YouTube Comments Scraper: Comments and Replies, No Login

From The Mine Works, makers of Threads Scraper and B2B Leads Finder, with over 140,000 runs across 170+ public actors.

Why choose this actor?

• Comments and their replies in one dataset, in reading order. Our test run returned 400 rows from 4 videos in 31 seconds: 81 top comments, each followed by its replies (319), every reply linked to its parent by parent_comment_id. No second actor and no second run for replies.
• No YouTube account, no cookies, no API key, no quota. The actor reads the same public comments panel a logged out visitor sees. In our final test run 79 of 79 requests were answered, none hit a bot check, and there was no proxy to set up.
• You only pay for comments you receive. A video with comments turned off, a deleted or private video, a wrong link and a refused request all come back as a free status row that says why. Duplicate comments are dropped before they are charged.

Part of The Mine Works Social media and video family: Threads Scraper, Reddit Scraper, Threads Search Scraper, Instagram Profile Scraper, Instagram Followers & Following, Reddit Search Scraper.

Try it in one minute

Paste this into the input (JSON view) and press Start. It returns the 10 top comments of one video in a few seconds:

{
  "videos": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"],
  "maxComments": 10
}

You can give videos as watch links (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=..., mobile m.youtube.com and music.youtube.com links work too), short links (https://youtu.be/...), Shorts links (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/...), live and embed links, or plain 11 character video IDs such as dQw4w9WgXcQ, up to 1,000 per run, mixed freely.

On Apify's free plan every run returns the first 10 results as a preview, so you can check the data and the fields before you pay. A paid Apify plan returns every result: https://apify.com/pricing?fpr=ymnoit

Copy to your AI assistant

themineworks/youtube-comments-scraper on Apify. Scrapes comments and replies from public YouTube videos and Shorts, one row per comment with text, author, likes, reply count, pinned and hearted flags, publish time and video title. Call ApifyClient("TOKEN").actor("themineworks/youtube-comments-scraper").call(run_input={"videos": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"], "maxComments": 100, "sortBy": "top", "includeReplies": false}), then client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items. Required: videos (video links, Shorts links or 11 character video IDs). Optional: maxComments (default 100, 10 to 20000 rows per video), sortBy ("top" or "newest", default "top"), includeReplies (default false), maxRepliesPerComment (default 10, 1 to 1000). Full spec: GET https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/themineworks~youtube-comments-scraper/builds/default (Bearer TOKEN), which returns inputSchema and readme. Token: https://console.apify.com/account/integrations?fpr=ymnoit&utm_source=apify-readme&utm_medium=referral

Key features

• 28 fields per comment: full text, author handle, author channel ID and link, avatar, verified badge, channel owner flag, likes (number and as shown), reply count, pinned, hearted by the creator, edited, relative time plus an ISO date, comment link, and the video's title, channel and total comment count on every row.
• Videos and Shorts: the same input field takes both. Shorts rows link back to /shorts/ so you can tell them apart.
• Two orders: Top comments (YouTube's default, pinned and most liked first) or Newest first, for monitoring.
• Replies on demand: switch on includeReplies and each comment is followed by up to maxRepliesPerComment replies (1 to 1,000). YouTube serves 10 replies in the first request and about 50 in each later one.
• From 10 to 20,000 rows per video, up to 1,000 videos per run, five videos read at a time. YouTube serves 20 comments per request; one video gave 400 comments in 31 seconds in our test.
• A run summary you can audit: the OUTPUT record lists every video's status, pages read, requests made and refusals, so an empty result always has a reason.

How to use it

Basic: the top 100 comments of one video

{
  "videos": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"],
  "maxComments": 100
}

Several videos and Shorts at once

{
  "videos": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/T_SMf9j50uc",
    "https://youtu.be/9bZkp7q19f0",
    "kJQP7kiw5Fk"
  ],
  "maxComments": 200
}

Each video gets its own budget of 200 rows. Videos that cannot be read do not take anything from the others.

Job: full conversations for sentiment or topic research

Turn on replies to read whole threads, not just the first line of each one. Every reply row carries parent_comment_id, so you can rebuild each thread in a spreadsheet or a notebook.

{
  "videos": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0"],
  "maxComments": 1000,
  "sortBy": "top",
  "includeReplies": true,
  "maxRepliesPerComment": 20
}

Replies count toward maxComments, so this returns up to 1,000 rows in total: each top comment followed by at most 20 of its replies.

Job: watch new comments on your own launches

Read the newest comments of your latest videos every few hours and send them to Slack or a sheet. Use sortBy: "newest" and keep maxComments near the number of comments a video gets between two runs.

{
  "videos": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID_1",
    "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_ID_2"
  ],
  "maxComments": 50,
  "sortBy": "newest"
}

Scheduling tip: in Apify Console open this actor, then Schedules, then add a schedule (every 6 hours works for most channels). Each run reads the newest comments again; drop the comment_id values you already have on your side, since the actor does not remember earlier runs.

Job: questions and complaints on a competitor's videos

Collect what buyers ask under a competitor's product reviews and unboxings. Top order puts the comments with the most agreement first, and likes tells you how many people share the point.

{
  "videos": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REVIEW_VIDEO_1",
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REVIEW_VIDEO_2",
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REVIEW_VIDEO_3"
  ],
  "maxComments": 300,
  "includeReplies": true,
  "maxRepliesPerComment": 5
}

Filter the dataset on author_is_channel_owner to see where the creator answered, and on is_hearted to see what the creator approved of.

Job: creator engagement check before a sponsorship

Before you pay a creator, read the comments under their last few videos: how many real conversations, how often the creator replies, and whether the comments are about the content or are spam. A sample of 200 rows per video is usually enough.

{
  "videos": ["VIDEO_ID_1", "VIDEO_ID_2", "VIDEO_ID_3", "VIDEO_ID_4", "VIDEO_ID_5"],
  "maxComments": 200,
  "includeReplies": true
}

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	What it does
videos	array of strings	["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"]	Public YouTube videos or Shorts, up to 1,000 per run: watch links, youtu.be links, Shorts, live and embed links, or 11 character video IDs. Channel and playlist links are skipped, listed in the run summary and never charged.
maxComments	integer	100	Most comment rows per video, top comments and replies together. From 10 to 20,000.
sortBy	string	"top"	"top" for YouTube's default order (pinned and most liked first) or "newest" for the most recent first.
includeReplies	boolean	false	Also return the replies under each comment, right after the comment they answer.
maxRepliesPerComment	integer	10	Only with includeReplies. Most replies to return under one comment. From 1 to 1,000.

The actor also reads the same links from startUrls (plain links or { "url": "..." } objects), videoUrls, videoIds and urls, if your input already uses one of those names.

What data do you get?

One row per comment or reply. Fields by group:

The video (on every row)

• video_id, video_url (a /shorts/ link when you gave a Shorts link), video_title, video_channel_name, video_channel_id, video_comment_count_text (the total YouTube shows, for example 2.4M).

The comment

• comment_id, comment_url (opens the video with this comment highlighted), text (full text with line breaks and emoji).
• likes (a number) and likes_text (as YouTube shows it). Below 1,000 the number is exact; above that YouTube only shows a rounded figure, so 323K becomes 323000.
• reply_count (replies under a top comment; 0 on replies).
• is_pinned, is_hearted (hearted by the channel that posted the video), is_edited.
• published_time_text as YouTube shows it (3 weeks ago), and published_at, a best effort ISO date: the time of the run minus that amount, so it is as exact as the unit YouTube gives.

The author

• author_name (the @handle as YouTube shows it), author_channel_id, author_channel_url, author_avatar_url, author_is_verified, author_is_channel_owner (the author is the channel that posted the video).

Threads and order

• is_reply, parent_comment_id (on replies: the comment it answers), position (order within its video in this run), sort_by (top or newest), scraped_at.

Status rows (free)

• A video that returns no comments gets one row with _type: "status", input, video_id, status (not_found, comments_off, no_comments_section, no_comments, blocked, route_broken, skipped, invalid_input, no_input or error), note in plain words, and video_title when YouTube showed it. These rows are never charged. Filter them out with _type if you only want comments.

Stable fields for automations

These fields were present in every one of the 400 comment rows of our test run, and their names will not change:

Field	What it is
video_id	YouTube video ID, 11 characters
video_url	Link to the video or Short
video_title	Title of the video
comment_id	YouTube comment ID; a reply ID is the parent ID, a dot, then the reply part
comment_url	Link to the comment
text	Comment text
author_name	Author @handle
author_channel_id	Author channel ID (UC...)
likes	Likes as a number
reply_count	Replies under the comment
is_reply	true for a reply
is_pinned	Pinned by the channel
is_hearted	Hearted by the channel
published_time_text	Publish time as YouTube shows it
scraped_at	When the row was read

parent_comment_id is present on every reply row and absent on top comments.

Output examples

Real rows from our test runs on 5 October 2026, trimmed (avatar links removed; the first row's video title is left out). Handles of private commenters are masked here; the dataset has them in full.

A pinned comment, hearted by the creator (Top order, Rick Astley's video):

{
  "video_id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "video_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "video_channel_name": "Rick Astley",
  "video_channel_id": "UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw",
  "comment_id": "Ugzge340dBgB75hWBm54AaABAg",
  "comment_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&lc=Ugzge340dBgB75hWBm54AaABAg",
  "text": "can confirm: he never gave us up",
  "author_name": "@YouTube",
  "author_channel_id": "UCBR8-60-B28hp2BmDPdntcQ",
  "author_channel_url": "https://www.youtube.com/@YouTube",
  "author_is_verified": true,
  "author_is_channel_owner": false,
  "likes": 323000,
  "likes_text": "323K",
  "reply_count": 962,
  "is_pinned": true,
  "is_hearted": true,
  "is_reply": false,
  "published_time_text": "1 year ago",
  "published_at": "2025-10-05T16:14:19.798Z",
  "is_edited": false,
  "position": 1,
  "sort_by": "top",
  "video_comment_count_text": "2.4M",
  "scraped_at": "2026-10-05T16:14:19.798Z"
}

The creator's own comment on a Short (author_is_channel_owner is true):

{
  "video_id": "T_SMf9j50uc",
  "video_url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/T_SMf9j50uc",
  "video_title": "Can We Build an Entire Village?",
  "video_channel_name": "MrBeast",
  "comment_id": "UgwXDWcLt82FOd5X6kx4AaABAg",
  "text": "I’m so grateful we were able to make this happen",
  "author_name": "@MrBeast",
  "author_channel_id": "UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA",
  "author_is_verified": true,
  "author_is_channel_owner": true,
  "likes": 12000,
  "likes_text": "12K",
  "reply_count": 894,
  "is_pinned": true,
  "is_hearted": false,
  "is_reply": false,
  "published_time_text": "2 weeks ago",
  "published_at": "2026-09-21T16:13:57.713Z",
  "position": 1,
  "sort_by": "top",
  "video_comment_count_text": "17K"
}

A reply, right after the comment it answers (includeReplies: true):

{
  "video_id": "T_SMf9j50uc",
  "video_title": "Can We Build an Entire Village?",
  "comment_id": "UgwXDWcLt82FOd5X6kx4AaABAg.AauJoWjHnAjAauK-e6iaR-",
  "text": "greetings folks.",
  "author_name": "@r*******",
  "author_is_verified": false,
  "author_is_channel_owner": false,
  "likes": 35,
  "likes_text": "35",
  "reply_count": 0,
  "is_pinned": false,
  "is_hearted": false,
  "is_reply": true,
  "parent_comment_id": "UgwXDWcLt82FOd5X6kx4AaABAg",
  "published_time_text": "2 weeks ago",
  "position": 2,
  "sort_by": "top"
}

A comment from Newest order, posted 35 seconds before the run (zero likes read as 0):

{
  "video_id": "T_SMf9j50uc",
  "video_url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/T_SMf9j50uc",
  "comment_id": "Ugyz-oYYK9tx-1HLSEV4AaABAg",
  "text": "❤️❤❤❤❤😂😂❤😂❤❤❤",
  "author_name": "@M****************",
  "likes": 0,
  "likes_text": "0",
  "reply_count": 0,
  "is_reply": false,
  "published_time_text": "35 seconds ago",
  "published_at": "2026-10-05T16:14:55.889Z",
  "position": 2,
  "sort_by": "newest",
  "scraped_at": "2026-10-05T16:15:30.889Z"
}

A free status row for a video with comments turned off (never charged):

{
  "_type": "status",
  "input": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_04ZrNroTo",
  "video_id": "e_04ZrNroTo",
  "status": "comments_off",
  "note": "Comments are turned off on this video. Not charged.",
  "video_title": "Wheels on the Bus | @CoComelon Nursery Rhymes & Kids Songs",
  "scraped_at": "2026-10-05T16:14:19.852Z"
}

Pricing

Pay per event: you pay for the comment rows you receive, plus a flat $0.005 per run, whatever memory you choose.

Free plan runs return up to 10 results each; paid plans have no cap.

Event	When it is charged	Free plan	Bronze (Starter)	Silver (Scale)	Gold (Business)
comment-scraped	Once per comment or reply row stored in your dataset	$0.20 per 1,000	$0.20 per 1,000	$0.20 per 1,000	$0.20 per 1,000
run-start	Once per run, when it starts	$0.005	$0.005	$0.005	$0.005

The price per single comment is the price per 1,000 divided by 1,000. A reply is one row and costs the same as a top comment.

Never charged:

• videos with comments turned off, deleted, private or wrong video IDs, and channel or playlist links (each gets a free status row);
• requests YouTube refused, and videos the run could not read;
• a comment that already appeared earlier in the same video (dropped before delivery);
• anything past your "Max cost per run": the actor stops delivering when your limit is reached instead of sending rows for free.

FAQ

What do I get on the free plan?

On Apify's free plan every run returns the first 10 results as a preview, so you can check the data and the fields before you pay. A paid Apify plan returns every result with no cap: https://apify.com/pricing?fpr=ymnoit

What exactly does this actor read?

The public comments section under a YouTube video or Short, the same list a visitor sees without signing in: top comments, and their replies if you ask for them. It reads YouTube's own web API (the requests the YouTube website makes when you scroll the comments), not the YouTube Data API, so there is no daily quota and no API key.

Does it work on Shorts?

Yes. Paste Shorts links (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/...) or their IDs in the same videos list. Our test read 100 rows from a MrBeast Short, including the creator's pinned comment and 74 replies.

How many comments can I get from one video?

From 10 to 20,000 rows per video, set with maxComments. YouTube serves 20 comments per request. The total YouTube shows under a video counts replies too, so with replies off you get fewer rows than that number.

How long does a run take?

In our tests one video gave 400 top comments in 31 seconds, and 4 videos gave 400 rows with replies in 31 seconds (replies come 10 to 50 per request, so they are slower per row). Five videos are read at the same time. We have not timed a 20,000 comment video; at about 1.5 seconds per request it would take roughly 25 minutes, well inside the default one hour timeout.

Are like counts and dates exact?

Like counts below 1,000 are exact. Above that YouTube only shows a rounded figure (7.5K, 323K), so likes is that figure as a number and likes_text keeps the original. YouTube shows comment dates as relative times (3 weeks ago); published_at turns that into an ISO date from the moment of the run, so it is as exact as the unit shown: minutes for new comments, a year for old ones.

Do I need a YouTube account, cookies or an API key?

No. Nothing to log in to and nothing to paste. The actor never signs in and never asks for your cookies.

Do I need to set up a proxy?

No. The actor uses Apify's datacenter proxy on its own: each video is read on its own IP, and a refused request is retried on a new one. There is no proxy setting to choose.

What happens with a private, deleted or comments off video?

You get one free status row for that video, with status set to not_found, comments_off, no_comments_section or no_comments, and a plain note. Nothing is charged for it, and the other videos in the run are not affected. The OUTPUT record in the run's key value store lists the outcome of every video.

Can I monitor new comments over time?

Yes: set sortBy to "newest", put a schedule on the actor (Apify Console, Schedules, every few hours or daily) and keep maxComments close to the number of new comments you expect between runs. The actor does not remember earlier runs, so remove the comment_id values you already stored on your side.

Which formats can I download?

JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, HTML table and RSS from the dataset page, or the same through the API. In CSV and Excel, filter on _type to drop the status rows.

Can I use it from Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor (MCP)?

• Connector URL: https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=themineworks/youtube-comments-scraper
• Claude: Settings > Connectors > Add custom connector, paste the URL, sign in with Apify.
• ChatGPT: developer mode, add an MCP connector with the URL, sign in with Apify.
• Cursor or VS Code: add it as an HTTP MCP server with that URL.
• Claude Code: claude mcp add -t http youtube-comments-scraper "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=themineworks/youtube-comments-scraper"

Is it legal to scrape YouTube comments?

The actor only reads comments that YouTube shows publicly to anyone without signing in. Comments carry the public handles of the people who wrote them, which can be personal data: you are responsible for how you use the data, for YouTube's terms, and for data protection law such as GDPR and CCPA. If in doubt, ask a lawyer about your use case.

Integrations

• Google Sheets: send each run's rows to a sheet with Apify's Google Sheets integration, or import the CSV link of the dataset.
• Make, Zapier and n8n: start the actor and read its dataset with the Apify apps and nodes, for example "new comments to Slack".
• Webhooks: have Apify call your URL when a run succeeds, then fetch the dataset.
• API and SDKs: run it from Python or JavaScript with the Apify client, or with a plain HTTP call (see "Copy to your AI assistant" above).
• MCP clients: Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and VS Code can run it as a tool through the connector URL in the FAQ.

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Support

Found a video that should work and does not? Open an issue in the Issues tab with the link and the run ID, and we will look at it. For a new source or a field you need, email dmineworks@gmail.com.

Paste YouTube video or Shorts links, choose top or newest and whether you want replies, and get every comment back as a clean row with its author, likes, flags and video title.