YouTube Search Scraper: Keyword Video & Shorts Monitor

What does YouTube Search Scraper do?

YouTube Search Scraper runs keyword searches on YouTube and returns every video, live stream and Short in the results, one row each, with the title, URL, channel, view count as a number, duration in seconds, upload time and an isShort flag. Type in keywords the way you would in the YouTube search box and get a clean table back.

YouTube is a trademark of Google LLC. Not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by YouTube or Google.

This actor takes keywords. Our YouTube channel scraper and YouTube Shorts scraper take channels, hashtags and URLs instead.

It works like a YouTube search API with no API key, no quota and no login, and it has a monitor mode that returns only videos you have not seen before, so a daily schedule becomes a feed of new uploads for your keywords. It runs on plain HTTP requests, so it is fast and cheap: $1 per 1,000 results, and searches that fail or find nothing are free.

Why use a YouTube keyword scraper?

• 🔎 Keyword and topic research: see which videos and Shorts rank for a search term, how many views they have and how long they are.
• 📣 Brand and competitor monitoring: run your brand, product or competitor names every day with monitor mode and get only the new videos.
• 🤝 Influencer discovery: find the channels that publish on your topic, then check them with our channel scraper.
• 📈 Content planning: compare long videos against Shorts for the same keyword in one run, using the isShort flag.
• 🧠 AI and data pipelines: feed titles, snippets and view counts into an LLM, a dashboard or a spreadsheet.

Runs on the Apify platform, so you get an API, scheduling, webhooks and integrations with Make, Zapier, n8n and Google Sheets. It also works as an MCP tool for AI agents through the Apify MCP server.

What data can it extract?

Field	Example
videoId, url	n61ULEU7CO0, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n61ULEU7CO0 (Shorts get a /shorts/ URL)
type	video, short, live or upcoming
isShort, isLive	false, false
title	Best of lofi hip hop 2021 ✨ [beats to relax/study to]
channelName, channelId, channelUrl	Lofi Girl, UCSJ4gkVC6NrvII8umztf0Ow, channel link
channelVerified	true
viewCount, viewCountText	58455911, 58,455,911 views
liveViewers	people watching a live stream right now
durationSec, durationText	22258, 6:10:58
publishedTimeText, publishedAtApprox	4y ago, 2022-11-01 (approximate date from the relative time)
descriptionSnippet	the description excerpt shown in search
thumbnailUrl, badges	thumbnail image, ["4K", "New"]
searchQuery, rank, page	the keyword, the position in its results, the results page
isNew	true in monitor mode

Shorts that YouTube shows in a Shorts shelf come with ID, URL, title, view count and thumbnail. YouTube does not show their channel or upload date in search, so those fields are null for them.

How to search YouTube by keyword

1. Open the actor and click Try for free.
2. Add one or more search keywords, for example home workout or iphone 17 review.
3. Choose Max results per keyword and, if you like, a result type (videos and Shorts, videos only, Shorts only), an upload date (last hour to this year), a video length and sort by relevance or popularity.
4. For a monitor, turn on Monitor mode: only new videos and give the monitor a store name. Schedule the actor daily or hourly.
5. Click Start and download the results as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read them from the API.

How much does it cost?

$1 per 1,000 results ($0.001 per video, live stream or Short), plus $0.00005 per run start. Keywords with no results, blocked searches, failed result pages and, in monitor mode, videos you already received are free. The Apify free plan's $5 of monthly credit covers about 5,000 results.

Use Max results in total or the run's maximum cost setting to cap what one run can spend.

Input

{
    "searchQueries": ["home workout", "iphone 17 review"],
    "maxResultsPerQuery": 100,
    "resultType": "all",
    "uploadDate": "week",
    "duration": "any",
    "sortBy": "relevance",
    "onlyNewVideos": true,
    "monitorStoreName": "fitness-monitor"
}

Output

{
    "videoId": "n61ULEU7CO0",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n61ULEU7CO0",
    "type": "video",
    "isShort": false,
    "isLive": false,
    "title": "Best of lofi hip hop 2021 ✨ [beats to relax/study to]",
    "channelName": "Lofi Girl",
    "channelId": "UCSJ4gkVC6NrvII8umztf0Ow",
    "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSJ4gkVC6NrvII8umztf0Ow",
    "channelVerified": true,
    "viewCount": 58455911,
    "liveViewers": null,
    "viewCountText": "58,455,911 views",
    "durationSec": 22258,
    "durationText": "6:10:58",
    "publishedTimeText": "4y ago",
    "publishedAtApprox": "2022-11-01",
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/n61ULEU7CO0/hq720.jpg",
    "badges": [],
    "searchQuery": "lofi hip hop",
    "rank": 2,
    "page": 1,
    "isNew": null
}

You can download the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or HTML. Failed keywords appear as a row with an error field and a reason (no-results, duplicates-only, consent-page, bot-check, blocked, continuation-failed), and they are not charged.

Tips

• Monitor mode remembers up to 300,000 video IDs per store name. Use a separate store name for each monitor, and the first run returns everything it finds.
• In monitor mode, Max results per keyword is how deep each search looks; with an upload date of today or week a small number such as 50 is usually enough.
• A video that two of your keywords find is returned (and charged) once per run.
• The popularity order sorts by view count. YouTube no longer offers a "newest first" order in search; use the upload date filter instead.
• For channel details, the full video list of a channel, comments or transcripts, use our other YouTube scrapers on our Apify profile.

FAQ

Do I need a YouTube API key?

No. The scraper reads public search results like a logged-out visitor, so there is no API key, no quota and no Google account.

How many results can I get for one keyword?

YouTube serves search results in pages of about 20 videos plus Shorts shelves. Most keywords give several hundred results; the scraper keeps loading pages until it reaches your limit or YouTube stops.

Are view counts exact?

For regular videos, yes: the search page shows the full number. For Shorts in a Shorts shelf YouTube shows a rounded number (for example 1.4M), which is converted to an integer.

Why is the upload date approximate?

Search results only say "3 days ago" or "4y ago". publishedAtApprox turns that into a date, which is exact to the day for recent videos and approximate for older ones.

Can I search in another language or country?

Yes. Set Interface language (for example de) and Country (for example DE). Counts and dates are parsed best with English.

Disclaimer

This actor collects public data only: what anyone sees on YouTube search without signing in. You are responsible for how you use the results and for complying with YouTube's terms and the data protection laws that apply to you, such as GDPR.

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