YouTube Video Chapters: chapter titles and timestamps per video

The chapters of YouTube videos, up to 200 videos per run: one row per video with the ordered chapter list (title, start, end, duration, deep link), chapter count, video title, channel and length. Videos without chapters cost nothing. Pay per video.

Why this scraper

• Only delivered results are charged. Inputs that fail come back as clear error records at no cost.
• Two light requests per video over YouTube's mobile route, no browser and no transcript parsing: the chapter panel YouTube itself renders is read as data. Measured on MKBHD's Retro Tech video: 8 chapters with exact start times for a tenth of a cent.
• Chapters as structured rows, not a description to parse: every chapter carries its index, title, start, end and duration in seconds and a deep link that opens the video at that point. chapterTitles gives the whole outline in one string for a spreadsheet.

Who this is for

Paste video URLs, youtu.be links or 11-character ids in videos (up to 200 per run). Every row carries the video id, title, channel, length, the number of chapters, the ordered chapters list (index, title, startSeconds, endSeconds, durationSeconds, url) and chapterTitles, the titles joined with a pipe.

Who this is not for

Only videos whose creator added chapters (timestamps in the description, or YouTube's automatic chapters when the creator allows them) have a chapter list. A video without chapters comes back as one free NO_CHAPTERS error row, and in a random set of videos that can be the majority; on ten recent review videos from one large channel on 16-09-2026, only one had chapters, while cooking tutorials nearly always do. Chapters are as the creator wrote them, in the video's own language.

Input fields

Field	Type	Required or default	What it does
videos	list of text	required	One per row, up to 200: a video URL, youtu.be link or 11-character video id.

Input example

{
    "videos": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifI_fwg55k8"
    ]
}

Output example

Field	Type	What it holds	Example
videoId	text	The eleven-character YouTube id of the video, the key to join other data on.	ifI_fwg55k8
url	text	The watch page of the video.	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifI_fwg55k8
title	text	The title as the uploader set it.	Retro Tech: Flying Cars
channelName	text	The channel that published the video.	Marques Brownlee
durationSeconds	number	The length of the video in seconds.	1216
chapterCount	number	How many chapters the video has; zero means the uploader set none.	8
chapters	list	The chapters themselves: per chapter the title, the start time in seconds and the end time.	[{"index": 1, "title": "Intro", "startSeconds": 0, "endSe...
chapterTitles	text	The same chapter titles as one line, handy for a quick look or a spreadsheet.	Intro | Unboxing The Segway | Talking Flying Cars | Hy...

Error codes: INVALID_VIDEO_ID, VIDEO_UNAVAILABLE, NO_CHAPTERS, BLOCKED.

One delivered row looks like this:

{
  "videoId": "ifI_fwg55k8",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifI_fwg55k8",
  "title": "Retro Tech: Flying Cars",
  "channelName": "Marques Brownlee",
  "durationSeconds": 1161,
  "chapterCount": 8,
  "chapters": [
    {
      "index": 1,
      "title": "Intro",
      "startSeconds": 0,
      "endSeconds": 40,
      "durationSeconds": 40,
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifI_fwg55k8&t=0s"
    },
    {
      "index": 2,
      "title": "Unboxing The Segway",
      "startSeconds": 40,
      "endSeconds": 189,
      "durationSeconds": 149,
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifI_fwg55k8&t=40s"
    },
    {
      "index": 3,
      "title": "Talking Flying Cars",
      "startSeconds": 189,
      "endSeconds": 332,
      "durationSeconds": 143,
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifI_fwg55k8&t=189s"
    },
    {
      "index": 4,
      "title": "Hyperchange’s Galli Russell",
      "startSeconds": 332,
      "endSeconds": 509,
      "durationSeconds": 177,
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifI_fwg55k8&t=332s"
    },
    {
      "index": 5,
      "title": "The Hoverboard",
      "startSeconds": 509,
      "endSeconds": 674,
      "durationSeconds": 165,
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifI_fwg55k8&t=509s"
    },
    {
      "index": 6,
      "title": "Dope Or Nope",
      "startSeconds": 674,
      "endSeconds": 970,
      "durationSeconds": 296,
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifI_fwg55k8&t=674s"
    },
    {
      "index": 7,
      "title": "Omni Hoverboards",
      "startSeconds": 970,
      "endSeconds": 1124,
      "durationSeconds": 154,
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifI_fwg55k8&t=970s"
    },
    {
      "index": 8,
      "title": "Wrap Up",
      "startSeconds": 1124,
      "endSeconds": 1161,
      "durationSeconds": 37,
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifI_fwg55k8&t=1124s"
    }
  ],
  "chapterTitles": "Intro | Unboxing The Segway | Talking Flying Cars | Hyperchange’s Galli Russell | The Hoverboard | Dope Or Nope | Omni Hoverboards | Wrap Up",
  "status": "ok"
}

Related actors from steadydata

• youtube-transcript-bulk: the transcript text to go with the chapters
• youtube-video-details: full metadata of the same video
• youtube-channel-videos: the videos of a channel to feed in

Pricing

Pay per event: one chapters-fetched event per delivered result. No charge for inputs that fail, no separate platform-usage surcharge.

Free Apify plan: this actor delivers up to 25 rows per run for accounts on the Apify free plan, and then stops with a message. That limit is set by us, not by Apify. It exists so the actor keeps paying for itself for the people who do pay. Any paid Apify plan runs it at full size, billed per delivered row, with failed rows never charged.

Reviews: if this actor saves you time, a short review on this page is the one thing that helps most. Ratings are what other buyers look at first, and we have no other way to ask.

FAQ

Do I pay for videos without chapters? No. Only a video with a delivered chapter list is charged.

Where does the last chapter end? At the video's length; every other chapter ends where the next one starts.

Can I combine this with the transcript? Yes: run the YouTube Transcript actor from the related actors below on the same ids and cut its timestamped snippets by startSeconds and endSeconds.

Are automatic chapters included? When YouTube shows them on the video, yes; they come from the same panel as creator chapters.

Can I feed a whole channel? Take the video ids from the YouTube Channel Videos actor and paste them in videos.

Is personal data collected? durationSeconds is the video's full length from YouTube; chapter times are whole seconds.

What happens when the source changes? Sources change from time to time; that is the nature of this work. The actor is monitored daily and fixed fast, and while it is broken you are not charged, because only delivered results cost anything.

Can I call it from my own code, like an API? Yes. Every run is available through the Apify API: start it with one HTTP request, then read the results as JSON, CSV or Excel from the dataset endpoint, or use the official Python and JavaScript clients. The input is the same JSON as in the input example above, so a scheduled script, a Make or Zapier step or an AI agent can call it without any changes.