YouTube Playlist Scraper — Playlist Videos & Metadata

Scrape YouTube playlists into Dataset rows: playlist metadata plus ordered videos with position, IDs, titles, views, durations, and thumbnails. Ideal for courses, albums, and editorial collections — metadata only, not a video downloader.

Run YouTube Playlist Scraper on Apify · Built by ScrapeMamba · Metadata only, not a video downloader

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Why this Actor?

Playlists are durable join keys for curricula, music catalogs, and curated series. This Actor accepts playlist URLs or IDs, fetches capped video lists with positions preserved, and writes both a playlist meta row and per-video rows — ready for warehouse loads and enrichment.

• Accepts ?list= URLs or bare playlist IDs
• Preserves video position for ordered catalogs
• Cap videos per playlist with maxResults (default 100)
• Optional lang / country for locale

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Key features

• Playlist meta + ordered video rows in one run
• Deduped playlist IDs before fetch
• Per-playlist error isolation
• Stable playlistId + videoId + position join keys
• Apify Console, schedules, and API support

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What you can scrape

Playlist meta (type: "playlist")

playlistId, playlistTitle, playlistUrl, playlistDescription, playlistThumbnail, playlistVideoCount, playlistVisibility, playlistChannelId, playlistChannelName, playlistChannelUrl

Playlist videos (type: "playlist_video")

videoId, title, author, channelId, views, likes, duration / length, position, thumbnail, url, isLive, deleted, plus playlist fields for denormalized joins

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Use cases

• Course / curriculum export — Ordered lesson lists with positions
• Music / album catalogs — Tracklists with duration and channel metadata
• Editorial collections — Archive curated series for analysis
• Dataset building — playlistId ↔ videoId fact tables
• Enrichment pipelines — Hand video IDs to Video or Subtitles scrapers

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Example output

Playlist meta

{
  "type": "playlist",
  "playlistId": "PLOzDu-MXXLljymo0oXEkTSLKf5TqxY-JN",
  "playlistTitle": "Example course playlist",
  "playlistUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOzDu-MXXLljymo0oXEkTSLKf5TqxY-JN",
  "playlistVideoCount": 42,
  "playlistChannelName": "Example Channel",
  "playlistChannelId": "UCxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
}

Video row

{
  "type": "playlist_video",
  "playlistId": "PLOzDu-MXXLljymo0oXEkTSLKf5TqxY-JN",
  "playlistTitle": "Example course playlist",
  "position": 1,
  "videoId": "abc123xyz01",
  "title": "Lesson 1",
  "author": "Example Channel",
  "views": 120000,
  "duration": 612,
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abc123xyz01"
}

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How to use

1. Open YouTube Playlist Scraper
2. Add playlists and set maxResults
3. Run → filter by type (playlist vs playlist_video)

Input example

{
  "playlists": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOzDu-MXXLljymo0oXEkTSLKf5TqxY-JN"
  ],
  "maxResults": "50",
  "lang": "en",
  "country": "us"
}

API (Node.js)

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('scrapemamba/youtube-playlist-scraper').call({
  playlists: ['PLOzDu-MXXLljymo0oXEkTSLKf5TqxY-JN'],
  maxResults: '100',
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

Local run

cd youtube-playlist-scraper-js
cp .env.example .env
npm install
node src/main.js

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Input parameters

Parameter	Required	Default	Description
playlists	Yes	—	Playlist URLs or IDs
maxResults	No	"100"	Max videos per playlist. Free users capped at 200; paying users uncapped.
lang	No	—	YouTube hl (e.g. en)
country	No	—	YouTube gl (e.g. us)

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Output

Each successful playlist yields one type: "playlist" meta row and up to maxResults type: "playlist_video" rows. Failures are type: "error" without stopping sibling playlists.

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Why choose this Actor

• Position preserved — Ordered catalogs for courses and albums
• Meta + videos together — One run covers playlist and entries
• Cap-friendly — Control cost before enriching every ID
• Public / unlisted ready — Works with public and unlisted playlists you can open without owner login (not private)

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Pricing

$0.39 per 1,000 results on Apify (meta + video rows count). Free users: maxResults capped at 200 per playlist. See the Store page.

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FAQ

Does it download playlist videos?

No. Metadata and links only.

Private playlists?

Not supported — owner login would be required. Public and unlisted playlists that open without login work.

Default maxResults?

"100". Free users capped at 200; paying users uncapped.

How do I enrich videos afterward?

Collect videoIds from playlist_video rows and run Video Scraper or Subtitles Scraper.

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Related Actors

Actor	Use it for
YouTube Video Scraper	Per-video details
YouTube Subtitles Scraper	Course transcripts
YouTube Search Scraper	Discover related keywords first

Use only on public (or unlisted-accessible) playlist data per YouTube’s terms and applicable law.