YouTube Shorts Scraper API – Views, Likes & Transcripts

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Quick start (no coding)

1. Click Try for free at the top of this page. A free Apify account is enough – it includes monthly credit.
2. In Channels, paste channel links, @handles (like @MrBeast) or channel IDs, one per line – or paste single Shorts in Shorts links.
3. Click Start. About 100 Shorts every 2–3 minutes with transcripts on.
4. When it says Succeeded, open the Output tab and click Export → Excel (or CSV). One row per Short: exact views, likes, comments, publish time, duration, hashtags and thumbnail, plus the transcript and opening line if you turn them on.

Cost: $0.003 per Short (+$0.002 per transcript) – 100 Shorts with transcripts ≈ $0.50. Failed and skipped Shorts are free.

Common mistakes

• Only 30 Shorts per channel → raise Max Shorts per channel.
• Want only recent Shorts → set Only Shorts published since (like 30 days).
• Daily tracking → turn on Only new Shorts and schedule the run; Shorts you already got aren't charged again.

Questions or problems? Open an issue (we read every one). Need a custom version? Ask in an issue or email us – we build it as a private Actor on Apify.

Use from Claude, Cursor or any MCP client

Add https://mcp.apify.com?tools=tubetext/youtube-shorts-scraper as a remote MCP server and sign in to Apify (Claude: Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector). Claude Code:

$claude mcp add --transport http tubetext "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=tubetext/youtube-shorts-scraper"

Then ask, for example: "Get the last 30 Shorts from @MrBeast with views, likes and the opening line of each." or "Which of this channel's Shorts from the last 30 days got the most views, and how do they open?"

🆓 Free to try: Apify's free plan includes $5 of usage every month, no credit card needed – enough for about 1,600 Shorts with this tool.

What you get – real output from a test run, shortened. One row per Short (comments, hashtags, thumbnail and the full transcript in more columns) – here MrBeast's channel with transcripts on:

Short	Views	Likes	Published	Seconds	Opening line
World’s Largest Tennis Match	20,187,422	397,046	2026-08-23	36	Giant tennis, best of three wins.
Last To Fall Wins	30,862,079	363,446	2026-10-16	24	3 2 1 [screaming] pull!
I Raced The Fastest Man On Earth	201,224,497	3,897,898	2026-06-24	24	Who's faster, me or the fastest man to ever…

YouTube Shorts API for views, likes and transcripts

Call it from your back end with the Apify API. One request runs the Actor and returns the rows as JSON:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/tubetext~youtube-shorts-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"channels":["@MrBeast"],"maxShortsPerChannel":20,"includeTranscript":true}'

• Monitoring: Daily channel tracking: schedule the run with onlyNew: true, so each run returns (and bills) only Shorts published since the last run. Add an Apify webhook to get notified when each run finishes.
• Cost at volume: 100 channels × 3 new Shorts a day ≈ 9,000 Shorts a month ≈ $27 at the free-plan price ($0.003 per Short; +$0.002 per transcript).
• Stable output: field names don't change between runs. Failed or empty items come back as status rows that aren't billed, and every row has charged: true/false.
• Why not the official API: The YouTube Data API needs a key and quota, and doesn't separate Shorts from long videos or return captions of other channels. This returns Shorts only, with exact counts and the transcript, no key needed.

What does YouTube Shorts Scraper do?

Get every Short from a YouTube channel, @handle or Shorts link. You get one row per Short with exact views, likes and comment count, the full publish timestamp, duration, hashtags and thumbnail. Optionally you also get the transcript with the opening line (the hook).

No login, no YouTube API key, no quota.

Who it's for and what you can do

• Competitor and trend research: see which Shorts of a channel took off, how fast they were published and what they say in the first 3 seconds.
• Monitoring: schedule a daily run with Only new Shorts. Each run returns only the Shorts that appeared since the last one, and Shorts already delivered are free.
• Content pipelines: feed transcripts (text, SRT or timed segments) to an LLM, a search index or a spreadsheet.

Input

Field	What it does
channels	Channel URLs, @handles or channel IDs. Shorts are listed newest first.
shortsUrls	Individual Shorts (youtube.com/shorts/…, youtu.be/… or watch?v=…).
maxShortsPerChannel	Default 30, up to 5,000.
sinceDate	A date (2026-10-01) or a period (7 days, 2 weeks, 3 months). Older Shorts are skipped and free.
onlyNew	Skip Shorts this account already got from an earlier run (remembered per channel).
includeTranscript	Spoken text from YouTube's captions, plus openingLine.
transcriptLanguages	Preferred caption languages, in order. Default en; the original-language auto captions are used if none match.
includeSrt, includeSegments	Transcript as SRT, or as [{start, duration, text}].
includeCommentCount	YouTube's exact comment count. Default on; one extra request per Short.

Example:

{ "channels": ["@MrBeast"], "maxShortsPerChannel": 50, "sinceDate": "30 days", "includeTranscript": true }

Output

One row per Short. A real row, shortened:

{
  "shortId": "Y8IJi7iP5vk",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Y8IJi7iP5vk",
  "title": "Last To Fall Wins",
  "channelName": "MrBeast",
  "views": 30597962,
  "likes": 361193,
  "comments": 7605,
  "publishedAt": "2026-10-16T09:00:02-07:00",
  "durationSeconds": 24,
  "hashtags": [],
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Y8IJi7iP5vk/maxresdefault.jpg",
  "transcriptStatus": "ok",
  "openingLine": "3 2 1 [screaming] pull!",
  "transcript": "3 2 1 [screaming] pull! Go go go …",
  "status": "ok",
  "charged": true
}

• Other fields: videoId (same as shortId), description, channelId, category, transcriptLanguage, transcriptIsAutoGenerated, srt, segments, scrapedAt, input.
• Comments are YouTube's exact count of the Short's comments. Likes are null when the creator hides them.

How much does it cost?

• $0.003 per Short delivered (lower on higher Apify plans).
• +$0.002 per transcript, only when transcripts are on and the Short has captions.
• Free:
  • Shorts that fail;
  • Shorts older than sinceDate;
  • Shorts already delivered when onlyNew is on;
  • channels without Shorts;
  • Shorts without captions (for the transcript).
• Maximum cost per run is respected. The run stops cleanly before the limit and adds a row telling you how to continue.

Limits

• Only public Shorts are included; members-only and private Shorts are not.
• Transcripts come from YouTube's captions. A Short without speech or captions gets transcriptStatus: "no_captions" and isn't charged for the transcript.
• YouTube sometimes slows down automated requests. The Actor retries on other IPs and in a second pass. With transcripts, expect roughly 100 Shorts every 2–3 minutes.

Related tools

• YouTube Transcript API for long videos, playlists and channels.
• YouTube Channel Analytics for subscribers, upload rate and Social Blade stats.
• Video Breakdown AI for hook, structure and shot list of a Short.
• YouTube & TikTok Comments API for comment sentiment and the moments viewers react to.

Ready-made examples

• YouTube Shorts with Transcripts
• YouTube Shorts Views – Last 30 Days

TubeText Labs tools

TubeText Labs builds 34 pay-per-result Apify Actors for video, social and e-commerce data – no login, JSON/CSV/Excel output, and ready for ChatGPT and Claude (Apify MCP), n8n, Make and Zapier. All tools: apify.com/tubetext

Transcripts

• YouTube Transcript Scraper – videos, Shorts, playlists and whole channels to text; Whisper AI when there are no captions
• TikTok Transcript Scraper – TikTok captions plus Whisper AI, SRT and timestamps
• Instagram Reels Transcript – reel links or @usernames to text with Whisper AI
• Podcast & Video Transcript – podcast RSS / Apple Podcasts, X, Facebook, Loom, Twitch and audio files to text
• Facebook Video Transcript – public Facebook videos and Reels to text with Whisper AI
• X (Twitter) Video Transcript – X/Twitter video posts to text with Whisper AI
• Reddit Video Transcript – videos in public Reddit posts (v.redd.it) to text with Whisper AI, with SRT and timestamps
• Bilibili Video Transcript – Bilibili (B站) videos to text with Whisper AI, plus optional English summaries
• Podcast Transcript – podcast RSS feeds and Apple Podcasts episodes to text with Whisper AI

Video & ad analysis

• Video Breakdown AI – hook analysis, shot list, cut pacing, products shown and script of any TikTok, Reel or YouTube video
• Shot-by-Shot Video Analysis Pro – director-level storyboard of any video: framing, camera move, emotion and why each shot works, plus replay peaks, danmaku and comments tied to shots
• YouTube & TikTok Comments API – comments with like-weighted sentiment and themes, plus the moments viewers react to on long YouTube and Bilibili videos
• Video Ad Analyzer – competitors' YouTube video ads by brand or domain (Google Ads Transparency), torn down by AI
• Meta Ad Library Scraper – Facebook and Instagram ads by brand or keyword: video URLs, images, ad copy, CTA and landing page

Social, apps & trends

• YouTube Channel Analytics – subscribers, recent video performance, Social Blade grade, ranks and estimated earnings
• YouTube Shorts Scraper (this tool) – every Short of a channel with exact views, likes, comments and publish time, plus transcripts and the opening line
• Bilibili Scraper – Bilibili (B站) keyword search, popular board, top-100 ranking, video stats, danmaku text and creator (UP主) followers – no login
• China Trending Topics – Douyin, Weibo, Baidu, Toutiao and Bilibili hot-search boards in one run, in English – plus an optional AI briefing on why topics trend
• WeChat Article Scraper – WeChat 公众号 articles by keyword or link: full text, English titles and optional English summaries
• Google Play Reviews + AI Insights – Android app reviews by star rating, country and language, plus an AI report of complaints and praise
• Steam Reviews Scraper + AI Insights – Steam game reviews with hours played and votes, review score and current players, plus an AI report of top complaints, praise and feature requests
• Social Blade Scraper – Social Blade stats for YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Twitch creators – grade, ranks, 2-week growth, daily history, earnings estimates and top-100 lists
• Spotify Play Count Scraper – play counts for every track of an album, artist or playlist (incl. Top 50 charts), plus monthly listeners, followers, world rank and top cities

E-commerce & travel

• TikTok Shop Product Scraper – US TikTok Shop prices, items sold, stock per SKU and shop stats
• AliExpress Search Scraper – AliExpress search results by keyword: price, items sold, rating, shipping, badges
• Google Hotels Scraper – hotel prices for any destination and dates, per booking site and as a 90-day price calendar
• Taobao & Tmall Product Scraper – Taobao/Tmall products by Chinese or English keyword, category or URL: CNY prices, shops and seller scores
• Alibaba & Yiwu Supplier Finder by Image – product photo in, similar Alibaba.com and Yiwu wholesale listings out: price, MOQ, supplier, country and rating
• Amazon Product Search Scraper – Amazon search results, Best Sellers lists and product pages: price, rating, reviews, monthly sales signal, badges and specs
• Google Flights Scraper – flight prices for any route or multi-city trip, a cheapest-day calendar, price insights and booking options per site
• Agoda & Booking.com Hotel Reviews + AI – Agoda hotel reviews plus verified Booking.com reviews shown on Agoda, hotel scores and sub-scores, and an AI report of complaints, praise and action items
• Gas Prices Scraper (US & Canada) – live gas station prices by ZIP, city or coordinates – regular, premium, diesel, E85 – with an area summary of the cheapest stations
• Idealo Price Scraper – every shop offer for a product on idealo – price, shipping, delivery, shop rating – in Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain and the UK, with a summary per market

Esports & sports data

• Esports Match Timeline – Valorant and CS2 round-by-round scores, winners and VOD timestamps read from broadcast VODs

Questions or problems? Open an issue (we read every one). Need a custom version? Ask in an issue or email us – we build it as a private Actor on Apify.

Found it useful? A short review on this page helps others find it.

Built by TubeText Labs · Pay per result. No login. Ready for AI agents.

FAQ

Do I need a YouTube API key? No. There's no key and no quota. The Actor reads public YouTube pages.

How fast is it? Roughly 100 Shorts every 2–3 minutes with transcripts on, faster without.

Can I track a channel every day? Yes. Schedule the run with Only new Shorts (onlyNew): each run returns only Shorts published since the last run, and Shorts already delivered aren't charged again. If a run stops at your cost limit, the next run with Only new continues where it stopped.

Is it legal? The Actor reads public YouTube pages without logging in and returns public Short metadata and captions. You're responsible for using the data in line with YouTube's terms and your local law; for unusual uses, ask a lawyer.

Support

Found a bug or missing a field? Open an issue – we read every one. Need a custom version? Ask in an issue or email us – we build it as a private Actor on Apify.