YouTube Video Search Scraper

Scrape YouTube search results including Shorts, regular videos, or all content. Returns video details like title, channel, views, duration, thumbnails, and more.

Features

• 🔍 Search multiple queries in parallel
• 📹 Filter by Shorts, regular videos, or all
• ⚡ Configurable concurrency (1-10 parallel requests)
• 📄 Automatic pagination for large result sets
• 🔄 Unique session + browser fingerprint per query to prevent blocking
• 🖼️ Includes video thumbnails

Input

Field	Type	Description	Default
queries	array	List of search terms	["coffee"]
maxResults	integer	Max videos per query (1-1000)	100
searchType	string	"short", "video", or "all"	"short"
concurrency	integer	Parallel queries (1-10)	3

Input Example

{
    "queries": ["coffee brewing", "latte art", "espresso tutorial"],
    "maxResults": 50,
    "searchType": "short",
    "concurrency": 3
}

Output

Each video result contains the following fields:

Field	Type	Description
videoId	string	YouTube video ID
title	string	Video title
url	string	Full YouTube video URL
channelName	string	Channel name
channelUrl	string	Channel URL
viewCount	string	View count (e.g., "1,234,567 views")
duration	string	Video duration (e.g., "3:45")
publishedTime	string	Relative publish time (e.g., "2 days ago")
thumbnail	string	Thumbnail image URL
description	string	Video description snippet
query	string	Source search query

Output Example

[
    {
        "videoId": "abc123xyz",
        "title": "How to Make Perfect Latte Art",
        "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abc123xyz",
        "channelName": "Coffee Masters",
        "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@coffeemasters",
        "viewCount": "1,234,567 views",
        "duration": "3:45",
        "publishedTime": "2 weeks ago",
        "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/abc123xyz/hqdefault.jpg",
        "description": "Learn the secrets of professional baristas...",
        "query": "latte art"
    },
    {
        "videoId": "def456uvw",
        "title": "Espresso Basics for Beginners",
        "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=def456uvw",
        "channelName": "Barista School",
        "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@baristaschool",
        "viewCount": "892,341 views",
        "duration": "5:12",
        "publishedTime": "1 month ago",
        "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/def456uvw/hqdefault.jpg",
        "description": "Everything you need to know about espresso...",
        "query": "espresso tutorial"
    }
]

Usage

Via Apify Console

1. Go to the Actor page on Apify
2. Click "Start" or "Try for free"
3. Enter your search queries and configure options
4. Run the Actor and download results

Via API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/YOUR_USERNAME~youtube-video-search/runs?token=YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "queries": ["coffee", "latte art"],
    "maxResults": 50,
    "searchType": "short",
    "concurrency": 3
  }'

Via Apify Client (Node.js)

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

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

const run = await client.actor('YOUR_USERNAME/youtube-video-search').call({
    queries: ['coffee', 'latte art'],
    maxResults: 50,
    searchType: 'short',
    concurrency: 3
});

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

Via Apify Client (Python)

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('YOUR_API_TOKEN')

run = client.actor('YOUR_USERNAME/youtube-video-search').call(run_input={
    'queries': ['coffee', 'latte art'],
    'maxResults': 50,
    'searchType': 'short',
    'concurrency': 3
})

items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items
print(items)

Privacy & Compliance

This Actor scrapes publicly available data from YouTube search results. Users are responsible for:

• Complying with YouTube's Terms of Service
• Ensuring their use case complies with applicable laws (GDPR, CCPA, etc.)
• Not using scraped data for prohibited purposes
• Respecting rate limits and fair usage policies

This Actor does not:

• Access private or restricted content
• Bypass authentication or access controls
• Store personal data beyond what's publicly visible
• Scrape user comments or personal information

Changelog

v1.0

• Initial release
• Multi-query support with parallel execution
• Shorts, video, and all content filters
• Pagination support
• Anti-detection with rotating headers and sessions

License

Apache License 2.0 - See LICENSE file for details.