YouTube Video & Channel Data Scraper

Here is one real result, with every field the actor returns:

{
  "videoId": "CLeZyIID9Bo",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLeZyIID9Bo",
  "title": "Chill Lofi Mix [chill lo-fi hip hop beats]",
  "channelName": "Settle",
  "channelId": "UCkKT4qf-TcPFOmpqhTawrGA",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkKT4qf-TcPFOmpqhTawrGA",
  "viewCount": 34086842,
  "viewCountText": "34,086,842 views",
  "likeCount": 187000,
  "likeCountText": "187K",
  "duration": "1:44:52",
  "publishedText": "3 years ago",
  "publishedAt": "2022-08-12",
  "description": "YouTube Playlists: http://listen.settle.fm/youtube Listen on Spotify, Apple Music & more: https://listen.settle.fm/playlists Tracklist ...",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/CLeZyIID9Bo/hq720.jpg?sqp=-oaymwE2CNAFEJQDSFXyq4qpAygIARUAAIhCGAFwAcABBvABAfgB_gmAAtAFigIMCAAQARhDIGQoZTAP&rs=AOn4CLCljfsoUy4QvdaH9IydXKSjwkcbgg",
  "isLive": false,
  "source": "search",
  "observedAt": "2026-08-10T14:38:45.934Z",
  "error": null
}

The most complete YouTube scraper available. It returns every field the public YouTube data layer exposes for each video, plus enriched like counts and an ISO publish date on search and channel results, and gives you three inputs (search queries, video URLs, channel URLs) to target exactly the videos you need. No API key or proxy.

📥 Input · 📤 Output · 💰 Pricing · ▶️ Examples

Table of contents

• What it does
• Quickstart
• Input reference
• Output reference
• Example output record
• Run via API and CLI
• Fetch results
• Billing and limits
• FAQ and troubleshooting

What it does

The actor reads YouTube's public data layer and returns one normalized record per video. It accepts three kinds of input, in any combination:

• searchQueries: keywords to search YouTube for; returns matching video cards.
• videoUrls: video URLs or IDs; returns full per-video details including subscriber count.
• channelUrls: channel URLs; returns that channel's recent videos.

With enrichDetails on (the default), every search and channel result is enriched with its like count and exact ISO publish date (video-URL records always include them). Missing values are returned as null. No API key and no proxy are required.

Quickstart

Open the actor, paste this into the input, and press Run. It returns the 10 top videos for a search.

{
  "maxVideos": 10,
  "searchQueries": ["lofi hip hop"],
  "enrichDetails": true,
  "country": "US",
  "language": "en"
}

Provide any combination of searchQueries, videoUrls, and channelUrls. Every video-URL record includes the channel's subscriberText.

Input reference

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
searchQueries	string[]	no	["lofi hip hop"]	Keywords to search YouTube for. Each query returns matching videos.
videoUrls	string[]	no	[]	YouTube video URLs or IDs to fetch full details for (watch?v=..., youtu.be/..., or a bare 11-character ID).
channelUrls	string[]	no	[]	Channel URLs to pull recent videos from (/@handle, /channel/UC..., /c/name).
maxVideos	integer	no	10	Maximum number of videos to return across all inputs. Free Apify plans are capped at 10 per run.
enrichDetails	boolean	no	true	Add like counts and the exact publish date to every video found by search or channel. Turn off for the fastest run.
country	string	no	US	Two-letter country code for results (gl).
language	string	no	en	Interface language code (hl).

At least one of searchQueries, videoUrls, or channelUrls must be provided.

Output reference

One dataset item per video. Types: string, integer, boolean, or null when the source value is absent.

Field	Type	Description
videoId	string	YouTube 11-character video ID.
url	string	Canonical watch URL for the video.
title	string	Video title.
channelName	string	Name of the channel that published the video.
channelId	string	Channel ID (UC...), or null.
channelUrl	string	Canonical channel URL, or null.
subscriberText	string	Channel subscriber count as shown, for example 4.53M subscribers. Present on video-URL records only.
viewCount	integer	View count parsed to an integer, or null.
viewCountText	string	View count as shown, for example 34,086,842 views.
likeCount	integer	Like count parsed to an integer, or null when unavailable.
likeCountText	string	Like count as shown, for example 187K, or null.
duration	string	Video duration, for example 1:44:52. null on video-URL records.
publishedText	string	Relative or absolute publish text, for example 3 years ago or Oct 24, 2009.
publishedAt	string	Exact publish date normalized to YYYY-MM-DD, or null.
description	string	Video description or search snippet, or null.
thumbnailUrl	string	URL of the best available thumbnail.
isLive	boolean	true when the item is a live stream. Present on search and channel records.
source	string	Where the record came from: search, video, or channel.
observedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp of when the record was collected.
error	string	null on success. An item that could not be parsed is written with a populated error field instead.

subscriberText appears on video-source records; isLive and duration appear on search and channel records.

Example output record

Real record from a live run (input {"videoUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"], "maxVideos": 1}). The description is trimmed here for readability; the actor returns the full description string:

{
  "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Video) (4K Remaster)",
  "channelName": "Rick Astley",
  "channelId": "UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw",
  "subscriberText": "4.53M subscribers",
  "viewCount": 1804354752,
  "viewCountText": "1,804,354,752 views",
  "likeCount": 19000000,
  "likeCountText": "19M",
  "duration": null,
  "publishedText": "Oct 24, 2009",
  "publishedAt": "2009-10-24",
  "description": "The official video for \"Never Gonna Give You Up\" by Rick Astley. [trimmed for README]",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/hqdefault.jpg",
  "source": "video",
  "observedAt": "2026-08-15T11:12:21.690Z",
  "error": null
}

Run via API and CLI

Start a run and wait for it to finish, then read the dataset. Replace <TOKEN> with your Apify API token.

Run synchronously and get dataset items in one call:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/scrapers_lat~youtube-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"searchQueries":["lofi hip hop"],"maxVideos":25}'

Start a run asynchronously:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/scrapers_lat~youtube-scraper/runs?token=<TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"channelUrls":["https://www.youtube.com/@RickAstleyYT"],"maxVideos":50}'

Apify CLI:

apify call scrapers_lat/youtube-scraper \
  --input '{"videoUrls":["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"]}'

Fetch results

Every run writes to a dataset. Fetch items as JSON, CSV, or Excel by changing format:

# JSON
curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/<DATASET_ID>/items?token=<TOKEN>&clean=true&format=json"

# CSV
curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/<DATASET_ID>/items?token=<TOKEN>&clean=true&format=csv"

# Paginate large datasets
curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/<DATASET_ID>/items?token=<TOKEN>&offset=1000&limit=1000"

<DATASET_ID> is returned as defaultDatasetId in the run object. Use offset and limit to page through large result sets. clean=true drops empty and internal fields.

Billing and limits

• Pay per result. You are charged per video record returned (result event). See the pricing tab for the current per-result price.
• No charge on failure. Items that cannot be parsed are written with a populated error field and are not charged. Empty runs cost nothing.
• Spend cap respected. Set maxTotalChargeUsd on the run; once reached, the actor stops emitting and charging further billable results.
• Free Apify plans are capped at 10 records per run. Upgrade for higher maxVideos.
• No API key or proxy is required.

FAQ and troubleshooting

A run returned 0 records. Why? No input was provided, or the search matched nothing. Provide at least one of searchQueries, videoUrls, or channelUrls. Zero-result runs are not charged.

Why is likeCount null on some records? Like counts and exact dates are added by the detail enrichment step. Keep enrichDetails on (the default) so search and channel results carry them. Video-URL records always include them.

Why is subscriberText missing on some records? Subscriber count is only exposed on the per-video detail response, so it appears on video-source records (from videoUrls), not on search or channel cards.

Can I mix search, video, and channel inputs? Yes. Provide any combination; results from all three are merged and deduplicated by video ID up to maxVideos.

Do I need a YouTube API key? No. The actor reads YouTube's public data layer directly. No API key and no proxy are needed.

Is this an official YouTube tool? No. This actor is independent and has no affiliation with YouTube or Google. It reads only data that is publicly available.

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• YouTube Video Summarizer: AI summaries of YouTube videos from their transcript.
• Yellow Pages Canada Business Leads Scraper: Canadian business leads.

More scrapers at scrapers.lat

Built and maintained by scrapers.lat, where we publish scrapers for US and Latin American public platforms: company registries, government data, finance, e-commerce and more. Browse the catalog or request a custom scraper at scrapers.lat.

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Independent tool, not affiliated with YouTube or Google. Accesses only publicly available data.