💬 YouTube Comments Scraper

Extract YouTube video comments and replies at ultra-fast speeds using YouTube's internal InnerTube API — no official API key required, no quota limits.

Provide any YouTube video URL and instantly pull hundreds or thousands of comments along with all the metadata you need for analysis.

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What is YouTube Comments Scraper?

YouTube Comments Scraper is a data extraction tool that goes beyond the limitations of the standard YouTube Data API. It scrapes comments directly through YouTube's internal InnerTube endpoints, giving you:

• ✅ All comments and replies from any YouTube video
• ✅ Sort by Newest First or Top Comments
• ✅ Filter comments by date (only scrape comments newer than a given date)
• ✅ Comment text, author handle, publish time, vote count, and reply count
• ✅ Whether the comment has been hearted by the creator
• ✅ Whether the commenter is the channel owner
• ✅ Total comment count for the video
• ✅ Scrape both regular videos and YouTube Shorts

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Use Cases

• 📊 Sentiment analysis — understand how audiences feel about a video or topic
• 🔍 Brand monitoring — track mentions of your brand in YouTube comments
• 📈 Trend discovery — identify what topics and opinions are gaining traction
• 🚨 Content moderation — detect harmful, spammy, or illegal comments at scale
• 🧪 Research & academia — collect public comment datasets for NLP and social research
• 🎯 Competitor analysis — analyze what audiences say about competitors' content
• 💡 Community insights — understand what your viewers think and feel

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How to Use

1. Create a free Apify account
2. Open YouTube Comments Scraper on the Apify platform
3. Enter one or more YouTube video URLs in the Start URLs field
4. Set your desired Max Comments, Sort Order, and optional Date Filter
5. Click Start and wait for the run to complete
6. Download your data as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or HTML

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⬇️ Input

The actor accepts the following input fields:

Field	Type	Default	Description
startUrls	Array	—	Required. One or more YouTube video or Shorts URLs to scrape
maxComments	Integer	100	Maximum number of comments/replies to scrape per video
sortCommentsBy	String	NEWEST_FIRST	Sort order: NEWEST_FIRST or TOP_COMMENTS
oldestCommentDate	String	—	Only return comments on or after this date. Format: YYYY-MM-DD
maxConcurrency	Integer	3	Number of concurrent workers (increase for faster runs)
proxyConfiguration	Object	Apify Proxy	Proxy settings — residential proxies recommended for reliability

Input Example (JSON)

{
  "startUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" }
  ],
  "maxComments": 500,
  "sortCommentsBy": "TOP_COMMENTS",
  "oldestCommentDate": "2024-01-01",
  "maxConcurrency": 3,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}

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⬆️ Output

Each scraped comment or reply is stored as a separate item in the dataset. Results can be previewed in the Apify console and downloaded in multiple formats.

Output Fields

Field	Type	Description
comment	String	Full text of the comment
cid	String	Unique comment ID
publishedTimeText	String	Time since comment was posted (e.g. "2 days ago")
author	String	Author's YouTube handle (e.g. @username)
videoId	String	YouTube video ID
pageUrl	String	Full URL of the video page
commentsCount	Integer	Total number of comments on the video
replyCount	Integer	Number of replies to this comment
voteCount	Integer	Number of likes on the comment
authorIsChannelOwner	Boolean	true if the commenter is the channel owner
hasCreatorHeart	Boolean	true if the creator hearted this comment
type	String	"comment" for top-level comments, "reply" for replies
replyToCid	String	ID of the parent comment (only present for replies)
title	String	Title of the YouTube video

Output Example (JSON)

{
  "comment": "This is one of the best videos I've ever seen.",
  "cid": "UgxRn0_LUxzRP2MybPR4AaABAg",
  "publishedTimeText": "3 days ago",
  "author": "@some_user",
  "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "pageUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "commentsCount": 84321,
  "replyCount": 12,
  "voteCount": 4200,
  "authorIsChannelOwner": false,
  "hasCreatorHeart": true,
  "type": "comment",
  "replyToCid": null,
  "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Music Video)"
}

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Error Items

If a video is unavailable, has comments disabled, or cannot be scraped for any reason, the actor pushes an error item to the dataset instead of silently skipping it. Normal output items are never affected — you can identify error items by the presence of an error field.

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Integrations

YouTube Comments Scraper can be connected to virtually any tool or cloud service via the Apify platform integrations:

• Make (formerly Integromat)
• Zapier
• Slack
• Airbyte
• Google Drive
• GitHub
• Webhooks — trigger actions on every completed run

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API Access

You can run and manage this actor programmatically using the Apify API.

Node.js:

const { ApifyClient } = require('apify-client');

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_API_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('YOUR_ACTOR_ID').call({
  startUrls: [{ url: 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ' }],
  maxComments: 200,
  sortCommentsBy: 'TOP_COMMENTS',
});

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

Python:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_API_TOKEN")

run = client.actor("YOUR_ACTOR_ID").call(run_input={
    "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" }],
    "maxComments": 200,
    "sortCommentsBy": "TOP_COMMENTS",
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

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FAQ

Is YouTube comment scraping legal?

YouTube comments are publicly visible data. Scraping public data is generally legal, but you should ensure your use case complies with YouTube's Terms of Service and applicable data protection laws (e.g. GDPR). Never scrape private or personally sensitive data without a legitimate legal basis.

Do I need proxies?

Yes — for reliable scraping, residential proxies are strongly recommended. When running on the Apify platform, you can enable Apify Proxy directly in the input. Apify's Starter plan and above include residential proxy access.

Can I scrape multiple videos at once?

Yes. Add as many URLs as you want to the startUrls field. The actor will process them concurrently based on your maxConcurrency setting.

Can I filter comments by date?

Yes. Use the oldestCommentDate field (format: YYYY-MM-DD) to only return comments published on or after that date. Combine this with sortCommentsBy: NEWEST_FIRST for best results.

Can I scrape replies as well?

Yes. The actor scrapes both top-level comments and their replies. Replies are included in the same dataset and can be identified by "type": "reply" and the replyToCid field pointing to their parent comment.

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Feedback & Issues

Found a bug or have a feature request? Open an issue on the Issues tab of this actor on Apify, or reach out directly. We're always working to improve speed, reliability, and data coverage.