Youtube Trending Scraper

Youtube Trending Scraper

The Youtube Trending Scraper is an Apify web scraper that collects real-time trending videos by country and category from YouTube. It solves the challenge of tracking fast-changing top charts across regions by extracting clean, structured video metadata for analysis. As a YouTube trending videos scraper and YouTube trending web scraper, it’s built for marketers, developers, data analysts, and researchers who need repeatable, accurate insights from public YouTube trending pages. Use it to scrape YouTube trending videos at scale, compare categories across markets, and feed automated reporting or enrichment pipelines.

What data / output can you get?

Below are the exact fields this YouTube trending extractor produces. You can export results in JSON, CSV, or Excel from the Apify dataset.

Data field	Description	Example value
type	Record type (always “video”)	"video"
id	YouTube video ID	"2dmCaK0qslM"
title	Video title	"Best Goals of the Week!"
url	Full watch URL	"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dmCaK0qslM"
views	View count (string as found)	"1,487,513"
likes	Like count (string as found)	"124,690"
comments	Comment count (string as found)	"1K"
duration	Length in seconds (integer)	894
category	Video category	"Gaming"
keywords	Array of tags/keywords	["football","highlights"]
publishDate	ISO publish timestamp	"2026-03-20T11:06:17-07:00"
uploadDate	ISO upload timestamp	"2026-03-20T11:06:17-07:00"
isLive	Whether it’s live content	false
isFamilySafe	Family-safe flag	true
channel.id	Channel ID	"UC123ABC456"
channel.name	Channel name	"Sports Hub"
channel.handle	Channel handle	"@sportshub"
channel.url	Channel URL (if available)	"https://www.youtube.com/@sportshub"
channel.subscriberCount	Subscriber count (string as found)	"4.8M subscribers"
channel.badges	Channel badges	["Verified"]
thumbnails[0].url	Thumbnail URL	"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/2dmCaK0qslM/maxresdefault.jpg"
embedUrl	YouTube embed URL	"https://www.youtube.com/embed/2dmCaK0qslM"
isEmbeddable	Embeddable flag	true
isUnlisted	Unlisted flag	false
isRatingsAllowed	Ratings allowed flag	true
isPrivate	Private flag	false
isExclusive	Exclusive flag	false
relativeDate	Relative publish time (if available)	null

Note: Some engagement metrics (views, likes, comments) are returned as the string values found in the page. Bonus metadata includes channel badges, channel handle, and thumbnail dimensions when available. You can monitor YouTube trending videos, categories, and regions with scheduled runs to build a YouTube trending tracker or download YouTube trending list snapshots.

Key features

• 🛡️ Smart proxy fallback Automatically handles blocks with a datacenter → residential proxy strategy, retries, and graceful degradation for reliable runs. Ideal for a YouTube trending crawler operating at scale.

• 🌍 Country & category targeting A true YouTube trending by country scraper with category filters for music, gaming, movies, sports, and entertainment.

• 🧠 Robust extraction logic Parses HTML meta, ytInitialPlayerResponse, and ytInitialData to maximize accuracy. Extracts titles, channels, views, likes, comments, keywords, dates, and more.

• ⚙️ Flexible limits Control depth with maxVideosPerInput, including an unlimited mode to download YouTube trending list data for each region.

• 🚀 Built for automation Works seamlessly in Apify workflows. Use it as a YouTube trending API scraper via Apify API, integrate with Make/n8n/Zapier, or call from your YouTube trending Python scraper pipelines.

• 📦 Ready-to-export datasets Export to JSON/CSV/Excel directly from the Apify dataset. Perfect for dashboards, BI, or data lakes.

• 🔧 Developer-friendly Implemented with the Apify SDK for reliability and observability. Logs progress, concurrent fetching with backoff, and clear success/fail stats.

How to use Youtube Trending Scraper - step by step

1. Create or log in to your Apify account at console.apify.com.
2. Open the “youtube-trending-scraper” actor.
3. In Input, add country codes to startUrls (one per line). Use 2-letter codes like US, GB, IN. If you paste a youtube.com URL with &gl=XX, that region (XX) is used. Unknown text defaults to US.
4. Choose contentType from music, gaming, movies, sports, or entertainment. The default is gaming.
5. Set maxVideosPerInput:
   • 10 by default
   • 0 for unlimited (all IDs on that region’s page)
6. Configure proxyConfiguration if needed. Enabling Apify Proxy is recommended for YouTube. If you leave it off and the site is picky, the actor can step up through datacenter → residential automatically.
7. Click Start. The YouTube trending web scraper will fetch regional lists, then enrich each video with metadata.
8. Watch the logs for progress and proxy notes.
9. When finished, go to the Dataset tab to view results and export to JSON, CSV, or Excel.

Pro tip: Schedule this YouTube trending extractor daily to monitor YouTube top charts, then pipe results to your warehouse or use the Apify API for automated ingestion.

Use cases

Use case	Description
Market research – regional trend mapping	Compare categories across countries to quantify what’s rising, stable, or declining in specific regions.
Content strategy – topic discovery	Identify themes and keywords that consistently hit trending to guide production and SEO.
Competitor monitoring – channel tracking	Track channels that appear frequently in top charts within your niche and analyze engagement patterns.
Social media ops – curated shares	Build a daily feed of trending videos by category to populate editorial calendars or auto-share workflows.
SEO & keyword analysis – metadata mining	Extract keywords and categories for ranking analysis and content clustering.
API pipeline – automated enrichment	Use the Apify API to feed a BI pipeline or a data lake for historical trending analysis.
Academic research – cross-country comparisons	Study cultural differences in trending content across multiple regions and categories at scale.

Why choose Youtube Trending Scraper?

Get production-ready precision and scale without maintaining your own infrastructure.

• ✅ Accurate, multi-source parsing for resilient data extraction
• 🌐 Regional and category coverage for actionable comparisons
• 📈 Scales with concurrency, backoff, and proxy rotation built-in
• 🧩 Developer access via Apify API; integrate with Make, n8n, Zapier
• 🔒 Public data only; no login required or account cookies
• 💸 Export-ready datasets cut time-to-insight for teams and analysts
• 🏗️ Built on the Apify platform for reliability, monitoring, and automation

This is a purpose-built YouTube trending videos scraper that outperforms ad-hoc browser extensions or unstable scripts by combining proxy resilience, structured output, and one-click exports.

Is it legal / ethical to use Youtube Trending Scraper?

Yes—when used responsibly. This tool collects publicly available data from YouTube. Follow these guidelines:

• Only collect public pages and metadata.
• Comply with YouTube’s Terms of Service and local regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA).
• Avoid personal data processing without a lawful basis.
• Do not overwhelm YouTube’s servers; this actor includes delays and concurrency limits.

For edge cases, verify compliance with your legal team.

Input parameters & output format

Example input JSON

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

Input parameter reference

• startUrls (array, required): 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. No default.
• contentType (string, optional): Which vertical chart to read: music, gaming, movies, sports, or entertainment. Default: "gaming".
• maxVideosPerInput (integer, optional): Max trending videos to keep per country row. Set 0 for unlimited. Default: 10. Minimum: 0.
• proxyConfiguration (object, optional): Route traffic through Apify Proxy so YouTube is less likely to block or return thin pages. If you leave it off for a direct run and encounter blocks, the actor can step up through datacenter → residential automatically.

Example output JSON

{
  "type": "video",
  "id": "2dmCaK0qslM",
  "title": "Video Title Here",
  "status": "OK",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dmCaK0qslM",
  "description": "Video description text...",
  "duration": 894,
  "views": "1487513",
  "likes": "124690",
  "comments": "1K",
  "channel": {
    "id": "UCE-8FgcXvnAsb2EG1FizSyg",
    "name": "Channel Name",
    "handle": "@channelname",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@channelname",
    "subscriberCount": "4.81M subscribers",
    "thumbnails": [],
    "badges": ["Verified"]
  },
  "keywords": ["keyword1", "keyword2", "keyword3"],
  "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": "2026-03-20T11:06:17-07:00",
  "relativeDate": null,
  "uploadDate": "2026-03-20T11:06:17-07:00"
}

Notes:

• Some fields may be empty or null if not present in the page (e.g., channel.handle, channel.url, thumbnails dimensions).
• The actor always sets isRatingsAllowed to true, isPrivate/isExclusive to false, and includes embedUrl/isEmbeddable flags.

FAQ

Do I need to log in to scrape YouTube trending?

No. This YouTube trending crawler works without login and collects publicly available data only. Proxies are recommended to reduce blocks.

Can I scrape by country and category?

Yes. Provide 2-letter country codes in startUrls and choose a contentType (music, gaming, movies, sports, entertainment). This makes it a YouTube trending by country scraper and categories scraper in one.

How many videos can I collect per run?

Set maxVideosPerInput to control depth. Use 0 for unlimited to download YouTube trending list data for the selected region(s).

Does it support automation and APIs?

Yes. As an Apify actor, it’s an API-ready YouTube trending API scraper. You can trigger runs via Apify API, connect to Make/n8n/Zapier, or call it from a YouTube trending Python scraper pipeline.

What data points are included?

Each record includes id, title, url, views, likes, comments, duration, keywords, category, publish/upload timestamps, channel info (id, name, handle, url, subscriberCount, badges), thumbnails, and embed flags. See the Output section for a full JSON example.

How does the proxy system work?

If requests are blocked or incomplete, the scraper can step up from no proxy to datacenter, then to residential proxies automatically, with retries and backoff for reliability.

Which countries are supported?

Provide any of the supported 2-letter region codes in startUrls (e.g., US, GB, IN, BD, JP). If the input is unknown, the actor defaults to US. A youtube.com link with &gl=XX uses region XX.

Is it safe and compliant to use?

Yes—when used responsibly with public data. Ensure compliance with YouTube’s terms and data protection laws (e.g., GDPR/CCPA). The actor includes delays and limited concurrency to be respectful.

Closing thoughts

The Youtube Trending Scraper is built for teams who need structured, reliable YouTube trending data by country and category. It delivers clean metadata, robust proxy handling, and ready-to-export datasets for marketers, developers, analysts, and researchers. Use the Apify API to automate a YouTube trending tracker, integrate with your stack, and start extracting smarter insights from top charts across regions.