Youtube Comments Scraper

Youtube Comments Scraper

The Youtube Comments Scraper is a fast, reliable YouTube comments extractor that collects full comment threads (including replies) and structured metadata for one or many videos. It solves the repetitive work of trying to download YouTube comments at scale and helps you export YouTube comments to CSV or JSON for research, moderation, and analytics. Built for marketers, developers, data analysts, and researchers, this YouTube comments scraping tool enables repeatable, large-scale collection for sentiment analysis, social listening, and competitor monitoring — without a YouTube API key. 🚀

What data / output can you get?

Below are the exact fields this YouTube comments API scraper saves to the dataset. You can export to JSON or CSV and plug the results into your workflows for YouTube comments data mining, dashboards, or ML pipelines.

Data field	Description	Example value
cid	Unique YouTube comment ID	Ugzxs4_5UJwAI1xrNF14AaABAg
type	Record type (comment)	comment
publishedTimeText	Relative publish time	2 years ago
comment	Comment text content	Subscribe to be in one of my upcoming videos (it's going to be huge!)
author	Author username (with @)	@MrBeast
avatar	URL to author profile image	https://yt3.ggpht.com/.../s88-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj
authorIsChannelOwner	Is the author the channel owner	true
isVerified	Is the author verified	true
voteCount	Like/upvote count	189000
hasCreatorHeart	Creator hearted this comment	true
replyCount	Number of replies	763
replyToCid	Parent comment ID for replies (null for top-level)	null
videoId	YouTube video ID	KrLj6nc516A
pageUrl	Full video URL	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrLj6nc516A
title	Video title	$1 vs $100,000,000 Car!
commentsCount	Total comments on the video	155000

Note: Reply relationships are preserved via replyToCid, so you can power a YouTube comment replies scraper workflow. Results are available in Apify Dataset and can be exported to JSON or CSV for analysis and reporting.

Key features

• ⚡️ Automatic proxy fallback — Intelligent anti-bot handling with no-proxy → datacenter → residential fallback and retries to keep scraping stable even when blocks occur.
• 📦 Bulk video processing — Supply multiple video URLs or IDs and this bulk YouTube comment scraper processes them sequentially in one run.
• 🧵 Threaded replies capture — Extracts top-level comments and reply chains while preserving parent-child links via replyToCid.
• 🧭 Sort order control — Choose between "top" and "newest" to prioritize relevance or recency for your YouTube comments sentiment analysis.
• 🧾 Rich metadata — Captures author, avatar, verification, likes, creator heart, timestamps, and video-level metadata for comprehensive analysis.
• 💾 Easy exports — Export YouTube comments to CSV or JSON directly from the Apify Dataset for BI tools, notebooks, or downstream pipelines.
• 🛡️ Production-ready resilience — Built-in retries, timeouts, and detailed logging for reliable large-scale YouTube comments data mining.
• 🔑 No API key required — A YouTube comments scraper without API key that works out of the box — no cookies or login needed.

How to use Youtube Comments Scraper - step by step

1. Sign up or log in to your Apify account.
2. Open the actor named “youtube-comments-scraper” in the Apify Console.
3. In Input, add your videos under startUrls as a simple list of strings. You can paste full URLs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID or https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID) or just the 11-character video ID.
4. Set maxComments to control volume per video. Use 0 to download YouTube comments without limit.
5. Choose sortOrder as "top" or "newest" to control the order of fetched comments.
6. (Optional) Configure proxyConfiguration. By default, no proxy is used; the actor automatically falls back to datacenter and then residential proxies if blocks occur.
7. Click Start. Watch real-time logs for progress and any proxy fallback events.
8. When finished, open the Dataset to view results and export YouTube comments to CSV or JSON.

Pro tip: Running multiple videos at once turns this into a scalable, YouTube comments scraper online pipeline for monitoring and analytics at scale.

Use cases

Use case	Description
Content analysis for creators	Analyze engagement and themes by extracting top and newest threads to inform content strategy.
Brand & social listening	Monitor discussions about your brand or competitors with a bulk YouTube comment scraper for multiple videos.
Market research & VoC	Collect opinions and feedback from relevant videos to power surveys, benchmarking, and insight reports.
Moderation & community ops	Export datasets to CSV/JSON to triage high-like comments, replies, and hearted posts for action.
Academic & sentiment research	Build labeled datasets for NLP and sentiment analysis using structured comment and author metadata.
Product & UX feedback mining	Track feature requests and friction points mentioned in comments across product-related videos.
Competitive intelligence	Compare competitor engagement, comment volume, and reaction patterns over time.

Why choose Youtube Comments Scraper?

This scraper prioritizes precision, automation, and reliability — built to outperform manual tools and unstable browser extensions.

• 🎯 Accurate, structured output with consistent field names for downstream analytics.
• 🌍 Works on public videos globally; sort by top or newest to match your analysis needs.
• 📈 Scales to multiple videos with per-video limits for efficient batch runs.
• 💻 Developer-friendly datasets exportable as JSON/CSV for Python notebooks and pipelines.
• 🛡️ Robust anti-blocking with automatic proxy fallback and retry logic.
• 💸 Cost-effective alternative to a fragile YouTube comment scraper Chrome extension or ad-hoc scripts.
• 🔒 Ethical by design: collects only publicly available comment data.

In short, it’s a reliable YouTube video comments downloader and YouTube comments scraping tool you can trust for recurring workflows.

Is it legal / ethical to use Youtube Comments Scraper?

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

• Scrape only public information and respect YouTube’s Terms of Service.
• Ensure compliance with applicable regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA) for your use case.
• Avoid spamming or misuse of collected data.
• Consult your legal team for edge cases or jurisdiction-specific requirements.

Input parameters & output format

Example JSON input

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

Input fields

Field	Type	Description	Default	Required
startUrls	array	Enter YouTube videos to scrape comments from. Use full URLs (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID or https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID) or the 11‑character video ID. Supports multiple items; videos are processed sequentially.	—	Yes
maxComments	integer	Maximum number of comments to scrape per video. Use 0 for no limit (scrape all available). The actor stops once this limit is reached for each video.	50	No
sortOrder	string (enum: top,newest)	Choose how comments are ordered when fetching. top shows the most liked/relevant comments; newest shows most recent first.	top	No
proxyConfiguration	object	Configure proxy settings. By default, no proxy is used. On blocks, the actor automatically falls back to datacenter, then residential proxies if needed.	{"useApifyProxy": false}	No

Note: Language and region are automatically set internally for optimal performance.

Example JSON output

{
  "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:

• author may return "@Unknown" if the source does not expose a display name.
• title may return "Unknown Title" when a fallback is required.
• replyToCid is null for top-level comments and contains the parent cid for replies.

FAQ

Is there a free trial or plan?

Yes. This actor is listed with a monthly plan and includes trial minutes so you can test runs before subscribing. Check the Apify actor page for current pricing and available trial minutes.

Do I need a YouTube API key or login?

No. This is a YouTube comments scraper without API key or login. It fetches public data and works out of the box.

Can it scrape replies as well as top-level comments?

Yes. It collects both, preserving parent-child relationships via the replyToCid field so you can reconstruct threads.

How many comments can I scrape per video?

You control volume with maxComments. Set it to 0 to scrape all available comments, or choose any limit per video (default is 50).

Does it handle rate limits and blocks?

Yes. It features automatic proxy fallback from no-proxy to datacenter and then residential, with retries and detailed logging to keep runs stable.

Can I use video IDs instead of full URLs?

Yes. You can provide a full URL or just the 11-character video ID; the actor will handle both formats.

How do I export results?

Open the run’s Dataset and export YouTube comments to CSV or JSON. This makes it easy to integrate with BI tools or scripts (e.g., scrape YouTube comments Python workflows).

Can it process multiple videos at once?

Yes. Add multiple entries in startUrls for bulk processing. Each video is processed sequentially, making it a practical bulk YouTube comment scraper.

Closing thoughts

The Youtube Comments Scraper is built for accurate, scalable extraction of public YouTube comment threads and rich metadata. With bulk processing, sort control, thread preservation, and robust anti-blocking, it’s ideal for marketers, analysts, developers, and researchers who need clean datasets fast. Export to JSON/CSV, plug into your scripts or dashboards, and automate repeatable social listening and sentiment pipelines — start extracting smarter insights from YouTube today.