Youtube Comments Scraper

Youtube Comments Scraper

Youtube Comments Scraper is a production-ready YouTube comments scraper that pulls structured comment data from videos and Shorts — fast. It solves the pain of manually scrolling and copying comments by letting you scrape YouTube comments at scale and export YouTube comments to CSV or JSON for analysis. Built for marketers, developers, data analysts, and researchers, this YouTube comments extractor enables bulk collection for sentiment analysis, keyword mining, social listening, and competitor research — all in a single run.

What data / output can you get?

Data field	Description	Example value
cid	Unique comment ID	Ugzxs4_5UJwAI1xrNF14AaABAg
type	Record type (always "comment")	comment
publishedTimeText	Relative publish time string	2 years ago
comment	Comment text content	Subscribe to be in one of my upcoming videos!
author	Author handle (prefixed with @)	@MrBeast
avatar	URL to author’s profile image	https://yt3.ggpht.com/…=s88
authorIsChannelOwner	Whether the author is the channel owner	true
isVerified	Whether the author is verified	true
voteCount	Number of likes/upvotes on the comment	189000
hasCreatorHeart	Whether the creator hearted this comment	true
replyCount	Number of replies under this comment	763
replyToCid	Parent comment ID (null for top-level)	null
videoId	YouTube video ID	KrLj6nc516A
pageUrl	Full YouTube video URL	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrLj6nc516A
title	Video title	$1 vs $100,000,000 Car!
commentsCount	Total number of comments on the video	155000

Note: Results are saved to the Apify dataset so you can download YouTube comments as CSV or JSON. In rare cases where the title can’t be resolved from the page, the tool may fall back to “Unknown Title”.

Key features

• 🧠 Intelligent proxy fallback
  Automatically mitigates blocking with a smart sequence: no proxy → datacenter → residential, with retry logic. Reliable for “scrape YouTube comments without API” use cases and high-volume runs.

• 📦 Bulk video processing
  A true bulk YouTube comments scraper: process multiple YouTube video URLs or IDs in a single run, with per‑video limits.

• 🧱 Threaded replies & metadata
  Extract both top-level comments and replies, keeping parent-child relationships via replyToCid, plus likes, verification, creator heart, and author/channel owner indicators.

• 🧭 Sort order control
  Choose between top or newest comments using sortOrder to tailor your YouTube video comments scraper workflow for popularity or recency.

• 🧾 Clean exports for analysis
  Export YouTube comments to CSV or JSON in one click from the dataset — perfect for downstream pipelines, dashboards, or a YouTube comments scraping script.

• 🛠️ Developer friendly
  Works seamlessly as a YouTube comments API scraper within Apify. Trigger via the Apify platform and pull results programmatically; ideal for YouTube comment scraper Python integrations.

• 📊 Detailed run logs
  Transparent progress and proxy events in logs to monitor each page, token, and retry — confidence for production usage.

• 🧪 No-nonsense input format
  Paste a simple string list of video URLs or IDs; the YouTube comments crawler handles both formats out of the box.

How to use Youtube Comments Scraper - step by step

1. Sign in to your Apify account at https://console.apify.com.
2. Open the actor named “youtube-comments-scraper”.
3. Add inputs:
   • In startUrls, paste YouTube video URLs or 11‑character IDs (one per line).
   • Set maxComments per video (use 0 to download YouTube comments with no limit).
   • Choose sortOrder: top or newest.
   • Optionally configure proxyConfiguration (default uses no proxy; automatic fallback is handled for you).
4. Click Start to launch the run.
5. Monitor logs for progress, including any automatic proxy fallback events.
6. When finished, open the OUTPUT tab to view the dataset.
7. Export results as CSV or JSON for analysis, reporting, or sentiment pipelines.

Pro tip: Chain this YouTube comments scraper tool with your analytics workflow to power YouTube comments sentiment analysis or keyword tracking across multiple videos.

Use cases

Use case	Description
Marketing + sentiment tracking	Analyze audience reactions and run YouTube comments sentiment analysis across product launches or campaigns.
Social listening for brands	Monitor topics, keywords, and mentions by scraping top or newest comments at scale.
Competitor research	Compare engagement and feedback trends across competitor videos using a bulk YouTube comments scraper.
Creator & community insights	Identify verified authors, creator‑hearted comments, and high‑engagement threads for content strategy.
Academic & policy research	Collect structured, public comment datasets for studies, reproducible analysis, and longitudinal tracking.
Product feedback mining	Pull recurring themes and pain points directly from video comment sections.
Developer data pipelines	Use the Apify dataset output as a YouTube comments scraping script source for ETL and dashboards.

Why choose Youtube Comments Scraper?

The scraper is engineered for precision, automation, and reliability at scale.

• 🎯 Accurate, structured output with full thread context (replyToCid), engagement metrics, and author signals.
• 📈 Scales from one‑offs to bulk jobs; a dependable YouTube comments scraper tool for production workloads.
• 💻 Built for developers; use within the Apify ecosystem and connect to your YouTube comment scraper Python pipelines.
• 🤝 Flexible exports; quickly download YouTube comments to CSV or JSON for BI and analytics tools.
• 🛡️ Robust proxy strategy; automatic fallback from no proxy → datacenter → residential to reduce blocks.
• 🔄 Better than browser extensions; no flakiness, no manual clicking — a stable YouTube comments crawler for repeatable runs.

In short: a reliable YouTube comments extractor that delivers complete, analysis‑ready datasets — consistently.

Is it legal / ethical to use Youtube Comments Scraper?

Yes — when done responsibly. This actor collects data from publicly available YouTube pages only and does not access private or password‑protected content.

Guidelines for compliant use:

• Collect and use public data responsibly and for legitimate purposes.
• Follow YouTube’s Terms of Service and respect rate limits.
• Ensure your use complies with applicable laws and regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA).
• Do not use the data for spam or abusive activities.

For edge cases, please consult your legal team.

Input parameters & output format

Example JSON input

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

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
startUrls	array	Yes	—	YouTube video URLs (e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID or https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID) or 11‑character IDs. Supports multiple entries for bulk processing.
maxComments	integer	No	50	Maximum comments to scrape per video. Set 0 for no limit (scrape all available comments).
sortOrder	string	No	top	Ordering of fetched comments. Allowed values: top or newest.
proxyConfiguration	object	No	{ "useApifyProxy": false }	Apify proxy settings. Leave disabled unless you experience blocking; automatic fallback is handled if blocks occur.

Note: Language and region are set internally for stability (en‑GB language, US region) and are not exposed as input fields.

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
}

Fields that may be unknown: In rare cases where page structures differ, title may fall back to “Unknown Title”.

FAQ

Can I scrape all comments from a video?

Yes. Set maxComments to 0 to scrape all available comments. Otherwise, the actor stops when it reaches your specified limit per video.

Does it extract replies and maintain threads?

Yes. The actor captures both top‑level comments and replies. Parent‑child relationships are preserved via the replyToCid field.

Can I input just video IDs instead of full URLs?

Yes. You can use either full YouTube URLs or the 11‑character video ID. The actor accepts both formats in startUrls.

How do I export YouTube comments to CSV?

Once the run finishes, open the dataset in the OUTPUT tab and click Export to download in CSV or JSON. This makes it easy to download YouTube comments for analysis.

Will it handle rate limits and blocks?

Yes. The actor includes intelligent proxy fallback: it starts with no proxy, falls back to datacenter, and then residential proxies with retries if needed.

Does sort order affect results?

Yes. Set sortOrder to top to prioritize the most liked/relevant comments, or newest to fetch the latest comments first.

Is this a YouTube comments scraper tool I can use in bulk?

Yes. Provide multiple startUrls to run a bulk YouTube comments scraper across many videos in one job.

Is this a Chrome extension?

No. This is an Apify actor (cloud-based YouTube comments crawler), not a Youtube comments scraper Chrome extension. It’s more stable and suitable for automation and pipelines.

Closing CTA / Final thoughts

Youtube Comments Scraper is built to programmatically collect structured YouTube comment data at scale.

With bulk processing, robust proxy fallback, and clean CSV/JSON exports, it’s ideal for marketers, developers, analysts, and researchers who need to scrape YouTube comments reliably. Use it to power sentiment analysis, keyword tracking, social listening, and competitor intelligence — or plug it into your YouTube comment scraper Python workflows through the Apify platform.

Start extracting smarter comment insights today and turn YouTube discussions into actionable data.