🎬 YouTube Comments Scraper

Extract thousands of YouTube comments in minutes - no coding required. Get complete comment data including text, authors, likes, replies, and timestamps from any video.

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⚡ Quick Start (30 seconds)

1. 📋 Copy this JSON into the Input editor
2. ✏️ Replace the URL with your video
3. ▶️ Click Start

{
    "startUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOUR_VIDEO_ID"],
    "maxComments": 100
}

That's it! 🎉 No configuration needed. Download results as Excel, CSV, or JSON.

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✨ What This Actor Does

• ✅ Extract all comments from any YouTube video (including Shorts)
• ✅ Get comment text, author names, and timestamps
• ✅ Track likes and reply counts for each comment
• ✅ Capture complete reply threads
• ✅ Export to Excel, CSV, JSON, XML, or HTML
• ✅ Handle multiple videos in one run
• ✅ No API key or YouTube account needed
• ✅ Automatic proxy rotation prevents blocks

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🎯 Use Cases

📊 Sentiment Analysis & Market Research

Track customer feedback and public opinion about products, brands, or topics mentioned in videos.

🎨 Content Strategy & Audience Insights

Understand what your audience cares about by analyzing comments on your videos or competitors' content.

🚨 Brand Monitoring & Crisis Management

Monitor brand mentions across YouTube to catch negative sentiment early and respond quickly.

🎓 Academic Research & Social Media Studies

Collect data for research papers on online communities, discourse analysis, or viral content patterns.

🔍 Competitive Intelligence

Analyze comments on competitor videos to understand their audience and identify gaps in the market.

🤝 Influencer Marketing & Campaign Tracking

Measure engagement quality and audience sentiment on influencer partnerships or sponsored content.

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📝 How to Use

🔗 Step 1: Get the Video URL

Open YouTube and find the video you want to analyze. Copy the URL from your browser's address bar.

Supported formats:

• 🎬 Regular videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
• 📱 Short URLs: https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID
• ⚡ YouTube Shorts: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_ID

⚙️ Step 2: Configure Your Input

Paste the URL into the startUrls field. Want to limit results? Set maxComments (or leave it out for unlimited).

Pro tip: Set commentsSortBy to "1" for newest comments first, or "0" for top comments.

▶️ Step 3: Start the Actor

Click the green Start button. Your extraction begins immediately - no waiting around!

👀 Step 4: Monitor Progress

Watch the log output to track extraction in real-time. Typical speed: 100-200 comments per minute.

💾 Step 5: Download Your Data

Once complete, go to the Storage tab and download your results:

• 📗 Excel (.xlsx) - Perfect for analysis in spreadsheets
• 📄 CSV (.csv) - Import into databases or BI tools
• 🔧 JSON - For developers and custom processing

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🔧 Input Parameters (Full Reference)

Parameter	Required?	Type	Default	What It Does
startUrls	✅ YES	Array	—	YouTube video URLs to scrape
maxComments	❌ No	Number	♾️ unlimited	Max comments per video
commentsSortBy	❌ No	String	"0"	"0" = 🔥 top comments, "1" = 🆕 newest first
proxyConfiguration	❌ No	Object	residential	Proxy settings (auto-configured)

💡 Input Examples

📌 Simple: Extract comments from one video

{
    "startUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2AC41dglnM"],
    "maxComments": 30,
    "commentsSortBy": "1"
}

📌 Extract from multiple videos at once

{
    "startUrls": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2AC41dglnM",
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44XYEeD1A1U",
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAgnJDJN4VA"
    ],
    "maxComments": 10
}

💡 Pro tip: maxComments: 10 means 10 comments from EACH video (30 total in this example).

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📊 Sample Output

This is exactly what you'll get:

{
  "comment": "It's DECEMBER 12 2025, let's see how many are listening to this masterpiece of the ACDC",
  "author": "@JonasSilva-i4x",
  "voteCount": 2000,
  "replyCount": 209,
  "date": "2 weeks ago",
  "type": "comment",
  "videoId": "v2AC41dglnM",
  "title": "AC/DC - Thunderstruck (Official Video)"
}

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📤 Output Data (What You Get)

Every comment includes these fields:

Field	Type	Meaning
💬 comment	Text	The actual comment text
👤 author	Text	Comment author's display name (e.g., @username)
👍 voteCount	Number	Number of likes/thumbs up
💭 replyCount	Number	Number of replies to this comment
📅 date	Text	Relative timestamp (e.g., "2 weeks ago")
🏷️ type	Text	"comment" for top-level, "reply" for nested
🎬 videoId	Text	YouTube video ID
📺 title	Text	Video title

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🌍 Advanced Configuration: Proxies

👋 For most users: The default proxy settings work perfectly. Skip this section!

🔧 If you want custom proxy configuration:

By default, this actor uses residential proxies (real home internet connections) to prevent YouTube blocks. This is included automatically - no setup needed!

🌎 Custom country targeting:

{
    "startUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2AC41dglnM"],
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true,
        "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
        "apifyProxyCountry": "US"
    }
}

💰 Cost implications: Residential proxies cost ~$0.50-1.00 per 1,000 comments (already included in pricing above).

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❌ Limitations

• 🔒 Cannot extract comments from private or unlisted videos (YouTube restriction)
• 🔞 Cannot access age-restricted content without authentication (YouTube restriction)
• ⏰ Cannot get exact timestamps - only relative dates like "2 weeks ago" (YouTube API limitation)
• 🗑️ Cannot extract deleted or removed comments (data no longer available)
• 🌍 Cannot bypass region-restricted videos (YouTube restriction)
• ⚡ May encounter rate limiting on extremely high volumes (>100k comments/hour)

Important: These limitations are due to YouTube's platform restrictions, not actor capabilities.

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🚀 Getting Started Now

Ready to try it? Here's your 5-step quickstart:

1. 📋 Copy this example:

{
    "startUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOUR_VIDEO_ID"],
    "maxComments": 100
}

2. ✏️ Replace YOUR_VIDEO_ID with your actual video ID

3. ▶️ Click Start (the big green button!)

4. ⏱️ Wait 1-2 minutes (for 100 comments)

5. 📥 Download results as Excel, CSV, or JSON

That's it! You're done. No setup, no API keys, no hassle.

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💡 Common Questions

❓ How long does extraction take?

Typical speeds:

• ⚡ 100 comments: ~30 seconds
• ⏱️ 1,000 comments: ~2-5 minutes
• 🕐 10,000 comments: ~15-30 minutes

Note: Speed depends on video complexity, reply threads, and current YouTube API responsiveness.

❓ How much does this cost?

Pay-per-result pricing:

• 💵 ~$2.0 per 1,000 comments
• ✅ Includes proxies, storage, and unlimited downloads
• 🎁 Free tier: Apify gives you $5/month credit (~2,500 comments free!)

❓ Do I need a YouTube account or API key?

No! 🎉 This actor works without any YouTube account, API key, or authentication. Just paste the video URL and click Start.

❓ Is scraping YouTube comments legal?

Yes. ✅ This scraper only extracts publicly visible data - the same comments anyone can see on YouTube. No private data or emails are accessed. Always comply with YouTube's Terms of Service and applicable laws.

❓ Does this work with YouTube Shorts?

Yes! 📱 Shorts are fully supported. Just paste the Shorts URL like any regular video URL.

❓ What if the video has comments disabled?

If comments are disabled, the actor will complete with 0 results and log a message. No errors, no charges. 👍

❓ Will this break when YouTube updates?

Nope! 🛡️ We actively monitor YouTube for changes and update the actor automatically. You'll be notified if any breaking changes require action.

❓ Can I use this through the API?

Yes! 🔌 Perfect for developers integrating into applications:

💻 Node.js:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_API_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('smart_api/youtube-comments-scraper').call({
  startUrls: ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2AC41dglnM'],
  maxComments: 1000
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

🐍 Python:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('YOUR_API_TOKEN')
run = client.actor('smart_api/youtube-comments-scraper').call({
    'startUrls': ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2AC41dglnM'],
    'maxComments': 1000
})

items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items

❓ Can I integrate this with other tools?

Absolutely! 🔗 Apify integrates with:

• ⚡ Zapier - Automate workflows
• 🔧 Make (Integromat) - Build scenarios
• 📊 Google Sheets - Direct export
• 💬 Slack - Get notifications
• 🪝 Webhooks - Custom integrations

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⚠️ Troubleshooting

🚫 Problem: "No comments extracted" but comments are visible on YouTube

What it means: YouTube's API didn't return comments, or the video has comments disabled/restricted.

✅ Solution:

1. ✓ Verify comments are enabled on the video (check YouTube manually)
2. ✓ Try running the actor again (temporary YouTube API issues happen!)
3. ✓ Check if the video is age-restricted (requires login = may block scraping)

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🔴 Problem: "Invalid URL" error

What it means: The URL format isn't recognized as a valid YouTube video URL.

✅ Solution:

1. ✓ Use one of these formats:
   • 🎬 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
   • 📱 https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID
   • ⚡ https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_ID
2. ✓ Remove any extra parameters (e.g., &t=30s) if causing issues
3. ✓ Ensure URL is inside the startUrls array: ["https://..."]

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📉 Problem: Only getting partial results (fewer comments than expected)

What it means: Either maxComments is limiting results, or YouTube's API stopped returning more data.

✅ Solution:

1. ✓ Remove or increase maxComments parameter
2. ✓ Try sorting by "newest" (commentsSortBy: "1") instead of "top"
3. ✓ Run again - YouTube sometimes has temporary pagination issues

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⏳ Problem: Actor times out or runs very slowly

What it means: Large comment volumes or slow YouTube API responses are causing delays.

✅ Solution:

1. ✓ Set maxComments to limit extraction volume
2. ✓ Check the video doesn't have 100k+ comments (split into multiple runs)
3. ✓ Contact support if timeout happens with <10k comments

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🔌 Problem: "Proxy error" or connection issues

What it means: Residential proxies had temporary connectivity issues.

✅ Solution:

1. ✓ Retry the run - proxy issues are usually temporary
2. ✓ Check Apify status page for platform-wide proxy issues
3. ✓ Contact support if proxy errors persist across multiple runs

💬 Still stuck? Contact support at czajkowski.krystian@gmail.com - we respond within 48 hours!

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📞 Support & Maintenance

⏰ Response time: We respond within 48 hours

✉️ Contact: czajkowski.krystian@gmail.com

🤝 How we help:

• 🔧 Troubleshooting extraction issues
• 🔌 Custom integration support
• 💡 Feature requests and suggestions

🛠️ Maintenance:

• 👀 We actively monitor YouTube for platform changes
• 🔄 Updates are rolled out automatically when YouTube changes
• 📢 You'll be notified if breaking changes affect your runs

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🔄 Version History

✨ v1.0 — Initial release (December 2025)

• ✅ Extract comments from YouTube videos
• ✅ Support for Shorts and regular videos
• ✅ Multiple output formats (Excel, CSV, JSON)
• ✅ Automatic proxy rotation
• ✅ Top comments and newest-first sorting

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📅 Last updated: 2025-12-30

💪 Commitment: We maintain this actor actively and update as YouTube changes.