YouTube Shorts Metadata Extractor for Channels & Hashtags

Collect YouTube Shorts from a channel's Shorts tab, a hashtag feed, keyword search results, a list of Shorts links, or a sound — and turn each one into a row with exact view and like counts, comment count, publish date, duration, category, sound title, caption languages and the uploader's channel profile.

What this actor does

• Five ways in: a channel's Shorts tab (channel), a hashtag's Shorts feed (hashtag), YouTube search filtered to Shorts (search), specific Shorts URLs/IDs (direct), or other Shorts that use the same sound as seed links (sound)
• Channel sorting: newest, most popular or oldest first, matching the buttons YouTube shows on the Shorts tab
• Exact per-Short metrics: exact views, likes, comment count, duration, publish date, upload date, category and sound — pulled from each Short's own page, not the rounded listing values
• Captions: whether captions exist and which language tracks are available
• Channel profile on every channel-mode row: subscribers, description, join date, location, links, avatar, banner, total views, total videos and verification
• Deep back-catalogs: page through a channel's entire Shorts list (up to 10,000 per channel per run)
• Fast listing-only mode: turn includeDetails off to skip per-Short pages and return titles, links, thumbnails and displayed view counts quickly
• Members-only Shorts (optional): includeMembersOnly also collects a channel's members-only Shorts when YouTube offers that filter on its Shorts tab; when the filter is not rolled out for the channel the run notes it and returns the public listing
• Exact numbers only or nothing: a field YouTube does not expose for a given Short is omitted instead of emitted as null or a guess; long-form videos are never mixed in

Output per Short

One row per Short. Optional fields are omitted when YouTube does not expose a value.

Field	Description
videoId	The Short's YouTube video ID
title	Short's title
url	https://www.youtube.com/shorts/<videoId>
thumbnailUrl	Vertical thumbnail (9:16)
viewCount	Exact view count (or the displayed count when includeDetails is off)
viewCountText	View count as displayed, e.g. "30M views"
likes	Exact like count
commentsCount	Exact comment count
commentsTurnedOff	true when the uploader disabled comments
duration	Duration as MM:SS / HH:MM:SS
durationSeconds	Duration in seconds
publishDate	Publish date with timezone, e.g. "2026-10-16T09:00:02-07:00"
uploadDate	Same instant in UTC, e.g. "2026-10-16T16:00:02.000Z"
category	YouTube category, e.g. "Entertainment"
soundTitle	"Original Sound" or the track name when a licensed sound is used
captionLanguages	Caption language codes, e.g. ["en"]
subtitles	"available" when caption tracks exist
description	Short's description text
hashtags	Hashtags found in the description (hashtag mode returns the searched tag)
postedTimeText	Relative publish label, e.g. "2 days ago"
formats	Available video stream qualities
isAgeRestricted / isMembersOnly / isUnlisted	Present and true only when that applies
channelName, channelUrl, channelId, channelUsername	Uploader identity (channel mode)
numberOfSubscribers, channelTotalVideos, channelTotalViews, channelJoinedDate, channelLocation, channelDescription, channelDescriptionLinks, channelAvatarUrl, channelBannerUrl, isChannelVerified	Channel profile fields (channel mode)
aboutChannelInfo	Nested object repeating the channel profile fields
searchQuery	The keyword (search mode)
matchedSoundTitle	The seed sound a sound-mode row was found by
sourceType / source	Which input produced the row
order	Position in the result set, starting at 0
scrapedAt	ISO timestamp of when the row was scraped

Error and status rows

• A channel, hashtag or search query that cannot be read produces an error row in the same dataset: recordType: "error" with sourceType, source, errorCode (CHANNEL_NOT_FOUND, NO_SHORTS, HASHTAG_EMPTY, SEARCH_EMPTY, INVALID_SHORT_URL) and an error message. The run itself still succeeds.
• When a run finds no Shorts at all, the dataset gets one status row instead: recordType: "status", status: "no_results", plus the inputs you supplied.

Input

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
inputMode	string	No	"channel"	channel, hashtag, search, direct or sound
channelUrls	string[]	Channel mode	["https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast"]	Channel URLs, @handles or channel IDs
hashtags	string[]	Hashtag mode	–	Hashtags like #cooking (with or without #)
searchQueries	string[]	Search mode	–	Keywords; results are filtered to Shorts
shortUrls	string[]	Direct / sound mode	["https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pfUG56htjBc"]	Shorts URLs, youtu.be/watch links, or 11-character IDs; seed links in sound mode
sortShortsBy	string	No	"newest"	Channel Shorts order: "newest", "popular" or "oldest"
maxShorts	integer	No	3	Max Shorts per channel, hashtag or query (per run in direct mode), 1–10000
includeDetails	boolean	No	true	Visit each Short's page for exact metrics, dates, category, sound and captions. false = fast listing-only rows
includeMembersOnly	boolean	No	false	Channel mode: also collect members-only Shorts when YouTube offers the Members only filter (rollout-dependent; reads each member Short's own page)
oldestPostDate	string	No	–	Only Shorts published on/after this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
market	string	No	"US"	Region whose YouTube settings are used (31 countries), which sets the language of returned metadata

Supported inputs per mode

• channel — @MrBeast, https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast, https://youtube.com/channel/UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA, a bare UC… ID, or a name
• hashtag — #cooking, cooking
• search — any keyword phrase, e.g. "cooking shorts"
• direct — https://www.youtube.com/shorts/<id>, https://youtu.be/<id>, watch?v=<id>, or the bare 11-character ID
• sound — the same forms; each link's sound is looked up and its other Shorts are returned

Example: a channel's most popular Shorts

{
  "inputMode": "channel",
  "channelUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast"],
  "sortShortsBy": "popular",
  "maxShorts": 50
}

Example: keyword search

{
  "inputMode": "search",
  "searchQueries": ["cooking shorts", "home workout"],
  "maxShorts": 100
}

Example: hashtag feed

{
  "inputMode": "hashtag",
  "hashtags": ["#cooking"],
  "maxShorts": 100
}

Example: specific Shorts, fast listing only

{
  "inputMode": "direct",
  "shortUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pfUG56htjBc"],
  "includeDetails": false
}

Use cases

• Benchmark a creator's Shorts — exact views, likes and comments for their entire Shorts back-catalog, sorted by newest or most popular
• Trend and hashtag research — see what creators and videos are active under a hashtag right now, then drill into exact engagement
• Keyword discovery — find Shorts around a topic with YouTube search and rank them by exact performance
• Sound tracking — group Shorts by the sound they use (Original Sound vs licensed tracks)
• Content cadence monitoring — schedule a run with oldestPostDate to collect only recent uploads
• Data enrichment — paste a list of Shorts links and receive clean rows with full metadata for each

FAQ

Do I need a YouTube account, API key or proxies? No. The actor reads YouTube's public pages and picks its network route automatically; there is nothing to configure.

Why do some rows miss likes or commentsCount? YouTube hides those counters for some Shorts, or the page was briefly gated; the actor retries and falls back to its secondary source, and simply omits what is genuinely unavailable rather than guessing.

What is the difference between viewCount and viewCountText? With includeDetails on, viewCount is the exact number from the Short's page and viewCountText is YouTube's display string (e.g. "30M views"). With includeDetails off, only the displayed value is available.

How deep can a channel's Shorts history go? To the end of the channel's public Shorts list, up to 10,000 rows per channel per run. maxShorts caps each source.

How deep can a hashtag go? YouTube's hashtag Shorts feed exposes one page (roughly 36–37 Shorts) and rejects further pages. The actor fills the rest of maxShorts from YouTube search results for "#tag shorts", which keeps returning Shorts that carry the tag.

What does sound mode return? For each seed link you provide, the actor lists other Shorts that use the same sound (8–15 per seed) and tags them with matchedSoundTitle. The seed itself is not included; a seed whose sound has no feed yields a SOUND_UNAVAILABLE error row.

Can I get members-only Shorts? Yes, when YouTube offers the Members only filter on that channel's Shorts tab — the filter is a gradual rollout, so the actor retries the tab a few times and, when it is not offered, says so in the status message and returns the public listing. Members-only Shorts count toward maxShorts and cost up to two player requests each; they carry isMembersOnly: true. YouTube sometimes serves the filter with an empty listing on datacenter networks — the actor then says so and returns the public listing.

Which sort orders are supported? The three YouTube offers on the Shorts tab: newest, most popular and oldest. If a channel does not show those buttons, the run falls back to newest order and says so in the status message.

Are view counts live? They are exact at the moment of scraping. YouTube updates counters continuously, so repeated runs can show slightly different numbers.

Is this affiliated with YouTube? No. This is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by YouTube or Google.