Youtube Best Channels Crawler

Extract Best YouTube channels with this powerful Apify Actor. Simply provide a search term and get comprehensive channel data including handles, subscriber counts, locations, and much more!

🎯 What It Does

Searches YouTube for any keyword and extracts detailed information about all unique channels that appear in the results. Perfect for:

• Market Research - Find influencers and content creators in your niche
• Competitor Analysis - Discover channels ranking for specific keywords
• Lead Generation - Build lists of relevant YouTube channels
• Content Research - Identify popular channels in any topic area

✨ Key Features

• 🔍 Search by Keyword - Find channels from any YouTube search
• 📊 Rich Channel Data - Get comprehensive channel information
• 🏷️ Channel Handles - Extract @username handles for easy linking
• 👥 Subscriber Counts - Know channel reach with formatted numbers
• 🌍 Location Data - Filter channels by country
• 📈 Engagement Metrics - Total videos and view counts
• 🎯 Smart Deduplication - Get unique channels only

📥 Input

Simply provide your search term:

{
  "searchQuery": "digital marketing"
}

Optional Parameters:

• maxResults - Number of videos to search (1-500, default: 50)
• includeDetails - Fetch detailed channel info (default: true)

💡 Tip: We advise setting maxResults to 1.2-2x your target number of channels. Why? We get videos about a topic and group them by channel, which reduces the number of unique channels. Most often, some channels have multiple videos in the results, which reduces the total channel count. For example, if you want ~30 channels, set maxResults to 50.

⚠️ Limits:

• Maximum 500 results per search (this is a platform limitation)
• For larger datasets, run multiple searches with different keywords

Full Example

{
  "searchQuery": "digital marketing",
  "maxResults": 50,
  "includeDetails": true
}

📤 Output

Get detailed channel data for each unique channel found:

Channel Data

{
  "channel_title": "Y Combinator",
  "handle": "@ycombinator",
  "channel_url": "https://www.youtube.com/@ycombinator",
  "channel_id": "UC7EYNYhJKxZPYKkfCqExd8Q",
  "subscriber_count": 2100000,
  "total_video_count": 1234,
  "total_view_count": 156200000,
  "country": "US",
  "created_at": "2005-02-14T00:00:00Z",
  "description": "Y Combinator provides seed funding...",
  "thumbnail": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/...",
  "video_count": 5
}

Data Fields

Field	Description
channel_title	Channel display name
handle	@username format
channel_url	Direct link to channel
channel_id	Unique YouTube channel ID
subscriber_count	Number of subscribers
total_video_count	Total videos on channel
total_view_count	Total channel views
country	Channel's country
created_at	When channel was created
description	Channel description
thumbnail	Channel profile picture URL
video_count	Videos in search results

🚀 Quick Start

Simply provide your search term and run the Actor:

{
  "searchQuery": "your keyword"
}

Download results in JSON, CSV, or Excel format.

📊 Use Cases

Find Influencers

{
  "searchQuery": "tech reviews"
}

Discover tech reviewers for product partnerships.

Market Research

{
  "searchQuery": "sustainable fashion"
}

Find channels in the eco-fashion space.

Competitor Analysis

{
  "searchQuery": "your brand name"
}

See who's mentioning your brand.

Content Ideas

{
  "searchQuery": "python tutorial"
}

Find popular educational channels.

⚡ Performance

• Speed: Processes 50 results in ~10 seconds
• Deduplication: Automatically removes duplicate channels
• Smart Batching: Efficient resource usage
• Scalable: Handle multiple searches sequentially

📋 Example Results

Searching for "sleep podcasts" returns channels like:

1. Jason Stephenson - Guided Sleep Meditation
   Subscribers: 3.6M
   Country: US
   Handle: @jasonstephensonmeditation

2. Get Sleepy
   Subscribers: 665.0K
   Country: US
   Handle: @getsleepypod

3. Andrew Huberman
   Subscribers: 7.3M
   Country: US
   Handle: @hubermanlab

4. Sleepy Science Channel
   Subscribers: 184.0K
   Country: GB
   Handle: @sleepysciencechannel

🔄 Dataset Format

Each channel is a separate item in the dataset for easy filtering:

• Unique channels = separate dataset items
• Summary item with search statistics included
• Ready for export to CSV, Excel, or JSON

📚 Tips

1. Use Specific Keywords: More specific = more targeted channels
2. Increase maxResults: Get more channels per search
3. Combine with Other Actors: Use with video scrapers for full analysis
4. Filter by Country: Use the country field to target specific regions
5. Sort by Subscribers: Find the biggest channels first

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Ready to find YouTube channels? Start the Actor and enter your search term! 🎉

Terms of Service

This Actor respects YouTube's Terms of Service. Do not use it for unauthorized data collection.

Privacy Policy

No personal data is stored or shared. Data is used solely for the purpose of this Actor's functionality and to improve our services.