YouTube Scraper : Videos, Channels & Comments

YouTube Scraper & MCP Connector

Scrape YouTube videos, channels, and comments — no API key, no quota limits, no login required. No manual searching, no googleapis.com quota headaches, no scraping dead ends.

Built for content researchers, growth marketers, and dev teams who need clean video/channel/comment data for a search term, channel, or hashtag in minutes — not an afternoon fighting the YouTube Data API's daily quota.

Type a search term, channel, or video URL → get videos, channel stats, and comments → deliver them straight into your CRM, Notion, Slack, or Jira.

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⭐ Why This Actor?

• ✅ No YouTube API key, no quotas — built on yt-dlp and youtube-comment-downloader, not the rate-limited YouTube Data API
• ✅ Four ways in — search queries, channel URLs, direct video URLs, or hashtags, all in a single run
• ✅ Videos, channels, and comments together — one run returns video metadata, channel stats, and top comments, tagged by type so they're easy to split back apart
• ✅ Anti-bot resilient — routes every request through Apify Proxy with a fresh rotating IP per request, avoiding YouTube's "Sign in to confirm you're not a bot" block
• ✅ Deliver anywhere via MCP connectors — push results straight into Notion, Slack, Jira, GitHub, Linear, Airtable, and more
• ✅ Export-ready — JSON, CSV, or Excel for your CRM, BI tool, or content pipeline

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📝 Use Cases & ROI

Use Case	Time Saved	What You Get
Content & trend research	2–4 hrs/topic	Top videos for a keyword, hashtag, or niche, ranked by views/likes
Competitor channel monitoring	1–3 hrs/channel	Full upload history, view/like/comment counts, and subscriber trends
Sentiment & audience analysis	2–5 hrs/video	Comment threads with author, likes, and reply counts for qualitative review
Influencer / creator sourcing	2–4 hrs/search	Channel-level stats (subscribers, video count, country) to shortlist creators
Data pipeline enrichment	1–3 hrs/batch	Structured video/channel/comment records piped into your CRM or warehouse via API/connector

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🚀 How to Use

1. Open the Actor on Apify
2. Provide at least one of: Search queries, Channel URLs, Video URLs, or Hashtags
3. Set Max videos per input — how many videos to pull per query/channel/hashtag (default: 20)
4. Set Max comments per video and toggle Scrape comments / Scrape channel info as needed
5. Keep Proxy configuration on Apify Proxy (default) — YouTube blocks direct platform IPs
6. (Optional) Pick an MCP connector to deliver results into Notion, Slack, Jira, etc.
7. Click Run — results land in the dataset within minutes
8. Download as JSON, CSV, or Excel — or let the connector push them into your tools automatically

💡 First time with a connector? Run once with a connector selected — the run log prints the connector's available tool names, so you know what to put in Connector tool name. 🌐 Proxy: requests run through Apify Proxy with a new IP rotated in for every request. Running without a proxy will likely get blocked.

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🧩 Input Configuration

Field	Type	Required	Description
searchQueries	Array of strings	One of these four	List of search terms to look up on YouTube.
channelUrls	Array of strings	One of these four	YouTube channel URLs to scrape (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd).
videoUrls	Array of strings	One of these four	Direct YouTube video URLs to scrape.
hashtags	Array of strings	One of these four	YouTube hashtags to search (with or without the #).
maxVideos	Integer	Optional	Max videos to scrape per search query, channel, or hashtag (1–500). Default: 20.
maxComments	Integer	Optional	Max comments to scrape per video (0–1000). Default: 50.
scrapeComments	Boolean	Optional	Enable comment scraping for each video. Default: true.
scrapeChannelInfo	Boolean	Optional	Include channel-level metadata (subscribers, description, etc.) when scraping channels. Default: true.
proxyConfiguration	Object	Optional	Proxy used to fetch pages. Defaults to Apify Proxy — required, since YouTube blocks direct platform IPs with a "Sign in to confirm you're not a bot" error.
mcpConnector	Connector	Optional	Deliver results into a connector you've authorized (Notion, Slack, Jira, GitHub, Linear, Airtable, …).
deliveryMode	Enum	Optional	summary (one call for all results), chunked (split many results across calls so services like Notion don't time out), perItem (one call per video/channel/comment), or none. Default: summary.
mcpTool	String	Optional	Tool to call on the connector (e.g. create_page, send_message, create_issue).
mcpArguments	Object	Optional	Arguments for the tool; string values support {placeholders}.
mcpMessageTemplate	String	Optional	Template rendered per call, exposed as the {message} placeholder.

At least one of searchQueries, channelUrls, videoUrls, or hashtags must be provided.

Example — Just scrape videos for a search term

{
  "searchQueries": ["python tutorial 2024"],
  "maxVideos": 20,
  "maxComments": 50,
  "scrapeComments": true
}

Example — Scrape a channel, skip comments

{
  "channelUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd"],
  "maxVideos": 30,
  "scrapeComments": false,
  "scrapeChannelInfo": true
}

Example — Find and deliver to Slack

{
  "searchQueries": ["apify web scraping"],
  "maxVideos": 15,
  "mcpConnector": "<your-slack-connector>",
  "deliveryMode": "perItem",
  "mcpTool": "send_message",
  "mcpArguments": { "channel": "#content-research", "text": "{message}" },
  "mcpMessageTemplate": "*{title}* — {url}\n{viewCount} views, {likeCount} likes"
}

Example — Find and create Notion pages

{
  "channelUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd"],
  "maxVideos": 20,
  "mcpConnector": "<your-notion-connector>",
  "deliveryMode": "perItem",
  "mcpTool": "create_page",
  "mcpArguments": {
    "parent": "<database-id>",
    "title": "{title}",
    "url": "{url}"
  }
}

Placeholders available in arguments / template

• Summary / chunked mode: {itemCount}, {itemsText} (formatted list of videos/channels/comments), {message} (rendered template); chunked also gives {part} / {partCount}.
• Per-item mode — always available: {type} (video / channel / comment), {scrapedAt}, {message}, plus whichever fields the record has:
  • video: {videoId} {title} {description} {channelId} {channelName} {channelUrl} {viewCount} {likeCount} {commentCount} {duration} {durationStr} {thumbnail} {isLive} {isShort} {tags} {categories} {language} {uploadDate} {url}
  • channel: {channelId} {channelName} {channelUrl} {description} {subscriberCount} {videoCount} {thumbnail} {country}
  • comment: {videoId} {commentId} {text} {author} {authorId} {likes} {replyCount} {isReply} {publishedAt}

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📦 Output Fields

Each dataset item has a type field: "video", "channel", or "comment".

Videos

Field	Description
videoId	YouTube video ID
title	Video title
description	First 2000 chars of description
channelName / channelId / channelUrl	Uploader info
viewCount	Total views
likeCount	Total likes
commentCount	Total comments
duration / durationStr	Length in seconds / H:MM:SS
tags / categories	YouTube tags and categories
thumbnail	Highest-res thumbnail URL
uploadDate	YYYY-MM-DD
isLive / isShort	Flags
source	How it was found: search, channel, or direct_url

Channels

Field	Description
channelId	YouTube channel ID
channelName / channelUrl	Display name / link
subscriberCount	Subscriber count
videoCount	Number of public videos
description	Channel description
country	Country of origin

Comments

Field	Description
commentId	Unique comment ID
videoId	Parent video ID
text	Comment text
author / authorId	Commenter info
likes	Comment likes
replyCount	Number of replies
isReply	Whether it's a reply
publishedAt	Relative time string

Example Output

[
  {
    "type": "video",
    "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "title": "Apify Web Scraping Tutorial 2024",
    "channelName": "Apify",
    "viewCount": 128340,
    "likeCount": 4210,
    "commentCount": 312,
    "durationStr": "12:45",
    "uploadDate": "2024-03-11",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  }
]

You can download the dataset in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel.

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🔌 Integrations & Delivery

Deliver scraped videos, channels, and comments into any MCP connector you've authorized in Apify — no glue code, no webhooks:

• Notion — create a page/row per video, channel, or comment
• Slack / Discord — post results to a channel
• Jira / GitHub / Linear — open issues or tasks for follow-up
• Airtable / Google Sheets — append structured rows
• …or any other MCP-compatible connector

Credentials stay private — delivery runs through the Apify MCP Proxy, so the Actor never sees your connector tokens. You can also consume the dataset directly via the Apify API, or wire it into n8n, Zapier, and Make.

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❓ FAQ

How do I scrape YouTube without the official API? This Actor uses yt-dlp and youtube-comment-downloader instead of the YouTube Data API, so there's no API key to register and no daily quota to run into.

Can I scrape YouTube comments without an API key? Yes — toggle Scrape comments on and set Max comments per video; comment author, text, likes, and reply counts are included automatically.

How many videos can I scrape per run? Up to 500 per search query, channel, or hashtag (set via Max videos per input), across as many inputs as you provide in a single run.

Does this YouTube scraper need a proxy? Yes — YouTube blocks direct requests from datacenter IPs with a "Sign in to confirm you're not a bot" error. Keep Proxy configuration on Apify Proxy (default) for reliable results.

Is scraping YouTube data legal? This Actor only collects publicly available information from public YouTube pages and doesn't log into or bypass authentication on any account. You're responsible for using the data in line with YouTube's Terms of Service and applicable laws (GDPR/CCPA, etc.) — see the disclaimer below.

Can I export the scraped YouTube data to CSV or Excel? Yes — every run's dataset can be downloaded as JSON, CSV, HTML, or Excel directly from the Apify Console, or pulled via the Apify API.

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🆘 Support

For issues, custom sourcing requests, or feature suggestions:

Email: bhavin.shah@techforceglobal.com

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Need a Custom Pipeline?

Want multi-channel batch monitoring, deeper enrichment (transcripts, sentiment scoring), or a full CRM/BI integration?

📅 Book a Free 15-min Consultation

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Made with ❤️ by Techforce Specialists in High-Performance Web Scrapers and AI Automation.

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Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by YouTube, Google, or any related company. YouTube® is a registered trademark of Google LLC; all trademarks are property of their respective owners. The Actor collects only publicly available information surfaced on public YouTube pages and does not log into, or scrape behind the authentication of, any account. Use the data responsibly and in compliance with applicable laws (including GDPR/CCPA), YouTube's Terms of Service, and the terms of the platforms you operate on.