YouTube Scraper Pro 🎬

The most complete YouTube scraper on Apify - Extract videos, Shorts, streams with likes, comments, subscribers, and even dislikes!

⭐ Key Features

• ✅ Smart Extraction - Continues scrolling until target results reached (even with filters!)

• ✅ Dislike Counts - Estimated dislikes via Return YouTube Dislike API

• ✅ 100+ Regions - Any country with ISO code

• ✅ HD/4K/VR Filters - Filter by video quality

• ✅ Video Type Filter - Video or Movie

• ✅ Channel Date Range - Only videos after specific date

• ✅ VTT Subtitles - Multiple subtitle formats

• ✅ Save to KVS - Store large subtitles efficiently

• ✅ Proxy Configuration - Built-in Apify proxy support

• ✅ Min Views Filter - Only high-view videos (filtered during scroll!)

• ✅ Rate Limiting - Stable, reliable scraping

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🚀 Features

Core Scraping

• ✅ Videos - Regular YouTube videos with all metadata
• ✅ Shorts - YouTube Shorts with view counts
• ✅ Streams - Live streams and archived livestreams
• ✅ Direct URLs - Scrape specific video/channel/playlist URLs

Engagement Metrics

• 👍 Likes - Accurate like counts
• 👎 Dislikes - Estimated dislikes via Return YouTube Dislike API
• 💬 Comments Count - Number of comments
• 👥 Subscribers - Channel subscriber count
• ⭐ Rating - Video rating score

Advanced Filters (NEW!)

• 🎬 Video Type - Filter by Video or Movie
• 📺 HD Quality - Only HD videos
• 🎥 4K Quality - Only 4K UHD videos
• 🥽 VR180/HDR/360°/3D - Filter by video features
• 📝 Subtitles/CC - Only videos with captions
• 📜 Creative Commons - Only CC-licensed videos
• 🔴 Live - Only live broadcasts

Channel Scraping Options (NEW!)

• 📅 Date Range - Only get videos uploaded after a specific date
• 📊 Sort Order - Sort channel videos by Newest, Popular, or Oldest

Subtitle Options (NEW!)

• 📝 VTT Format - Web Video Text Tracks format
• 🗄️ Save to KVS - Store large subtitles in Key-Value Store
• 🤖 Auto-Generated - Prefer YouTube's auto-captions
• 🌍 14 Languages - Dropdown with major languages

Other Features

• 🌍 100+ Regions - Get results for ANY country
• 🔤 80+ Languages - Results in any language
• 📊 Min Views Filter - Only get videos above X views
• 🔁 Smart Retry - Automatic retry on failed extractions
• 💾 Caching - In-memory cache prevents duplicate scraping
• 🔧 Proxy Config - Built-in Apify proxy support

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⚡ Smart Extraction (NEW!)

The scraper uses intelligent filter-aware scrolling to ensure you always get your requested number of results:

How it works:

1. Scrolls YouTube search results page
2. Filters each video during extraction (not after)
3. Immediately enqueues passing videos for parallel enrichment
4. Continues scrolling until maxResults filtered videos are found

Example log output:

Extracting videos (target: 10 with min 100,000 views)...
   Scroll 1: +3 passed filter (3/10)
   Scroll 2: +2 passed filter (5/10)
   Scroll 3: +4 passed filter (9/10)
   Scroll 4: +1 passed filter (10/10)
✅ Reached target: 10 videos (scrolled 4x, checked 28 total)

This means if you request 10 videos with minViews: 100000, you'll get exactly 10 videos that all have 100k+ views, even if the scraper has to check 30+ videos to find them.

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🛡️ Rate Limiting & Protection

Built-in protection to ensure stable, reliable scraping:

Limit	Value	Purpose
Max Videos/Run	5,000	Prevent resource exhaustion
Max Queries/Run	50	Prevent excessive searches
Max Enrichments/Run	500	Limit video page visits
Request Delay	1-3 sec	Avoid rate limiting
Memory Warning	1024 MB	Prevent crashes

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🌍 Supported Regions & Languages

Countries (100+ supported)

Any valid ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code works:

Region	Examples
Americas	US, CA, MX, BR, AR, CL, CO, PE
Europe	UK, DE, FR, ES, IT, NL, PL, SE, NO
Asia Pacific	JP, KR, CN, IN, AU, NZ, SG, TH, VN, ID, PH, MY
Middle East	SA, AE, EG, IL, TR
Africa	ZA, NG, KE

Languages (80+ supported)

Any valid ISO 639-1 language code works:

Category	Examples
European	en, es, fr, de, it, pt, nl, pl, sv, no, da
Asian	ja, ko, zh, hi, th, vi, id, ms, tl
Middle Eastern	ar, he, tr, fa
Other	ru, uk, bn, ta, te

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📤 Output Data

Each video includes:

{
  "id": "Yq0QkCxoTHM",
  "title": "Google's AI Course for Beginners",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq0QkCxoTHM",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Yq0QkCxoTHM/maxresdefault.jpg",
  "viewCount": 3000000,
  "likes": 51477,
  "dislikes": 685,
  "commentsCount": 2503,
  "numberOfSubscribers": 1590000,
  "channelName": "Jeff Su",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@JeffSu",
  "channelAvatar": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/...",
  "duration": "9:18",
  "date": "2023-11-14T05:00:33-08:00",
  "isMonetized": true,
  "commentsTurnedOff": false,
  "descriptionLinks": [...],
  "type": "video",
  "rank": 1,
  "subtitles": "...",
  "subtitlesKey": "subtitles-Yq0QkCxoTHM"
}

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⚙️ Input Options

🔍 Search & Basic Limits

Option	Description	Default	Max
searchQueries	Keywords to search for	-	-
maxResults	Max videos per query	50	1000
maxResultsShorts	Max Shorts per query	0	500
maxResultsStreams	Max streams per query	0	500

🔗 Direct URLs

Option	Description
startUrls	Direct video/channel/playlist URLs

📝 Subtitle Options

Option	Description	Default
downloadSubtitles	Enable subtitle download	false
saveSubtitlesToKVS	Store in Key-Value Store	false
subtitlesLanguage	Language (dropdown: 14 options)	en
preferAutoGeneratedSubtitles	Prefer auto-captions	false
subtitlesFormat	plaintext, srt, vtt, json	plaintext

🎯 Search Filters

Option	Description
sortingOrder	relevance, rating, upload_date, view_count
dateFilter	hour, today, week, month, year
videoType	video, movie
durationFilter	short, medium, long
minViews	Only videos with at least X views

📺 Feature Filters (NEW!)

Option	Description
featureHD	Only HD quality videos
feature4K	Only 4K UHD videos
featureHDR	Only HDR videos
featureVR180	Only VR180 videos
feature360	Only 360° videos
feature3D	Only 3D videos
featureSubtitles	Only videos with CC
featureCreativeCommons	Only CC-licensed videos
featureLive	Only live broadcasts

📅 Channel Options (NEW!)

Option	Description
oldestPostDate	Only videos after date (YYYY-MM-DD or "30 days")
sortChannelBy	newest, popular, oldest

🌍 Geolocation

Option	Description	Examples
countryCode	Any ISO country code	US, UK, DE, JP, BR, IN
language	Any ISO language code	en, es, fr, de, ja, ko

⚡ Data Options

Option	Description	Default
enrichData	Fetch likes/comments/subs	true
fetchDislikes	Get dislike counts (API)	true

🔧 Run Options

Option	Description
proxyConfiguration	Apify proxy settings

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📺 Channel & Playlist Scraping

You can scrape entire channels or playlists by providing the URL in startUrls.

Channels

Supported formats:

• https://www.youtube.com/@ChannelName
• https://www.youtube.com/channel/CHANNEL_ID
• https://www.youtube.com/c/ChannelName

The scraper will automatically navigate to the Videos, Shorts, and Live tabs and extract content based on your limits. You can also control sorting with sortChannelBy.

Playlists

Supported formats:

• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAYLIST_ID
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID&list=PLAYLIST_ID

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📤 Export Formats

Apify automatically supports exporting your dataset in:

• JSON / JSONL (Best for developers.)
• CSV (Best for spreadsheets.)
• Excel (XLSX)
• HTML (Table view.)
• XML
• RSS

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📋 Example Input

{
  "searchQueries": ["AI tutorials", "machine learning"],
  "maxResults": 100,
  "maxResultsShorts": 20,
  "sortingOrder": "view_count",
  "countryCode": "US",
  "language": "en",
  "minViews": 10000,
  "featureHD": true,
  "enrichData": true,
  "fetchDislikes": true,
  "downloadSubtitles": true,
  "subtitlesFormat": "vtt",
  "saveSubtitlesToKVS": true
}

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💰 Pricing

~$3.50 - $4.10 per 1,000 videos (with enrichment) Cost varies based on enrichData setting. Proxies charged separately.

Videos	With Enrichment	Without Enrichment	Time (Approx)
10	~$0.03	~$0.01	2-3 mins
100	~$0.30	~$0.05	15-30 mins
1,000	~$3.00	~$0.50	2-5 hours

Tip: Set enrichData: false for faster, cheaper runs if you only need basic video info. (title, views, channel, duration)

💸 What Increases Costs?

Factor	Impact	Recommendation
enrichData: true	High - Visits each video page	Disable if you only need search results
downloadSubtitles: true	Medium - Extra processing per video	Only enable when needed
fetchDislikes: true	Low - API calls	Minimal impact, keep enabled
High minViews filter	Medium - More scrolling needed	Lower the threshold if possible
Strict feature filters (HD, 4K, etc.)	Medium - Fewer matches, more scrolling	Use only when necessary
Multiple search queries	Scales linearly	Combine related queries
Proxy usage	Separate charge	Use datacenter proxies for lower cost

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🔒 Reliability & Protection

• ✅ Rate Limiting - Prevents overload and ensures stable runs
• ✅ Validation Layer - Checks for NULL fields before output
• ✅ Auto-Retry - Retries failed extractions up to 2 times
• ✅ Memory Monitor - Warns before memory exhaustion
• ✅ Fingerprint Rotation - Avoids detection
• ✅ Smart Caching - Prevents duplicate requests
• ✅ Deduplication - No duplicate videos in output

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📜 Changelog

v1.2 - Smart Extraction Update

• ✨ Smart Scroll + Filter - Continues scrolling until maxResults videos pass the minViews filter

• ✨ Parallel Enrichment - Videos are enqueued for enrichment immediately while still scrolling

• ✨ Improved Duration Extraction - Multiple fallback selectors and lazy-load detection

• ✨ Filter Logging - See exactly which filters are active in the logs

• ✨ Progress Logging - Real-time updates: Scroll 1: +3 passed filter (3/10)

• 🔧 Faster extraction with optimized wait times

• 🔧 Mouse movement to trigger lazy-loaded elements

v1.1 - Feature Parity Update

• ✨ Video Type Filter - Filter by Video or Movie
• ✨ Feature Filters - HD, 4K, VR180, HDR, 360°, 3D, CC, Live
• ✨ Channel Date Range - Only get videos after a specific date
• ✨ Channel Sort - Sort by Newest, Popular, or Oldest
• ✨ VTT Format - Web Video Text Tracks subtitle format
• ✨ KVS Storage - Save large subtitles to Key-Value Store
• ✨ Auto-Generated Subtitles - Prefer YouTube's auto-captions
• ✨ Subtitle Language Dropdown - 14 languages available
• ✨ Proxy Configuration - Built-in Apify proxy support
• 🔧 Improved UX with better section organization

v1.0 - Initial Release

• Full video, Shorts, and Streams support
• Likes, comments, subscribers extraction
• Return YouTube Dislike API integration
• 100+ countries, 80+ languages support
• Rate limiting and protection
• Subtitle/transcript download
• Smart caching and validation

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