YouTube Music Profile Scraper

Collect rich public artist and channel profiles from ordinary YouTube HTML pages. The actor searches the public channel filter, opens each selected public profile page, and parses the embedded page data that is already delivered to an unauthenticated visitor.

The dataset includes profile identity, handle, canonical URLs, description, keywords, subscriber and video counts, verification/official-artist state, avatar and banner image dimensions, RSS feed URL, safety metadata, visible tabs, and bounded shelves containing public videos, playlists, channels, and posts. Signed media URLs, private account data, request identity data, and authentication material are not retained.

Input

At least one of searchQueries or startUrls is required.

Field	Type	Default	Description
searchQueries	string array	—	Public artist or channel names to search.
startUrls	URL array	—	Public YouTube channel or handle pages, such as https://www.youtube.com/@adele.
maxItems	integer	10	Maximum unique profiles across the run, from 1 to 50.
maxSections	integer	25	Maximum visible shelves retained per profile.
maxSectionItems	integer	20	Maximum visible items retained in each shelf.
maxSearchPages	integer	1	Bounded public search pages per query, from 1 to 3.
maxRetries	integer	1	Bounded retries for a page request.
requestTimeoutSecs	integer	60	Timeout for a public HTML request.
requestDelayMs	integer	250	Delay between requests.
countryCode / languageCode	string	US / en	Public-page locale context.
includeSections	boolean	true	Include visible shelves and their linked items.
includeDiagnostics	boolean	true	Write exact four-field diagnostics for failed pages.
enableProxyFallback	boolean	true	Try one configured Apify Proxy request after a direct request fails.
proxyConfiguration	object	omitted	Optional account-authorized Apify Proxy settings.

Example:

{
  "searchQueries": ["Adele"],
  "maxItems": 2,
  "maxSections": 10,
  "maxSectionItems": 12,
  "includeSections": true,
  "includeDiagnostics": true,
  "enableProxyFallback": true,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}

Output and reliability

Each profile is one youtube_music_profile record. OUTPUT contains counts for page attempts, profiles, visible shelf items, continuation markers, failures, blocked pages, and proxy configuration. A continuation marker is reported as metadata; the actor does not call undocumented continuation requests.

If a direct public page fails and fallback is enabled, one configured Apify Proxy request is attempted. Explicit proxy input uses the requested Apify Proxy configuration. Retries and pacing are bounded. A page that cannot be parsed produces an exact { url, error, errorCode, scrapedAt } diagnostic when diagnostics are enabled.

The actor uses no login, CAPTCHA bypass, stealth browser, fingerprint spoofing, alternate/private request client, or signed media extraction. Optional profile shelves are limited to data visible in the returned public page.

Local verification

npx apify validate-schema
npm test
npx apify run --purge --input-file INPUT.json
node validate-datasets.js

Deploy with npx apify push, then call the same bounded input in Apify Console or with the Apify CLI and inspect both the dataset and OUTPUT record.