YouTube Shorts Scraper - Views, Likes & Hashtags by Channel

What does YouTube Shorts Scraper do?

YouTube Shorts Scraper gets all the YouTube Shorts of a channel or a hashtag from YouTube, with each Short's views, likes, comment count, publish date, description and hashtags. Give it channel @handles or URLs, #hashtags or individual Shorts URLs, and it returns one clean row per Short.

It works like a YouTube Shorts API with no API key, no quota and no login. It runs on plain HTTP requests (no browser), so it's fast and cheap: $2 per 1,000 Shorts, and channels, hashtags or Shorts that can't be found are free.

Why use a YouTube Shorts scraper?

• 📈 Creator and competitor research: see which Shorts of a channel get the most views, likes and comments, and how often they post.
• 🔥 Trend discovery: pull the Shorts YouTube shows for a hashtag (#cooking, #fitness, #asmr) and find what's working in a niche.
• 🤝 Influencer marketing: compare engagement (likes and comments per view) across creators before you reach out.
• 🧠 AI and data pipelines: feed titles, descriptions and hashtags into an LLM, a dashboard or a spreadsheet.
• 🗓️ Monitoring: schedule a run every day and track view counts over time.

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
shortId, url	CEJXqm2eiJ0, https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CEJXqm2eiJ0
title	What’s Inside My Briefcase?
viewCount, viewCountText	41414021, 41M views
likeCount	738260
commentCount	16793 (null when comments are off)
publishedAt	2026-09-27 (ISO date; a full timestamp when YouTube provides one)
durationSec	40 when YouTube provides it, otherwise null
description, hashtags	full description; ["shorts", "cooking"] from the title and description
thumbnailUrl	vertical thumbnail image
channelId, channelName, channelHandle	UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA, MrBeast, @MrBeast
channelSubscriberCountText	519M subscribers
source, sourceInput	channel / hashtag / url and the input it came from
detailsFetched	true when likes, comments and date were loaded
scrapedAt	when the row was scraped

How to scrape YouTube Shorts

1. Click Try for free.
2. Add channels (@MrBeast, https://www.youtube.com/@NASA, /channel/UC... URLs), hashtags without the # (cooking), or Shorts URLs.
3. Set Max Shorts per channel or hashtag (default 50). Channels return their newest Shorts first.
4. Leave Fetch likes, comments and publish date on for full data, or turn it off for a faster list of titles, view counts and thumbnails (same price).
5. Click Start, then download the results as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, or read them through the API.

Call it from the API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/tenfoldfleet~youtube-shorts-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"channelUrls": ["@MrBeast"], "maxShortsPerSource": 20}'

How much does it cost to scrape YouTube Shorts?

You pay per Short returned: $2 per 1,000 Shorts ($0.002 each), plus a tiny $0.00005 per run start. A channel that doesn't exist, a hashtag without Shorts or a removed Short is not charged. Set Max Shorts in total or a max cost per run and the scraper stops there.

Input

{
    "channelUrls": ["@MrBeast", "https://www.youtube.com/@NASA"],
    "hashtags": ["cooking"],
    "shortUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CEJXqm2eiJ0"],
    "maxShortsPerSource": 50,
    "fetchDetails": true,
    "maxItems": 0
}

Output

{
    "shortId": "CEJXqm2eiJ0",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CEJXqm2eiJ0",
    "title": "What’s Inside My Briefcase?",
    "viewCount": 41414021,
    "viewCountText": "41M views",
    "likeCount": 738260,
    "commentCount": 16793,
    "publishedAt": "2026-09-27",
    "durationSec": null,
    "description": "",
    "hashtags": [],
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/CEJXqm2eiJ0/sardefault.jpg",
    "channelId": "UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA",
    "channelName": "MrBeast",
    "channelHandle": "@MrBeast",
    "channelSubscriberCountText": "519M subscribers",
    "source": "channel",
    "sourceInput": "@MrBeast",
    "detailsFetched": true,
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-05T04:07:40.109Z"
}

Inputs that fail come back as free rows with input, reason (channel_not_found, no_shorts_tab, hashtag_no_shorts, short_unavailable, invalid_input, blocked) and error. Download everything as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML.

Tips

• The same Short found through two inputs is returned (and charged) once.
• Hashtag results are the Shorts YouTube shows on the hashtag page, usually a few hundred at most.
• Turn off Fetch likes, comments and publish date when you only need titles, view counts and thumbnails: it is several times faster.
• If one detail lookup fails after retries, you still get the Short's title, views and thumbnail with detailsFetched: false.

FAQ

Do I need a YouTube API key or account?

No. The scraper reads public YouTube pages. No login, cookies or API quota.

Can I scrape YouTube Shorts by hashtag?

Yes. Put hashtags without the # in Hashtags, for example cooking or fitness.

Are view and like counts exact?

With details on, views, likes and comment counts are exact. With details off, views are rounded the way YouTube shows them (41M views).

Why is durationSec sometimes empty?

YouTube only returns the length on some requests. All Shorts are under 3 minutes.

Can it scrape regular YouTube videos?

It's built for Shorts. A regular video URL put in Shorts URLs is returned (and charged) like a Short. For transcripts of any video, see our YouTube Transcript Scraper.

Disclaimer

This scraper collects public data only. It does not access private videos, accounts or personal data beyond what channels publish themselves. Make sure your use of the data complies with YouTube's Terms of Service and the laws that apply to you, such as GDPR.

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