YouTube Shorts Scraper

Enumerate the vertical Shorts feed of any YouTube channel — title, view-count text, video ID, direct Shorts URL, and thumbnails — in bulk, with one clean JSON record per Short.

Why use this actor

• Channel-level Shorts feed — pulls only the Shorts tab, not regular long-form videos, so you do not have to filter the output yourself.
• Flexible input — accepts handles (@MrBeast), channel IDs (UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA), or full channel URLs in the same list.
• Auto-pagination — walks the entire Shorts catalog for each channel (or stops at maxItems) without you managing cursors.
• Vertical thumbnails included — every Short comes with multiple 9:16 thumbnail resolutions ready for previews, dashboards, or multimodal training sets.
• View-count signal — surface the viewCountText YouTube shows on the Shorts shelf (e.g. "106M views") for quick performance benchmarking.
• Stable JSON output suitable for pipelines, spreadsheets, and databases — every row carries _input, _channelId, _source, and _scrapedAt envelope fields so you can join results back to your input list.
• No account / no login / no API key — just paste the channel list and run.

How it works

1. You provide a list of YouTube channels — handles, IDs, or full URLs all work.
2. The actor resolves each handle to its channel ID, opens the channel's Shorts tab, and reads each Shorts item the same way the YouTube web app does.
3. Pagination continues automatically until the channel's Shorts feed is exhausted or maxItems is reached.
4. Results stream into your dataset, ready to download as JSON, CSV, or Excel.

You do not need to manage scrapers, browsers, or rotating IPs — all handled internally.

Input

{
  "channels": [
    "@MrBeast",
    "@khaby.lame"
  ],
  "maxItems": 50,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["DATACENTER"]
  }
}

Field	Type	Description
channels	array	List of YouTube channels to scrape. Accepts handles (@MrBeast), channel IDs (UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA), or full channel URLs.
maxItems	integer	Maximum Shorts to return per channel. Default 50. Set 0 for unlimited.
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify Proxy settings. Datacenter works for most channels; switch to residential for very large jobs.

Output

Input: @MrBeast, maxItems: 3

{
  "videoId": "dqpCvSU-ECE",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dqpCvSU-ECE",
  "title": "If This Goes In You Have To Subscribe",
  "viewCountText": "2.8M views",
  "thumbnails": [
    {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dqpCvSU-ECE/oardefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEdCJUDENAFSFWQAgHyq4qpAwwIARUAAIhCcAHAAQY=&rs=AOn4CLAQV3EwU-zVRfZjyXYsuw8bub2ZrQ&usqp=CCk",
      "width": 405,
      "height": 720
    },
    {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dqpCvSU-ECE/oardefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEgCJUDEOAESFWQAgHyq4qpAw8IARUAAIhCcAHAAQbIAQE=&rs=AOn4CLCEfSlsJpHS4bVo4xt_JVYtX0xOrg&usqp=CCk",
      "width": 405,
      "height": 608
    }
  ],
  "_input": "@MrBeast",
  "_channelId": "UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA",
  "_source": "S1-primary",
  "_scrapedAt": "2026-05-18T10:44:44.812131+00:00"
}

Field	Type	Description
videoId	string	YouTube's 11-character video ID. Combine with https://www.youtube.com/shorts/{videoId} or pass to the YouTube Video Detail actor for full metadata.
url	string	Canonical Shorts player URL — ready to paste into a browser or feed to a downstream scraper.
title	string	Title of the Short as shown on the channel's Shorts shelf.
viewCountText	string	View count as YouTube renders it (e.g. "2.8M views", "106M views"). Text, not numeric — parse if you need an integer.
thumbnails	array	Vertical (9:16) thumbnail variants. Each entry has url, width, height. Pick the largest for previews, the smallest for grids.
_input	string	The channel exactly as you supplied it. Use this to join results back to your input list.
_channelId	string	Resolved canonical channel ID (UC...). Stable across handle changes.
_source	string	Internal tag for the path used to fetch the record. S1-primary means the fastest path; values starting with S2- would indicate a fallback.
_scrapedAt	string	ISO-8601 UTC timestamp when the record was scraped.

Error envelope

Channels that fail to resolve or fetch return a structured error instead of crashing the run:

{
  "_input": "@this-handle-does-not-exist-xyz",
  "_error": "handle_resolve_failed",
  "_errorDetail": "could not resolve @this-handle-does-not-exist-xyz",
  "_source": "S1-primary",
  "_scrapedAt": "2026-05-18T10:45:02.012345+00:00"
}

Filter on _error to triage failed rows. Channels that simply have no Shorts return zero records — that is not an error.

Pricing

This actor is billed per result: $3.50 per 1,000 Shorts (Tier 3). Each Short returned in your dataset = 1 result. Error rows (handle_resolve_failed, fetch_failed, invalid_input) are not billed.

Other Sosmed Actors

Platform	Actor	Best for
YouTube	YouTube Channel Scraper	Channel profile, subscriber count, regular video list
YouTube	YouTube Video Detail Scraper	Full metadata for any single Short or video by ID
Instagram	Instagram Account Reels Scraper	Vertical reels feed for any Instagram account
Threads	Threads Account Scraper	Account-level Threads feed for short-form posts
Twitch	Twitch Clips Scraper	Short clip catalog for any Twitch streamer
Pinterest	Pinterest Board Scraper	Pin feed for any Pinterest board
Bluesky	Bluesky Account Posts Scraper	Account-level posts feed on atproto

Browse the full catalog at apify.com/xtracto.

Notes

• The Shorts tab is ordered newest-first as YouTube serves it; ordering can shift between runs if the creator pins or unpins a Short.
• Only public Shorts are returned — unlisted and private Shorts are not visible on the channel's Shorts tab.
• Channels that have never posted a Short simply yield zero records (no error). The Shorts tab does not exist for such channels.
• viewCountText is text (e.g. "1.2M views"), not a number — parse it client-side if you need an integer.
• Thumbnails are vertical 9:16; the array contains multiple resolutions, sorted largest-first.
• Adult-oriented or age-restricted Shorts may be hidden by YouTube's default safety filter and will not appear.