Free YouTube Scraper

Scrape YouTube for free: there's no charge per video, so a run costs only the few cents of Apify platform usage. You can get:

• Search results for any search term, with all of YouTube's search filters (upload date, type, duration, sort order, HD, 4K, subtitles, Creative Commons, live...).
• Channels: their Videos, Shorts and Live tabs, sorted newest, popular or oldest, and stopping at a date if you set one.
• Playlists, hashtag pages and search result URLs.
• Single videos and Shorts from any link (watch, youtu.be, Shorts, live, embed) or a bare video id.

Every video comes with views, likes, comment count, exact publish time, duration, the full description with its links, hashtags, category, tags, and the channel's subscribers, total views, video count, country, joined date, links, avatar and banner.

Already using another YouTube scraper? The inputs (searchQueries, startUrls, maxResults, maxResultsShorts, maxResultStreams, sortingOrder, dateFilter, oldestPostDate, sortVideosBy...) and the output fields (title, id, url, viewCount, likes, commentsCount, date, duration, text, channelName, numberOfSubscribers...) have the same names as the most used YouTube scraper in the Apify Store. Swap the Actor ID and your integration keeps working.

What people use it for

• Market and competitor research: what's being published on a topic, by whom, and how well it does.
• Influencer discovery: channels in a niche with their subscribers, views, country and links (no emails or personal data).
• Channel monitoring: a daily schedule with oldestPostDate: "1 day" gives each channel's new uploads with views, likes and comments.
• Trend and content analysis: titles, tags, hashtags, categories and engagement of the top videos for any search.
• Datasets for AI and analytics: clean, structured video metadata ready for a spreadsheet, a database or an LLM.

Need what's said in the videos? The YouTube Transcript Scraper gets transcripts (text, timed segments or SRT) for the same videos, channels, playlists and searches.

How to use it

1. Add search terms and/or YouTube URLs (videos, channels, playlists, hashtags, search pages), in any mix.
2. Set Maximum videos per search term / channel / playlist (default 10). For Shorts and live streams set Maximum Shorts and Maximum live streams too (default 0 = none).
3. Optionally add search filters, a date limit (oldestPostDate) or the channel order.
4. Run it, then download JSON, CSV or Excel, or use the API.

What you get: one row per video

{
  "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Video) (4K Remaster)",
  "id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "type": "video",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/hqdefault.jpg",
  "viewCount": 1821960823,
  "likes": 19440936,
  "commentsCount": 2457966,
  "date": "2009-10-25T06:57:33Z",
  "dateText": "Oct 24, 2009",
  "duration": "00:03:33",
  "durationSeconds": 213,
  "text": "The official video for “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley. ...",
  "descriptionLinks": [{ "url": "https://linktr.ee/rickastleynever", "text": "https://linktr.ee/rickastleynever" }],
  "hashtags": ["#RickAstley", "#NeverGonnaGiveYouUp", "#OfficialMusicVideo"],
  "location": null,
  "category": "Music",
  "keywords": ["rick astley", "Never Gonna Give You Up", "nggyu", "rick roll"],
  "isLive": false,
  "commentsTurnedOff": false,
  "isMembersOnly": false,
  "isAgeRestricted": false,
  "isUnlisted": false,
  "collaborators": null,
  "channelName": "Rick Astley",
  "channelId": "UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@RickAstleyYT",
  "channelUsername": "RickAstleyYT",
  "numberOfSubscribers": 4550000,
  "isChannelVerified": true,
  "channelAvatarUrl": "https://yt3.googleusercontent.com/...",
  "channelBannerUrl": "https://yt3.googleusercontent.com/...",
  "channelDescription": "Rick Astley’s Swinging Christmas 2026 🎄 ...",
  "channelDescriptionLinks": [{ "text": "Website", "url": "https://www.rickastley.co.uk/" }],
  "channelLocation": "United Kingdom",
  "channelJoinedDate": "2015-02-01",
  "channelTotalVideos": 437,
  "channelTotalViews": 2570271276,
  "input": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "fromYTUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "order": 1,
  "error": null
}

• type is video, shorts or stream (live, past or upcoming streams and premieres).
• date is the exact publish time in UTC. dateText is the date as YouTube shows it ("3 days ago" with Open every video off).
• text is the full description as the creator wrote it: YouTube's shortened links and video "chips" are turned back into the real URLs, which are also listed in descriptionLinks.
• hashtags are the ones above the title and in the description. keywords are the creator's tags (hidden on YouTube's page).
• commentsCount is the exact count. It's null when comments are turned off (commentsTurnedOff: true) and for streams that are live now.
• collaborators lists every channel of a video made by several channels together, each with name, id, URL, handle, subscribers and verified badge. The channel... fields describe the first one, the channel the video is on.
• numberOfSubscribers is rounded the way YouTube shows it (4.55M = 4,550,000). channelTotalViews and channelTotalVideos are exact.
• order is the video's position in its search, channel tab or playlist. input is what you entered and fromYTUrl is the YouTube page the video was listed on.

Small differences from other scrapers: dates are ISO (2015-02-01), channelTotalViews is a number, and thumbnailUrl is the 480x360 thumbnail every video has. Subtitles, translations, isMonetized and isPaidContent aren't part of this Actor (the fields are there, always null). For subtitles, use the YouTube Transcript Scraper.

When something goes wrong

A bad URL, a deleted or private video, or a missing channel never crashes the run. It gets a row with error set, and everything else carries on:

{ "id": "aaaaaaaaaaa", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaaaaaaaaaa", "input": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaaaaaaaaaa", "error": "Video unavailable" }

Other errors: Channel not found, The playlist does not exist., This channel has no Shorts tab (for a channel tab URL), No videos found for this search, Not a YouTube video, channel, playlist, search or hashtag URL.

Pricing

Free. There's no fee per video or per run. You only pay Apify's platform usage, which is tiny. In tests:

• 341 videos with every detail used $0.002;
• 4 channels' videos, Shorts and streams (170 videos) used $0.0016.

Apify's free plan includes $5 of usage every month, enough for hundreds of thousands of videos.

Input examples

The top 50 videos for a search, this month's uploads over 20 minutes, most viewed first

{ "searchQueries": ["python tutorial"], "maxResults": 50, "dateFilter": "month", "lengthFilter": "plus20", "sortingOrder": "views" }

Search videos and Shorts

{ "searchQueries": ["iphone 17 review", "pixel 10 review"], "maxResults": 30, "maxResultsShorts": 30 }

Everything a channel posted in the last 30 days (videos, Shorts and streams)

{ "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd" }], "maxResults": 1000, "maxResultsShorts": 1000, "maxResultStreams": 1000, "oldestPostDate": "30 days" }

A channel's 100 most popular videos

{ "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@veritasium" }], "maxResults": 100, "sortVideosBy": "POPULAR" }

A whole playlist, quickly (only what the list shows: title, views, duration)

{ "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHQObOWTQDNU6R1_67000Dx_ZCJB-3pi" }], "maxResults": 5000, "includeVideoDetails": false }

Details of specific videos

{ "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" }, { "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CEJXqm2eiJ0" }] }

Good to know

• Speed: about 6 videos a second with every detail (341 videos in under a minute), and much faster with Open every video off. Videos at a time (default 10, up to 30) sets the pace.
• Proxy: Apify Proxy (datacenter) is on by default and is all it needs. YouTube refuses some Apify servers' own IP addresses, so without a proxy the run may stop with a clear message.
• Search filters work like YouTube's own: YouTube decides what matches, and it doesn't keep "Upload date" sort order strictly. A search goes about 500-600 results deep, as on YouTube.
• oldestPostDate takes a date (2026-01-31) or an age (7 days, 2 weeks, 3 months, 1 year). It works for every source. On a channel listed newest first the run stops at the first older video, and elsewhere older videos are skipped.
• Hashtag pages show only a few dozen videos, so for more the Actor continues with YouTube's search for that hashtag.
• Live search (maxResultStreams with a search term) finds streams that are live right now. A channel's Live tab has its past and upcoming streams too.
• For a few videos (mostly some music videos) YouTube doesn't give out the category and tags; those rows have the rest.
• Public data only: everything comes from public YouTube pages as a logged-out visitor sees them. No Google account, no login, no emails or other personal contact data.

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