# YouTube Channel Change Monitor (`woolly_kingcrab/youtube-channel-change-monitor`) Actor

Monitor public YouTube channel feeds and detect new uploads, video metadata changes, activity shifts, and recent view growth between runs.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/woolly\_kingcrab/youtube-channel-change-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [sakthi kumar](https://apify.com/woolly_kingcrab) (community)
- **Categories:** Automation, Social media
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$0.20 / actor start

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## YouTube Channel Change Monitor

> **Unofficial tool. Not affiliated with or endorsed by YouTube or Google.**

Monitor public YouTube channel video feeds and detect meaningful changes between runs instead of repeatedly processing the same recent videos.

### What it detects

- Newly observed uploads
- Video title / feed metadata updates
- Upload activity over the last 7 and 30 days
- Days since the latest upload
- Recent-video view growth when the public feed exposes view counts
- Channel activity signal: `ACCELERATING`, `STABLE`, or `SLOWING`

The first run creates a **baseline**, so existing videos are not incorrectly reported as new.

### Data source

Uses YouTube's public channel video feed:

`https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id={CHANNEL_ID}`

No YouTube API key, login credentials, browser automation, proxy, paid data provider, or AI API is required.

### Input

- Up to 50 YouTube channel IDs
- ID-based YouTube `/channel/UC...` URLs
- Direct YouTube channel feed URLs
- Stable Monitor ID
- Optional baseline-video output

V1 intentionally uses channel IDs rather than scraping handle pages to keep the Actor lightweight and reliable.

### Output

Each channel receives a summary containing:

- Channel title and ID
- Newly observed videos
- Video metadata updates
- Uploads in the last 7 days
- Uploads in the last 30 days
- Days since the latest upload
- Recent-video view delta when available
- Activity signal
- Snapshot hash
- Observation timestamp

Detailed `NEW_VIDEO` and `VIDEO_UPDATED` records are emitted when meaningful changes are detected.

### Important feed behavior

YouTube's channel feed is a rolling recent-video window.

Therefore, this Actor reports **newly observed videos**, but it does **not** label videos that disappear from the rolling feed as deleted or removed.

### Use cases

- Competitor channel monitoring
- Brand video monitoring
- Creator monitoring
- Upload-frequency tracking
- Content research
- Campaign monitoring
- YouTube publishing intelligence

### Scheduling

Every 6–12 hours or daily is usually enough.

### Pricing

Recommended Store launch pricing:

- **$0.20 per Actor start**
- No additional per-result charge

The Actor has no paid upstream data dependency.

### Reliability

- Stateful comparison between runs
- Duplicate-change protection
- Fetch-all-before-state-mutation fail-closed behavior
- Existing state preserved if any channel feed fails
- Maximum 50 channels per run
- No YouTube credentials collected
- No paid API dependency

### Why use this instead of a raw YouTube scraper?

A raw scraper answers:

**"What videos are visible now?"**

YouTube Channel Change Monitor answers:

**"What changed since the previous check?"**

That makes it useful for continuous competitor and creator intelligence.

### Disclaimer

This tool monitors publicly available YouTube feed information. Users are responsible for complying with applicable laws and YouTube/Google terms.

**This is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by YouTube or Google.**

# Actor input Schema

## `monitorId` (type: `string`):

Stable ID for this monitoring configuration. Reuse it for scheduled runs.

## `channels` (type: `array`):

Up to 50 YouTube channel IDs (starting with UC), ID-based /channel/ URLs, or direct YouTube video-feed URLs.

## `emitBaseline` (type: `boolean`):

Off by default. First run establishes state without reporting existing videos as new.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "monitorId": "store-healthcheck",
  "channels": [
    "UCUZHFZ9jIKrLroW8LcyJEQQ"
  ],
  "emitBaseline": false
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

Dataset containing SUMMARY, CHANGE, and optional BASELINE records.

## `runSummary` (type: `string`):

Compact run summary from the default key-value store.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("woolly_kingcrab/youtube-channel-change-monitor").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("woolly_kingcrab/youtube-channel-change-monitor").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{}' |
apify call woolly_kingcrab/youtube-channel-change-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,woolly_kingcrab/youtube-channel-change-monitor"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/oUMVcXRogFm2dGpKc/builds/gQxUK2v2PIHllLnuw/openapi.json