)
  • Description: Max trending videos to keep per country row. Set 0 for unlimited. Lower = faster; higher = fuller sample.
  • Default: 10
  • Minimum: 0
• proxyConfiguration (object)
  • Description: Route traffic through Apify Proxy so YouTube is less likely to block or return thin pages. Leave off for a direct run; if things get blocked, the actor can still step up through datacenter → residential automatically.
  • Default: none (UI prefill shows {"useApifyProxy": false})

Example JSON output

[
  {
    "type": "video",
    "id": "2dmCaK0qslM",
    "title": "Ultimate Gaming Setup 2026",
    "status": "OK",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dmCaK0qslM",
    "description": "We built the ultimate desk setup with next-gen GPUs and displays.",
    "duration": 8940,
    "views": "1487513",
    "likes": "124690",
    "comments": "1K",
    "channel": {
      "id": "UCE-8FgcXvnAsb2EG1FizSyg",
      "name": "TechWorld",
      "handle": "@techworld",
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@techworld",
      "subscriberCount": "4.81M subscribers",
      "thumbnails": [],
      "badges": ["Verified"]
    },
    "keywords": ["gaming", "setup", "PC"],
    "isRatingsAllowed": true,
    "isLive": false,
    "isFamilySafe": true,
    "category": "Gaming",
    "isPrivate": false,
    "isExclusive": false,
    "thumbnails": [
      {
        "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/2dmCaK0qslM/maxresdefault.jpg",
        "width": 168,
        "height": 94
      }
    ],
    "embedUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/embed/2dmCaK0qslM",
    "isEmbeddable": true,
    "isUnlisted": false,
    "publishDate": "2026-03-30T08:10:00Z",
    "relativeDate": null,
    "uploadDate": "2026-03-30T08:10:00Z"
  }
]

Notes on optional fields:

• duration may be null if not available.
• channel.url can be null if a clean channel link isn’t present.
• relativeDate is null by design.
• status is "OK" when a valid video ID is resolved; "UNKNOWN" otherwise.

FAQ

Do I need to log in to scrape YouTube trends?

No. The actor accesses publicly available pages and does not require login or cookies. It fetches watch pages based on collected video IDs and extracts metadata directly.

Is this a YouTube trending API?

It works as a YouTube trending videos API alternative via the Apify platform. You trigger a run and retrieve structured data through the Apify dataset or API, making it easy to integrate into Python or other pipelines.

Can it scrape multiple countries at once?

Yes. Add multiple 2-letter country codes (one per line) to startUrls. The scraper will fetch each region’s chart and respect maxVideosPerInput for each.

How do categories work (music, gaming, movies, sports, entertainment)?

Set contentType to target a specific vertical chart. This helps you focus your YouTube trending analytics tool on the niche you care about, like gaming or music.

Does it support YouTube Shorts?

The actor focuses on regional trending charts by category and then scrapes per-video watch pages. If a short appears with a standard watch page, metadata is extracted; however, this is not a dedicated Shorts-only scraper.

How does proxy handling work?

You can configure proxyConfiguration. If you leave it off, the tool can still step up through datacenter → residential proxies when it detects blocks or thin pages, helping maintain success rates for YouTube trending web scraping.

How many videos will I get per country?

By default, the actor collects up to 10 per country row. Set maxVideosPerInput to 0 for unlimited, or to any positive number to cap results.

What export formats are supported?

Data is saved to the Apify dataset. From there, you can export to JSON, CSV, or Excel for downstream use in analytics tools, dashboards, or databases.

Closing CTA / Final thoughts

The Youtube Trending Scraper is built to capture real-time YouTube trends by country and category with clean, structured output. With proxy-aware reliability, flexible limits, and rich fields (titles, channels, views, likes, comments, keywords, thumbnails, timestamps), it’s ideal for marketers, analysts, researchers, and developers. Use it as a YouTube trending crawler in Apify, or treat it like a YouTube trending API endpoint in your Python or ETL workflows. Start extracting smarter insights from global YouTube trends today.