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📺 YouTube Metadata Scraper – Full Video Info, Formats, Subtitles & More

Extract complete YouTube video metadata – including all available formats, thumbnails, subtitles, chapters, heatmap, likes/comments, channel info, and Open Graph data. Powered by yt‑dlp with browser impersonation via curl_cffi. Perfect for video archiving, analytics, content research, and AI training datasets.

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💡 What is the YouTube Metadata Scraper?

The YouTube Metadata Scraper is a professional Apify actor that retrieves every piece of public information from any YouTube video. It combines:

• yt‑dlp (the most advanced video extraction tool) to fetch all metadata fields, including:
  • Video title, description, uploader, channel, upload date
  • View count, like count, comment count
  • All available video/audio formats (resolution, codec, bitrate, file size)
  • Thumbnails (all sizes, including maxresdefault)
  • Chapters, heatmap (engagement over time), subtitles (manual and auto‑generated)
  • Live status, age restriction, language, availability
• curl_cffi + BeautifulSoup to extract additional HTML meta tags:
  • Open Graph (og:title, og:image, etc.)
  • Twitter Card data
  • JSON‑LD structured data (including first comment)
  • Canonical URL and page title

The output is a single, rich JSON object per video, pushed directly to the Apify dataset. No API key required – everything is public.

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🚀 Key Features

Feature	Description
Complete metadata	Title, description, uploader, channel, upload date, duration, language, age limit, live status.
Engagement stats	View count, like count, comment count (as reported by YouTube).
All formats	Every available resolution and codec (including audio‑only) with file size, bitrate, URL.
Thumbnails	All thumbnail sizes (from default to maxresdefault) with resolution and preference.
Subtitles & captions	Manual and auto‑generated subtitles for all languages (URLs to .vtt, .srt, .json3).
Chapters & heatmap	Video chapters (if any) and engagement heatmap (segmented viewer activity).
Rich HTML metadata	Open Graph, Twitter Card, JSON‑LD structured data, canonical URL.
No login required	Uses only public YouTube pages and APIs.
Residential proxy ready	Bypasses rate limits (optional; most runs work without proxy).
Clean JSON output	Every field is properly typed; missing fields are omitted.
Apify native integration	Seamless dataset storage, scheduling, and API access.

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📥 Input Parameters

The actor accepts a JSON object with the following fields:

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
startUrls	array of objects	Yes	–	List of YouTube video URLs (e.g., [{"url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=..."}]).
proxyConfiguration	object	No	–	Apify proxy configuration (residential recommended for large volumes).

Example Input

{
  "startUrls": [
    {"url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"}
  ],
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]
  }
}

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📤 Output Fields

The actor pushes one dataset item per video URL. The output is a superset of yt‑dlp’s info dict plus an extra __html_meta__ field containing HTML‑parsed data. Below are the most important fields (the actual output is extremely comprehensive – see example output for a taste).

Field	Type	Description
id	string	YouTube video ID (e.g., dQw4w9WgXcQ).
title	string	Full video title.
fulltitle	string	Same as title (alias).
description	string	Video description (plain text).
duration	integer	Duration in seconds.
duration_string	string	Human‑readable duration (e.g., 3:33).
view_count	integer	Number of views.
like_count	integer	Number of likes.
comment_count	integer	Number of comments.
upload_date	string	YYYYMMDD.
timestamp	integer	Unix timestamp of upload.
channel	string	Channel name.
channel_id	string	YouTube channel ID.
channel_url	string	URL of the channel page.
channel_follower_count	integer	Number of subscribers.
channel_is_verified	boolean	Verified badge.
uploader	string	Uploader name (same as channel).
uploader_id	string	Channel handle (e.g., @RickAstleyYT).
uploader_url	string	Channel URL.
availability	string	public, unlisted, private, etc.
age_limit	integer	Age restriction (0 if none).
categories	array	Video categories (e.g., ["Music"]).
tags	array	Video tags.
is_live	boolean	Currently live.
was_live	boolean	Previously live.
live_status	string	not_live, is_live, was_live.
thumbnails	array	List of thumbnail objects (each with url, width, height, preference, id).
thumbnail	string	Best‑quality thumbnail URL (usually maxresdefault).
formats	array	All available video/audio formats. Each has format_id, ext, width, height, fps, vcodec, acodec, filesize, tbr, url, etc.
chapters	array	If present: start_time, end_time, title.
heatmap	array	Engagement over time (each segment: start_time, end_time, value 0–1).
subtitles	object	Manual subtitles: language → list of formats (url, ext).
automatic_captions	object	Auto‑generated captions (same structure).
webpage_url	string	Canonical YouTube URL.
extractor	string	Always "youtube".
extractor_key	string	Always "Youtube".
__html_meta__	object	Extra HTML metadata: Open Graph, Twitter Card, JSON‑LD, canonical_url, page_title.

Example Output (truncated)

[
  {
    "id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Video) (4K Remaster)",
    "view_count": 1781039352,
    "like_count": 19147046,
    "comment_count": 2400000,
    "upload_date": "20091025",
    "duration": 213,
    "channel": "Rick Astley",
    "channel_follower_count": 4510000,
    "channel_is_verified": true,
    "thumbnails": [
      {"url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1920, "height": 1080}
    ],
    "formats": [
      {
        "format_id": "18",
        "ext": "mp4",
        "width": 640,
        "height": 360,
        "fps": 25,
        "vcodec": "avc1.42001E",
        "acodec": "mp4a.40.2",
        "filesize_approx": 11832459,
        "url": "https://rr1---sn-p5qs7nd7.googlevideo.com/..."
      }
    ],
    "subtitles": {
      "en": [
        {"ext": "vtt", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/api/timedtext?..."}
      ]
    },
    "__html_meta__": {
      "og:title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Video) (4K Remaster)",
      "og:image": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/maxresdefault.jpg",
      "twitter:card": "player",
      "page_title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Video) (4K Remaster) - YouTube",
      "__ld_json__": [
        {
          "@type": "VideoObject",
          "name": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Video) (4K Remaster)",
          "comment": [
            {"text": "scanned a damn qr code", "author": {"name": "@vinsbdfs"}, "upvoteCount": 1578}
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  }
]

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🛠 How to Use on Apify

1. Create a task with this actor.
2. Provide one or more YouTube video URLs in the startUrls field.
3. (Optional) Enable residential proxies – recommended for bulk scraping (100+ videos) to avoid rate limiting.
4. Run – the actor will fetch metadata for each URL and push one item per video to the Dataset.
5. Export – download results as JSON, CSV, or Excel.

Running via API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/your-username~youtube-metadata-scraper/runs" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -d '{
    "startUrls": [{"url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"}]
  }'

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💰 Pricing

Model	Price
Pay‑per‑result	$0.007 per video (example – adjust as needed)

Actual pricing may vary based on Apify’s consumption model. This actor respects the pay‑per‑event system; you are charged only for successfully scraped videos.

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🎯 Use Cases

• Video analytics – Track engagement (views, likes, comments) over time.
• Content archiving – Store complete metadata and format URLs for backup.
• Subtitle extraction – Get subtitle files for language learning or transcription.
• Research & AI training – Build datasets of video titles, descriptions, tags, and engagement.
• Competitive monitoring – Watch competitor channels’ uploads and performance.
• Media forensics – Retrieve heatmaps and chapter data for detailed analysis.

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

1. Do I need a YouTube API key?
No. The actor uses yt-dlp and public web pages – no API key required.

2. Can I download the actual video file?
This actor only returns metadata and format URLs. To download the video, you can use the url from any format entry with your own HTTP client (e.g., wget). The URLs are temporary (expire after a few hours).

3. How fresh is the data?
The actor fetches the latest available information at the time of the run. View and like counts are real‑time.

4. Why do I need residential proxies?
YouTube may throttle datacenter IPs after many requests. For bulk scraping (>100 videos), residential proxies reduce the chance of 429 errors.

5. What does the heatmap field represent?
It indicates relative viewer engagement across the video timeline. Higher values mean more rewatching or activity in that segment. Values are normalized between 0 and 1.

6. Are subtitles always available?
Only if the video has manual subtitles or auto‑captions enabled. The actor returns whatever YouTube provides.

7. Does it work for age‑restricted videos?
Yes, for most public age‑restricted videos. However, some may require a logged‑in session (not supported).

8. Can I scrape playlists or channels?
This version is designed for single videos only. For playlists or channels, see our link.

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🔍 SEO Keywords

YouTube metadata scraper, YouTube video info extractor, yt-dlp Apify, YouTube subtitles downloader, YouTube format URLs, YouTube engagement analytics, video metadata API, YouTube chapters heatmap, YouTube comment count, Apify YouTube actor

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🔗 Related Actors

• YouTube Playlist & Channel Scraper – Extract videos from playlists or channels.
• YouTube Comments Scraper – Scrape comments and replies.
• Universal Video Downloader – Download videos from 1000+ sites including YouTube.

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Start extracting complete YouTube metadata today – pay only for successful results.