📺 Youtube Profile & Channel List Scraper

Verified 99.4% Success Rate. Extract YouTube channel profiles & video lists. Scrape subscriber counts, metadata & transcripts using Transcript Downloader API. Perfect for competitor analysis, content research & market intelligence.

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✨ Features

• 🏢 Channel profile extraction: Get channel metadata, subscriber count, total views, and creation date
• 📋 Complete video lists: Extract all videos from a channel with basic metadata
• 📊 Optional detailed metadata: Fetch full transcripts and metadata for individual videos
• 🔁 Batch processing: Handle multiple channels simultaneously
• ⚙️ Concurrency control: Adjust processing speed with configurable limits
• 🔄 Automatic retries: Handles API errors and retryable failures
• 🚦 Rate limiting: Built-in delays to respect API limits
• 💰 Cost tracking: Monitor API usage and costs per channel
• 🧠 Error tracking: All failures logged with detailed error information

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🔧 Input Parameters

The actor accepts the following input:

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
channelUrls	array	✅ Yes	-	List of YouTube channel URLs (supports @username and /channel/)
apiToken	string	✅ Yes	-	Your Transcript Downloader API bearer token
includeVideoDetails	boolean	No	false	Whether to fetch complete metadata for each video
includeComments	boolean	No	false	Whether to fetch comments (only shown when includeVideoDetails=true)
maxConcurrency	number	No	2	Max concurrent channel requests (range: 1-5)
videoLimit	number	No	50	Max videos to process per channel when includeVideoDetails=true

📥 Sample Input

{
  "channelUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/@google",
    "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK8sQmJBp8GCxrOtXWBpyEA"
  ],
  "apiToken": "your-api-token",
  "includeVideoDetails": false,
  "includeComments": false,
  "maxConcurrency": 2,
  "videoLimit": 50
}

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📤 Output Format

Each channel will produce a dataset item with the following structure:

Basic Channel Profile Output

{
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@google",
  "profile": {
    "youtube_id": "UCK8sQmJBp8GCxrOtXWBpyEA",
    "title": "Google",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@google",
    "thumbnail": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/...",
    "description": "Channel description...",
    "total_media": 1234,
    "subscriber_count": 5000000,
    "total_views": 100000000,
    "country": "US",
    "creation_date": "2005-02-14 23:41:51"
  },
  "videos": [
    {
      "youtube_id": "abc123",
      "title": "Video Title",
      "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/abc123/default.jpg",
      "published_at": "2024-01-01 12:00:00",
      "duration": 300
    }
  ],
  "summary": {
    "totalVideos": 1234,
    "videosInResponse": 1234,
    "videosWithDetails": 0,
    "totalCost": "0.500",
    "processingTime": "15.2s"
  },
  "downloadInfo": {
    "id": "01K31YQ38SNP30F7218NX4SMN7",
    "type": "list",
    "cost": "0.500",
    "status": "success",
    "created_at": "2025-01-23T20:01:17.000000Z"
  }
}

With Detailed Video Metadata

When includeVideoDetails: true, each video will include additional metadata:

{
  "youtube_id": "abc123",
  "title": "Video Title",
  "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/abc123/default.jpg",
  "published_at": "2024-01-01 12:00:00",
  "duration": 300,
  "detailedMetadata": {
    "description": "Full video description...",
    "viewCount": 100000,
    "likeCount": 5000,
    "commentCount": 250,
    "channelName": "Channel Name",
    "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/...",
    "fullTranscript": "Complete video transcript...",
    "transcriptsWithTimeStamps": [
      {
        "start": "0.0",
        "dur": "3.5",
        "text": "Welcome to this video..."
      }
    ],
    "comments": {
      "mostRelevant": [
        {
          "author": "User123",
          "text": "This helped me so much!"
        }
      ],
      "mostRecent": [
        {
          "author": "User456", 
          "text": "Just watched it!"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Note: The comments field only appears when both includeVideoDetails: true and includeComments: true.

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🚀 How to Use

1. Get your API token from Transcript Downloader
2. Add channel URLs in supported formats:
   • https://www.youtube.com/@username
   • https://www.youtube.com/channel/CHANNEL_ID
   • https://www.youtube.com/c/channelname
   • https://www.youtube.com/user/username
3. Configure options based on your needs:
   • Set includeVideoDetails: false for basic channel info (faster, cheaper)
   • Set includeVideoDetails: true for complete video metadata (slower, more expensive)
4. Run the actor and access results in the dataset

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❌ Error Handling

The actor gracefully handles common API errors:

Status Code	Meaning	Action
400	Invalid channel URL or channel restricted	Check URL format and availability
401	Insufficient credits or invalid token	Check credits and API token
403	Invalid API token	Regenerate API token
429	Rate limit exceeded	Actor handles with delays
503	Service temporarily unavailable	Retry automatically

Failed channels are captured in the dataset with error information:

{
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@invalid",
  "error": "Invalid channel URL or channel restricted",
  "status": "failed"
}

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💳 Pricing & Billing

The Transcript Downloader API used by this actor requires a valid API token. API usage is billed separately and is based on processing time and file size.

📊 We charge on a per transcript/metadata basis. Visit our site to checkout pricing. View full details and subscription plans on our pricing page

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⚠️ Rate Limiting & Performance

API Rate Limits

Scope	Limit	Window
Per User (API Token)	90 requests	1 minute
Per IP (unauthenticated)	90 requests	1 minute

When rate limits are exceeded, the API returns 429 Too Many Requests. The actor handles this automatically with built-in retry logic.

YouTube API Quotas

YouTube API access is subject to daily quota limits to comply with YouTube's terms of service.

Operation	Quota Units	Notes
Channel Profile Fetch	1 unit	Initial channel lookup
Video List (per 50 videos)	2 units	Pagination uses additional quota
Video Metadata	1 unit	Per video info request

Daily quota is configurable per account and resets automatically at midnight UTC. When quota is exhausted, the API returns a 429 error until reset.

Processing Times

Scenario	Typical Duration
Basic profile (no video details)	~5-15 seconds per channel
With video details	~1-2 minutes per video
Large channels (1000+ videos, list only)	~30-60 seconds

Retry Behavior

The actor automatically retries on transient errors (429, 500, 503) with exponential backoff (base delay 1s, max delay 60s, up to 5 attempts). It does not retry on client errors (401, 403, 404) since those require user action.

Response Headers

The API returns rate limit headers you can monitor in logs:

Header	Description
X-RateLimit-Limit	Max requests allowed in window
X-RateLimit-Remaining	Requests remaining in current window
Retry-After	Seconds to wait before retrying (on 429)

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💡 Best Practices

For Basic Channel Analysis

{
  "channelUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@channel1", "https://www.youtube.com/@channel2"],
  "apiToken": "your-token",
  "includeVideoDetails": false,
  "maxConcurrency": 3
}

For Detailed Content Analysis

{
  "channelUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@channel"],
  "apiToken": "your-token", 
  "includeVideoDetails": true,
  "includeComments": true,
  "maxConcurrency": 1,
  "videoLimit": 10
}

General Tips

• ✅ Start with includeVideoDetails: false to explore channels
• ✅ Use videoLimit to control costs when getting video details
• ✅ Enable includeComments: true only when you need comment analysis (requires video details)
• ✅ Keep maxConcurrency low (1-2) to avoid rate limits
• ✅ Monitor costs using the summary.totalCost field
• ✅ Monitor daily YouTube API quota usage in your dashboard
• ✅ Validate channel URLs before running large batches

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🔗 Supported URL Formats

The actor supports all major YouTube channel URL formats:

✅ https://www.youtube.com/@username
✅ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
✅ https://www.youtube.com/c/channelname
✅ https://www.youtube.com/user/username
✅ http://www.youtube.com/@username (HTTP also supported)

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📈 Monitoring & Analytics

Track your usage with the built-in summary data:

{
  "summary": {
    "totalVideos": 1234,
    "videosInResponse": 1234,
    "videosWithDetails": 50,
    "totalCost": "0.500",
    "processingTime": "45.2s"
  }
}

Use this data to:

• Monitor API costs per channel
• Track processing performance
• Plan batch processing strategies
• Optimize concurrency settings

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🙋 Support

Need help? Visit Transcript Downloader Support. We respond within 24 business hours.

For technical issues with this actor, check the run logs for detailed error messages.

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📄 License

This actor is provided under the ISC License.