Youtube Search Scraper

This Apify Actor performs a YouTube video search based on a given keyword or phrase, and extracts detailed metadata for each video found. When available in YouTube search results, metadata includes video title, URL, thumbnail, channel name, duration, view count, publish time, estimated publication timestamp, and a short description snippet. Some fields may be absent, especially for Shorts (see Shorts and optional fields).

Ideal for trend tracking, market research, content discovery, or monitoring topics of interest on YouTube. Discover high-performing videos in your niche and understand viewer engagement and timing patterns. 🎯

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Features

• 🔍 Search YouTube by keywords
• ⏳ Filter by time window, features, time window, upload date, druation
• 📸 Extract video thumbnails
• 📸 Sort by Relevance, Upload date, View count, Rating
• 📊 Retrieve view counts, durations, publish dates and more
• 📝 Grab description snippets for quick context

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
query	string	✅	Search query to look for videos. Can be a keyword or phrase.
resultsCount	number	❌	Maximum number of videos to extract. If not set, only a few of the first videos will be returned.
uploadDate	string	❌	Search for videos uploaded within specified dates only (Last hour, Today etc.).
features	string	❌	Apply Features filter to searched videos (Live, 4K, HD etc.).
sortBy	string	❌	Apply sorting to searched videos. If not selected, defaults to platform default: 'relevancy'.
duration	string	❌	Apply Duration filter to searched videos ("Under 4 minutes", "4-20 minutes", "Over 20 minutes".).

Example Input

{
    "query": "Trump",
    "resultsCount": 10
}

Output Data

The actor returns an array of JSON objects representing individual YouTube videos and Shorts with the metadata available in search results.

Example Output

[
    {
        "id": "lawvcQd3syc",
        "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lawvcQd3syc",
        "title": "Trump’s tariff triumph as a mind-blowing 50 world leaders beg to negotiate with the president",
        "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/lawvcQd3syc/hq720.jpg",
        "channelName": "Sky News Australia",
        "length": 418,
        "viewCount": 367429,
        "publishedTimeText": "16 hours ago",
        "estimatedPublishedTimestamp": 1744000134634,
        "interpolatedTimestamp": 1744000134634,
        "descriptionSnippet": "Donald Trump's tariffs are causing mass hysteria across the globe..."
    },
    {
        "id": "MOSSX746Yi8",
        "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/MOSSX746Yi8",
        "title": "A drive through Singapore | Audi RS 5",
        "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/MOSSX746Yi8/oardefault.jpg",
        "viewCount": 7800
    }
]

Estimated publication timestamp

estimatedPublishedTimestamp is an estimated publication time expressed as a Unix timestamp in milliseconds. It is calculated from publishedTimeText (for example, "3 days ago") and the time of collection. Relative labels are rounded, so this value is an estimate rather than the exact upload time.

interpolatedTimestamp remains available as a backward-compatible alias with the same value. Use estimatedPublishedTimestamp in new integrations. Both fields are omitted when the publication date is missing or cannot be parsed.

Shorts and optional fields

YouTube can return Shorts alongside regular videos. A Shorts search card may provide only id, url, title, thumbnailUrl, and viewCount, as shown in the second result above.

For these cards, YouTube may omit channelName, length, publishedTimeText, descriptionSnippet, and videoSummary. Without a usable publication date, estimatedPublishedTimestamp and its interpolatedTimestamp alias are also unavailable. Unavailable fields are omitted from the JSON output; they are not replaced with empty strings or zero values. Some metadata, such as videoSummary, may also be unavailable for regular videos.

The actor extracts the metadata supplied in search results. Filling in missing Shorts metadata would require additional requests for video details, increasing the run time and the number of requests to YouTube.

Verification note (2026-10-19): A local check examined 20 fresh YouTube search responses covering all 14 Shorts from a reported production output. Their search cards did not contain the missing metadata, including in menus, accessibility text, or additional response metadata. The existing mapper preserved the available fields; this check found no loss of those fields during mapping.

Usage

1. Sign in to Apify and open the YouTube Search Scraper actor page.
2. Input your search parameters (query, resultsCount, sorting type, features, duration, etc.).
3. Run the actor from the UI or via API.
4. Download results in JSON, CSV, or Excel format.

Limitations & Notes

• YouTube's structure may change; this actor targets current layouts.
• Results depend on YouTube's public search – private/unlisted videos are not included.
• Use responsibly and comply with YouTube's Terms of Service.
• Rate-limited – Free users can make only a few requests per day. Contact us if you need higher or custom limits!

Best Use Case Flow

• 🔍 Use this actor to find YouTube videos by keyword
• 📥 Pipe video URLs into a YouTube Comments Scraper to extract replies
• 📊 Analyze engagement, comments, and popularity over time

Other Recommended Scrapers

• 🐦 X (Twitter) Posts Search — Find posts/tweets based on keywords, hashtags, and more
• 🐦 X (Twitter) Post Replies Scraper — Scrap replies of multiple X (Twitter) posts
• 🐦 X (Twitter) Profile Posts Scraper — Scrap posts of specific X (Twitter) profile
• 📘 Facebook Posts Search — Discover Facebook posts for a given topic or page
• 📘 Facebook Comments Scraper — Extract comments from public Facebook posts
• 📘 Facebook Reactions Scraper — Scrap reactions from Facebook posts (like, sad, haha, angry etc.)
• 📘 Facebook Posts Scraper — Scrap posts from Facebook pages, groups etc.
• 🎬 YouTube Search Scraper — Extract videos from search queries
• 🎬 YouTube Downloader — Download youtube videos
• 🎬 YouTube Comments Scraper — Extract comments from posted videos

Support & Contact

📬 Need help or want to suggest a feature? Open an issue or contact us at scraper1one@gmail.com