YouTube Search Scraper

Scrape YouTube search results at scale. Type a query, get back ranked video results with titles, URLs, channels, view counts, durations and thumbnails — no login, no YouTube Data API key, no quota.

What it does

Runs one YouTube search and writes one dataset row per result, in the order YouTube ranked them. It pages through results until it reaches your maxItems limit or the results run out.

The query is passed through exactly as you type it, so YouTube's own search operators work: quoted phrases, -exclusions, channel: filters — anything the search box accepts.

Input

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
query	string	yes	—	What to search for
maxItems	integer	no	100	Stop after this many results

{ "query": "prisma migrate tutorial", "maxItems": 200 }

Output

One row per result.

{
  "id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "title": "Prisma Migrate in 10 minutes",
  "channel": { "id": "UC38IQsAvIsxxjztdMZQtwHA", "title": "Dev Channel", "handle": "@devchannel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@devchannel" },
  "durationSec": 612,
  "views": 48210,
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-04T00:00:00.000Z",
  "publishedAtConfidence": "parsed",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/hqdefault.jpg"
}

Field	Type	Notes
id	string	YouTube video id
url	string	Canonical watch URL
title	string	Video title
channel	object	id, title, handle, url
durationSec	integer	Length in seconds
views	integer	View count at scrape time
publishedAt	string	ISO 8601
publishedAtConfidence	string	exact | parsed | unknown
thumbnailUrl	string	Thumbnail image URL

About publishedAtConfidence

YouTube renders ages as relative text — "2 weeks ago" — rather than timestamps. When that is all a source gives us, the date is computed from it and marked parsed. exact means a real timestamp arrived. unknown means neither did, and publishedAt is absent.

Most scrapers present a computed date as if it were exact. This one tells you which it is, so you can judge whether it is precise enough for your analysis.

What it does not do

• Videos only. Channels, playlists and Shorts shelves that appear inline in YouTube's results are not returned as rows.
• No result filters. Upload date, duration and type filters are not exposed; results come back as YouTube ranked them.
• No transcripts or comments. Those are separate actors — use the video url from these rows as their input.
• Rankings are personal and regional. YouTube ranks differently by country and history. Treat the order as one snapshot, not a fixed truth.

Pricing

Charged per result delivered. A run returning 200 results bills 200. Failed runs charge nothing.

Errors

Code	Meaning
BAD_REQUEST	Input missing, malformed, or not a URL this actor serves
NOT_FOUND	The target is private, removed, or does not exist
UNSUPPORTED_OPERATION	The URL resolved to a platform this actor does not serve
UPSTREAM_FAILED	Every upstream source failed — retry shortly
RATE_LIMITED	Too many requests; back off and retry
TIMEOUT	The source took longer than the actor's budget
UNAUTHORIZED	The actor's API credentials are invalid — contact the author
INSUFFICIENT_CREDITS	The account behind this actor is out of credits — contact the author
INTERNAL_ERROR	Unexpected failure

UNAUTHORIZED and INSUFFICIENT_CREDITS are on us, not you. If you see either, the actor is misconfigured on our side.

How it works

Search runs through three independent upstream sources. If one is down or returns nothing usable, the next is tried inside the same run — no double charge, no retry on your side. Three sources is the deepest failover in this catalogue.

Results are always fetched live. Search rankings move hour to hour, so caching them would hand you a stale ranking dressed up as a current one.

FAQ

Do I need a YouTube API key? No.

Do search operators work? Yes — the query string reaches YouTube untouched.

Can I search within one channel? Use YouTube's own channel: operator in the query, or the YouTube Channel Videos Scraper for a complete upload list.

Why do I get different results than my browser? YouTube personalises by account, history and region. This runs signed-out.

Why fewer results than maxItems? The query ran out of results. That is a normal successful run.