YouTube Search By Category Scraper

Get YouTube search results from predefined category searches such as education, music, gaming, news, sports, and technology. The Actor returns one dataset item per YouTube result, so you can export videos to JSON, CSV, Excel, or connect them to downstream Apify integrations.

What You Can Get

• Category-based YouTube video results
• Titles, descriptions, thumbnails, video IDs, durations, view counts, and publish times
• Channel metadata including channel ID, name, URL, thumbnail, and verification status
• Badges such as CC, New, 4K, or other labels returned by YouTube
• Live, Shorts, and Premium flags when available
• Continuation tokens in logs when another page is available

Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
category	array	Yes	Category to search in. Examples: education, music, gaming, news, sports, tech.
sort	array	No	Sort order. One of relevance, rating, upload_date, or view_count. Defaults to relevance.
duration	array	No	Video duration filter. One of short, medium, or long.
upload_date	array	No	Upload date filter. One of hour, today, week, month, or year.
limit	integer	No	Maximum results to request, from 1 to 1024. The upstream API can return a smaller page with a continuation token.
continuation	string	No	Continuation token for the next page of results.
contentType	array	No	Filter by content type: live, recorded, or premiere.
features	string	No	Comma-separated feature filters such as hd,cc.

Apify select fields are arrays in JSON input. Use a single selected value in each array, for example "category": ["education"].

Example Inputs

Education Videos

{
  "category": ["education"],
  "sort": ["relevance"],
  "duration": ["short"],
  "limit": 10
}

High-View Music Videos

{
  "category": ["music"],
  "sort": ["view_count"],
  "limit": 20
}

Recent Tech Videos

{
  "category": ["tech"],
  "sort": ["upload_date"],
  "upload_date": ["week"],
  "limit": 20
}

Continue to the Next Page

{
  "category": ["education"],
  "sort": ["relevance"],
  "limit": 20,
  "continuation": "PASTE_CONTINUATION_TOKEN_FROM_PREVIOUS_RUN"
}

When the API returns a next-page token, the Actor logs it as Continuation token available for next page: ....

Output

Each result is saved as one dataset item. Fields vary by YouTube result, but video results commonly include:

{
  "type": "Video",
  "id": "KVLTxKyxioA",
  "title": "The Science of Teaching, Effective Education, and Great Schools",
  "description": "Scientific evidence suggests that the secret to thriving students...",
  "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KVLTxKyxioA/hq720.jpg",
  "duration": "6:21",
  "viewCount": "824,846 views",
  "publishedTime": "8 years ago",
  "channel": {
    "id": "UC-RKpEc4eE9PwJaupN91xYQ",
    "name": "Sprouts",
    "thumbnail": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/...",
    "verified": true,
    "isVerifiedArtist": false,
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@sprouts"
  },
  "badges": ["CC"],
  "isLive": false,
  "isShort": false,
  "isPremium": false,
  "expandableMetadata": {
    "label": "Summary"
  }
}

Pricing

$0.30 per 1,000 results. No additional API keys required.

Support

For issues or questions, contact us through Apify.