YouTube Shorts Scraper

What is YouTube Shorts Scraper?

YouTube Shorts Scraper collects YouTube Shorts from three places — a channel's Shorts tab, a #hashtag feed and Shorts search results — and returns one clean row per Short: video ID, URL, title, view count, channel, @handle, thumbnail and hashtags, with the exact publish date on request. No YouTube Data API key, no quota, no login. Run it from the Apify Console, on a schedule, or through the API and MCP server.

What data does YouTube Shorts Scraper extract?

Field	Description
videoId, url	The Short's 11-character ID and its youtube.com/shorts/… link
title	Title as shown on the Short card
viewCount, viewCountText	Views as a number (650599) and as YouTube shows it (650K views)
channelName, channelId, channelHandle	The creator and its @handle (channel rows always; hashtag/search rows when Include details or Published after is on)
publishDate	Exact publish time, ISO 8601 UTC (with Include details or Published after)
hashtags	Words after # in the title and description, without the # (from the title always, from the description with Include details)
thumbnail	Vertical thumbnail URL
source, sourceType	Which channel, hashtag or search produced the row (channel / hashtag / search)
description, descriptionStatus, lengthSeconds, keywords	Only with Include details — description, length and tags, plus exact view count and channel. descriptionStatus is present, empty (YouTube has no description for this Short) or unavailable (YouTube did not answer)
scrapedAt	When the row was collected

How to use YouTube Shorts Scraper

1. Add one or more channels (@MrBeast, a channel URL or a UC… ID), hashtags (cooking, with or without #) and/or search queries (iphone tips).
2. Set Max Shorts per source (default 30, up to 500).
3. Optional: turn on Include details for description, length, tags, exact views, the channel and the exact publish date. Set Published after (e.g. 2026-10-01) to return only newer Shorts; older ones are dropped before they are charged.
4. Run it, then download the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, or read it through the API.

Example input

{
    "channels": ["@MrBeast"],
    "hashtags": ["cooking"],
    "searchQueries": ["iphone tips"],
    "maxShortsPerSource": 20,
    "includeDetails": false
}

Example output

{
    "videoId": "Zfw17gIWDC8",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Zfw17gIWDC8",
    "title": "iPhone Tips You NEED To Know! 🔥",
    "viewCount": 96000,
    "viewCountText": "96K views",
    "channelName": null,
    "source": "iphone tips",
    "sourceType": "search",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-09-28T09:40:00.000Z"
}

How much does it cost to scrape YouTube Shorts?

Pay per result: $0.001 per Short ($1 per 1,000), with volume discounts on paid Apify plans, plus a negligible actor-start fee. Only Shorts that land in your dataset are charged; a channel, hashtag or search that fails is recorded in the run's ERRORS key-value record and costs nothing. Set Maximum cost per run to cap spend.

YouTube Shorts Scraper vs. the YouTube Data API

The official API has no Shorts-only feed or hashtag endpoint, and a single search.list call costs 100 of your 10,000 daily quota units. This Actor reads the same public pages the YouTube app loads — Shorts tab, hashtag feed and the Shorts search filter — with no key and no quota.

Using YouTube Shorts Scraper with AI agents

The Actor is pay-per-event with limited permissions, so AI agents can call it through Apify's MCP server (mcp.apify.com). It accepts the field names agents tend to guess: channel, channelUrl, url, hashtag, query.

FAQ

Is scraping YouTube Shorts legal? The Actor reads only public pages without logging in. You are responsible for how you use the data (YouTube's terms, privacy law, copyright of the videos).

Why is channelName empty on hashtag or search rows? Those feeds do not show the creator on the card. Turn on Include details to fill it from the video's own page data.

Why is description empty on some Shorts? Many Shorts have no description. descriptionStatus = empty means YouTube itself returned none. unavailable means YouTube did not answer for that Short, so the text is unknown.

Does Published after cost more? No extra Apify charge. It adds one YouTube request per Short to read the date (a proxy request only when YouTube blocks the direct one); filtered Shorts are not returned and not charged. The limit applies to the candidates each source fetches (up to Max Shorts per source), so a filter can return fewer Shorts than asked for.

Why fewer Shorts than I asked for? A hashtag or search feed ends when YouTube stops returning new Shorts. Some channels have only a handful.

Limits: public Shorts only; no like/comment counts; exact publish dates need Include details or Published after and YouTube omits them for some Shorts (those are kept under Published after); Include details fills most but not every Short when YouTube withholds a video's data; view counts on cards are rounded ("650K") unless Include details is on.

Related Actors

Part of the webdatatools web-intelligence suite — every Actor is pay-per-event, reads public data without a login, and returns one clean row per entity:

Browse the whole suite at webdatatools, or call ten of these Actors straight from Claude, Cursor or Cline with the webdatatools MCP server.

Website & domain intelligence

• Email Extractor — Website Contact & Social Finder — e-mails, phones and social profiles per domain
• Tech Stack Detector — Wappalyzer & BuiltWith Alternative — CMS, e-commerce, analytics, pixels and payments per domain
• Domain DNS & Email Security Checker — SPF, DKIM, DMARC, MX provider, registrar and domain age
• Domain Security Audit (TLS, HTTP headers, redirects, robots) — TLS expiry, security headers, redirect chain, robots and llms.txt
• Subdomain Finder (Certificate Transparency) — every subdomain seen in CT logs, with a live DNS check
• Bulk Core Web Vitals & PageSpeed Audit — Lighthouse scores, LCP, CLS, INP and top fixes per URL
• On-Page SEO Audit — title, meta, headings, links, images and schema issues per page
• Sitemap URL Extractor & Change Monitor — every sitemap URL, or new and removed pages between runs
• Wayback Machine Snapshot & Page Change Tracker — how a page changed over time, or every archived snapshot
• Bulk Domain WHOIS & RDAP Lookup — registrar, dates, status and nameservers per domain
• Web Scraper — CSS Selector & Data Extractor — pull any CSS selector off any page, one row per URL
• Website Screenshot Generator — full-page or viewport PNG/JPEG screenshots of any URL

Content for AI, LLMs and RAG

• AI Web Search & Read: Google results as clean Markdown — a query turned into clean Markdown from the top search results
• Website to Markdown — Content Crawler for LLM & RAG — any site as clean Markdown per page, no browser
• llms.txt Generator (Website to llms.txt & llms-full.txt) — llms.txt and llms-full.txt for any website or docs site
• PDF to Markdown Converter (Text, Headings, Metadata) — PDF files to clean Markdown with headings, metadata and token counts
• RAG Text Chunker (Markdown to Chunks, Token Counts) — heading-aware RAG chunks with exact GPT token counts from any dataset
• Article & News Extractor (clean text, author, date, markdown) — clean article text, author, date and Markdown per URL
• Structured Data & JSON-LD Extractor (Schema.org, Open Graph) — Schema.org and Open Graph data from any page
• Google News Scraper (RSS search by keyword, topic, site) — news results by keyword, topic or site
• Press Release Monitor: PR Newswire, BusinessWire, GlobeNewswire — PR Newswire, Business Wire and GlobeNewswire releases

Search, video and social

• Pinterest Pins Scraper — latest pins of public Pinterest profiles and boards
• YouTube Transcript Scraper — captions and subtitles as text + timed segments, per video or channel
• Google Search Results Scraper — SERP API — organic SERP results per keyword and country
• YouTube Comments Scraper — Comments & Replies — comments and replies with likes, no API key
• YouTube Channel Latest Videos (RSS, no API key) — the latest 15 videos of any channel from RSS
• YouTube Channel Scraper (videos, shorts, live) — a channel's full video, shorts and stream list
• YouTube Search Results Scraper (videos, channels, no API key) — videos, channels and playlists per query
• YouTube Video Details Scraper (views, likes, description, tags) — views, likes, description, tags and chapters per video
• Apple Podcasts Lookup & Episodes Scraper — podcast metadata and episodes from iTunes and RSS
• Bluesky Post, Search & Profile Scraper — posts, profiles, followers and threads from the AT Protocol API
• X Tweet Scraper (Twitter Posts by URL, No Login) — X (Twitter) posts by URL with likes, replies, author, media and MP4 links
• TikTok Profile Scraper (Followers, Likes, Bio, Video Stats) — TikTok profiles with exact follower and like counts, plus video stats
• Telegram Channel Posts Scraper — posts, views and media flags from any public channel
• Substack Publication & Posts Scraper — archive, authors and paywall status per publication
• Google Play Reviews Scraper — reviews, ratings, replies and app versions per app
• App Store Reviews Scraper — iOS reviews and ratings per app and country
• Trustpilot Reviews Scraper (Ratings, Replies, No Login) — Trustpilot reviews with stars, full text, verification and company replies
• Google Trends Scraper — interest over time, by region, and related queries per keyword
• Google Ads Transparency Scraper — ads any advertiser runs on Google, with format and dates
• Keyword Suggestions Scraper (Google, YouTube, Amazon, Bing) — autocomplete keyword ideas from four search engines
• Bilibili Scraper (Videos, Search, Popular) — Chinese video platform: views, likes, coins, danmaku, uploader
• Mastodon Scraper (Hashtags, Accounts, Trending) — public fediverse posts by hashtag, account or trending
• Meetup Events Scraper (Search by Keyword & City) — upcoming events with RSVPs, fees, venues and groups
• Eventbrite Scraper (Events by Keyword & City) — events by keyword and city with venue, dates and organizer

Leads, jobs and company data

• Career Site Jobs API (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workday +1) — company domains in, their open jobs out, ATS detected automatically
• Workday Jobs Scraper — jobs with full descriptions from any Workday career site
• Google Maps Scraper — businesses with phone, website, address, rating and coordinates per search
• 2GIS Places Scraper (Phones, Websites, Ratings, Hours) — 2GIS businesses in Russia, Kazakhstan, UAE and more with phones, website, rating and hours
• LinkedIn Jobs Scraper — job titles, companies, locations and full descriptions from LinkedIn job search
• Company 360: full company profile from a domain — one row per domain: contacts, tech, security, hiring and company facts
• Hiring Signals Scraper (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workable) — open jobs and hiring velocity from 10 public ATS boards
• Y Combinator Companies & Founders Scraper — YC startups by batch, industry and hiring status
• Wikidata Entity & Company Enrichment (facts, IDs, links) — HQ, founders, employees, revenue and social IDs per company
• Email Validator & Verifier — Bulk Email Check — syntax, MX, disposable, role and free-provider checks
• OpenStreetMap POI Extractor (Overpass API: shops, amenities) — shops and amenities by radius, bbox or area
• Stock, Crypto & FX Quotes — one row per symbol from Yahoo, Binance and ECB rates
• Yahoo Finance Scraper (Quotes, Fundamentals, Financials, News) — Yahoo Finance fundamentals, analyst targets, financial statements, ownership, news and history per ticker
• DexScreener Scraper (DEX Pairs, Prices, Liquidity, Boosts) — DEX pairs with price, volume, liquidity, FDV and boosted tokens across chains
• Polymarket Scraper (Prediction Markets, Odds, Volume) — Polymarket markets and events with outcome prices, volume and liquidity
• StockTwits Scraper (Messages, Sentiment, Trending) — StockTwits messages with Bullish/Bearish sentiment and trending symbols
• Economic Calendar Scraper (Forex Events, Impact, Forecasts) — This week's macro events with impact, forecast and previous values
• Crypto Fear & Greed Index — Daily Crypto Fear & Greed Index values with full history
• Remote Jobs Aggregator (RemoteOK, WWR, Hacker News) — one clean row per remote job, de-duplicated across feeds
• Greenhouse Jobs Scraper — jobs with descriptions from any Greenhouse job board
• Lever Jobs Scraper — jobs with descriptions from any Lever careers page
• Ashby Jobs Scraper — jobs, salaries and descriptions from any Ashby job board
• SmartRecruiters Jobs Scraper — jobs with descriptions from any SmartRecruiters company
• Seek Jobs Scraper (Australia & New Zealand) — Seek job ads with salary, work type and location
• Dice Jobs Scraper — US tech jobs from Dice with salary and remote flag
• AutoScout24 Scraper — European car listings with price, mileage and seller
• Rightmove Scraper — UK property for sale or rent with price and agent
• Wellfound Jobs Scraper (AngelList Startup Jobs) — startup jobs with salary and equity ranges, company size and stage
• Yandex Maps Scraper (Places, Ratings, Phones) — businesses in Russia, Türkiye and the CIS with phones, ratings, hours
• Craigslist Scraper (Listings, Prices, Locations) — listings in any area and category with price, date and coordinates
• JobStreet Scraper (Malaysia, Singapore, PH, ID + JobsDB) — JobStreet and JobsDB jobs in 6 Asian countries with parsed salaries
• InfoJobs Scraper (Spain Jobs, Salaries, Companies) — Spanish jobs with salary range, contract type and full description
• StepStone Scraper (Germany, Austria, Belgium Jobs) — StepStone jobs in Germany, Austria and Belgium by keyword and city
• Naukri Jobs Scraper (Salary, Skills, Company Rating) — Naukri.com jobs in India with salary range, experience, skills and company rating
• Zillow Scraper (Homes for Sale, Rent & Sold, Zestimates) — Zillow homes for sale, rent or sold with Zestimates, beds, baths and photos
• Zillow Home Details Scraper (Description, Photos, History) — full Zillow property pages: description, photos, HOA, tax rate, agent
• Redfin Scraper (Homes for Sale, Prices, Details) — US homes for sale or sold from any Redfin search, with price and details
• Kleinanzeigen Scraper (Ads, Prices, Locations) — German classifieds with price, VB flag, ZIP, city and seller type

Developer, app and research data

• npm, PyPI & Crates.io Package Health Checker — releases, downloads, deprecation and a health score
• GitHub Repository Health & Activity Report — stars, commits, contributors and risk flags per repo
• VS Code Marketplace Extension Scraper (installs, ratings) — installs, ratings and versions per extension
• Chrome Web Store Extension Scraper (installs, ratings) — users, rating, version and developer per extension
• Google Play Scraper — apps, ratings, installs, developer contact and reviews
• App Store (iOS) App Metadata, Ratings & Top Charts Lookup — ratings, price, version and charts per app
• CrossRef DOI & Citation Metadata Lookup — papers, authors, journals and citation counts
• FDA Recalls & Adverse Events Monitor (openFDA) — food, drug and device recalls from openFDA
• iCal / ICS Calendar Feed to Events Extractor — any public calendar feed as event rows
• Shopify Store Products Scraper — catalog, prices, variants and stock per store
• Hacker News Search & Front Page Scraper — stories, comments and points by query or front page
• GitHub Trending Repositories Scraper — trending repos and developers by language and period
• Stack Overflow & Stack Exchange Q&A Scraper — questions, answers and scores by query, tag or site
• Bulk Image Downloader — download image URLs to storage with size, dimensions and a ZIP
• Google Flights Scraper (Prices, Airlines, Stops) — flight prices, airlines, times, stops and CO2 by route and date
• Google Hotels Scraper (Prices, Ratings, Reviews) — hotel prices per night, stars, rating and reviews by city and dates
• Booking.com Scraper (Hotel Prices, Ratings, Availability) — Booking.com hotels for any city and dates with prices, scores and deals
• Airbnb Scraper (Listings, Prices, Ratings, Coordinates) — Airbnb stays for any city and dates with prices, ratings and coordinates
• AliExpress Scraper (Search Products & Prices) — AliExpress search results with USD price, discount and rank
• Lazada Scraper (Products, Prices, Sold, Ratings) — Lazada products in 6 countries with price, rating, units sold and seller
• Trendyol Scraper (Turkey Products, Prices, Ratings) — Trendyol products with price, basket discount, rating and promotions

Support and feedback

Found a channel layout this Actor doesn't handle, or a parsing bug? Open an issue on the Issues tab.

Useful? A short review on the reviews page helps other users find it.