YouTube Channel Scraper

YouTube Channel Scraper collects video, Shorts, and community post metadata from YouTube channels and turns it into structured data for content research, competitor monitoring, and influencer analytics. Provide one or more channel URLs, then export titles, descriptions, view and like counts, durations, upload dates, tags, and thumbnails to JSON, CSV, or Excel. It needs no YouTube API key and performs no video downloads. Pricing starts at $3 per 1,000 items.

What can you automate with YouTube Channel Scraper?

• Track every upload from any channel — pull the catalog of regular videos, Shorts, and community posts from one or many channels in a single run.
• Benchmark competitor content — compare view counts, like counts, upload cadence, and content mix across rival channels.
• Identify trending creators — extract engagement metrics per video to shortlist high-performing creators for partnerships.
• Build structured content databases — export titles, descriptions, tags, categories, and URLs for research or training datasets.
• Monitor channel activity — schedule recurring runs to capture new uploads as they publish.
• Scrape only what you need — set separate limits for videos, Shorts, and posts per channel, plus a global cap.

Who is this scraper for?

Team	Workflow
Content & growth teams	Study formats, topics, and lengths that perform best in any niche.
Marketing & brand agencies	Monitor competitor channels and measure campaign impact.
Influencer & sponsorship teams	Vet creators by real engagement data before outreach.
Researchers & data teams	Assemble video metadata datasets for analysis or model training.

What data can you collect from YouTube?

Data group	Example fields	How it helps
Content identity	title, id, url, description, contentType	Identify each video, Short, or post.
Engagement	viewCount, likeCount, commentCount	Measure performance and audience response.
Channel & publishing	channelName, channelId, channelUrl, publishedAt, uploadDate	Attribute content and track cadence.
Metadata & status	durationSeconds, tags, categories, isLive, wasLive, availability, ageLimit, language, subtitleLanguages	Enrich records with format and access details.

How to use YouTube Channel Scraper

1. Open the actor in your Apify console.
2. Paste one or more YouTube channel URLs (@handle, /channel/ID, /c/name, or /user/name).
3. Set how many videos, Shorts, and community posts to scrape per channel.
4. Run the actor.
5. Export the dataset to JSON, CSV, or Excel, or read it through the API.

{
  "channelUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@TED"],
  "maxVideos": 50,
  "maxShorts": 10,
  "maxPosts": 5,
  "maxItems": 0,
  "maxConcurrency": 3,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]
  }
}

Example workflow

Track competitor uploads weekly

1. List your competitor channels in channelUrls every Monday.
2. Keep new videos and Shorts published since the last run.
3. Compare view and like counts to spot top-performing topics.
4. Key on the id field when merging runs to avoid duplicates.

Automate and integrate your results

Schedule runs from the Scheduler tab — daily for fast-moving channels, weekly for catalog snapshots. Attach a webhook to trigger a downstream pipeline on completion, and export to Google Sheets, Make, Zapier, Slack, or a database. For recurring pipelines, call the actor through the Apify API:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/scraptivo/youtube-channel-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"channelUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@TED"], "maxVideos": 50}'

Within a run the actor deduplicates content automatically; across runs, deduplicate on the id field.

Input reference

| Field | Type | Required | Default | What it controls | |---|---:|---|---| | channelUrls | array | Yes | — | One or more channel URLs; /videos or /shorts paths are normalized. | | maxVideos | integer | No | 50 | Regular videos per channel from the Videos tab (0 = skip). | | maxShorts | integer | No | 0 | Shorts per channel from the Shorts tab (0 = skip). | | maxPosts | integer | No | 0 | Community posts per channel (0 = skip). | | maxItems | integer | No | 0 | Hard cap on total records across all channels (0 = unlimited). | | maxConcurrency | integer | No | 3 | Parallel metadata fetches (1–10). | | proxyConfiguration | object | No | residential | Proxy settings for anti-bot protection. |

Which limits should I set?

At least one of maxVideos, maxShorts, or maxPosts must be above 0 or the run stops with an error. Set only the content types you need — for example maxVideos: 50 and leave Shorts and posts at 0.

Output example

{
  "id": "6YNOQTqNfgQ",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YNOQTqNfgQ",
  "title": "Save It to Your Desktop! | Alan Resnick | TED",
  "contentType": "video",
  "channelName": "TED",
  "channelId": "UCAuUUnT6oDeKwE6v1NGQxug",
  "durationSeconds": 634,
  "durationString": "10:34",
  "viewCount": 11981,
  "likeCount": 399,
  "commentCount": 61,
  "publishedAt": "2026-08-07",
  "tags": ["TEDTalk", "TED"],
  "categories": ["People & Blogs"],
  "isLive": false,
  "availability": "public",
  "language": "en"
}

How much does it cost to scrape YouTube?

The actor bills per item: $3 per 1,000 items, with Apify plan discounts applied automatically — Bronze $2.90, Silver $2.80, and Gold $2.70 per 1,000. Every video, Short, or community post written to the dataset counts as one item. A run of 1,000 items costs $3; 50,000 items cost $150 before plan discounts. Use maxItems to hard-cap the total. Compute and residential proxy usage are billed separately by Apify and offset by your plan's free monthly units.

Reliability and responsible use

The actor defaults to Apify residential proxies and retries failed item extraction automatically. Some fields are nullable — very old or deleted videos may return partial metadata such as a missing commentCount. It scrapes publicly visible channel data only and downloads no media. You are responsible for complying with YouTube's terms and applicable laws when storing or using the data.

Frequently asked questions

Which channel URL formats are accepted?

Any standard format works: @handle, /channel/ID, /c/name, and /user/name. Tab URLs like /videos or /shorts are normalized to the channel root.

Why did my run fail with "Nothing to scrape"?

All three content limits are zero. Set at least one of maxVideos, maxShorts, or maxPosts above 0.

What counts as one billable item?

Each record in the dataset — a video, Short, or community post — is one item, billed at $3 per 1,000.

Does this actor download the videos?

No. It extracts metadata only, which keeps runs fast and cheap.

Why are some results empty or partial?

YouTube can throttle datacenter traffic. Lower maxConcurrency to 1–3, keep residential proxies enabled, and retry — the actor already retries failed items before reporting them.

Can I scrape community posts too?

Yes. Set maxPosts above 0 to pull posts from each channel's Posts/Community tab; posts are labeled contentType: "post".

Related Scraptivo automations

• Instagram Post Scraper — collect Instagram posts and engagement data.
• TikTok Creator Analytics — pull TikTok creator stats and content metrics.
• Instagram Comment Scraper — gather comment data for social research.

Support and custom workflows

Need a different field, source, or delivery workflow? Contact Scraptivo at scraptivo@gmail.com. Include the Actor name, a sample channel URL, required fields, and expected volume so we can assess the request.