YouTube Channel Scraper — latest videos, channel stats, no API key

Monitor any YouTube channel or playlist without the Data API, quota, browser or proxy. Reads the official RSS feed (15 latest videos with exact timestamps, view counts and descriptions) or the public Videos / Shorts tab (~30 / ~48 latest), optionally enriched with channel stats (subscribers, total views, country, links) and per-video details (duration, likes, category, keywords). Give a @handle, any channel URL, a UC… id or a PL… playlist id.

Use cases

• Competitor / creator monitoring — daily run with maxAgeDays: 1 over 50 channels; alert on new uploads that match includeKeywords.
• Influencer lead-gen — includeChannelStats: true to collect subscribers, total views, country and external links (site, Instagram, TikTok) for outreach lists.
• Content research — source: "videos", sort: "mostViewed" to see which recent topics perform for each channel.
• Shorts trend tracking — source: "shorts" for the latest 48 Shorts with view counts.
• Sponsorship due diligence — includeVideoDetails for exact duration, likes and category of the last N videos.
• Playlist sync — feed a course or podcast playlist (PL…) into your CMS / vector DB whenever a new episode appears.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Notes
channels	string[]	—	@handle, youtube.com/@x, /channel/UC…, /c/Name, /user/Name, UC… id, PL…/UU… playlist id or playlist URL.
source	select	rss	rss (15 latest, exact data), videos (~30 latest uploads, approx. dates & rounded views, durations), shorts (~48 latest Shorts). Playlists always use RSS.
limitPerChannel	int	15	Max videos kept per entry (1–100; the source caps apply).
includeKeywords	string[]	—	Keep videos whose title/description contains any (case-insensitive).
excludeKeywords	string[]	—	Drop videos containing any.
sinceDate	date	—	Keep videos published on/after this date.
maxAgeDays	int	—	Keep videos newer than N days (good for scheduled runs).
minViews	int	—	Drop videos below this view count.
sort	select	newest	newest, mostViewed, feed. Applied before limitPerChannel.
includeChannelStats	bool	false	Fetch the About page: subscribers, video count, total views, country, joined, description, links, avatar. Emits one type: "channel" row per channel + channel* columns on videos.
includeVideoDetails	bool	false	Fetch each video page: durationSec, likeCount, category, keywords, exact views, isLive.
maxDetailsPerChannel	int	5	Budget for includeVideoDetails (0–50).
descriptionLength	int	1000	Truncate RSS descriptions (0 = drop).
maxItems	int	1000	Hard cap across all channels.
dedupe	bool	true	Skip a videoId already emitted by an earlier entry.

Reference

What each source gives you

Field	rss	videos tab	shorts tab	+ includeVideoDetails
items	≤ 15	≈ 30	≈ 48	—
publishedAt (exact ISO)	yes	no (publishedAtApprox from "3 days ago")	no	yes (publishDate)
views	exact	rounded ("572K")	rounded	exact
description	yes (truncated)	no	no	no
durationSec	no	yes	no	yes
rating / ratingCount	yes	no	no	likeCount
category, keywords, isLive	no	no	no	yes

Accepted channel references

Input	Example
Handle	@Fireship, Fireship
Channel URL	https://www.youtube.com/@Fireship/videos, /channel/UCsBjURrPoezykLs9EqgamOA, /c/Fireship, /user/GoogleDevelopers
Channel id	UCsBjURrPoezykLs9EqgamOA
Playlist	PLrAXtmErZgOeiKm4sgNOknGvNjby9efdf, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL…, uploads playlist UU…

Examples

Daily "what's new" across a watchlist

{ "channels": ["@Fireship", "@aiDotEngineer", "@lexfridman"], "maxAgeDays": 1 }

Influencer outreach list with stats and links

{ "channels": ["@Fireship", "@ThePrimeagen", "@t3dotgg"], "includeChannelStats": true, "limitPerChannel": 3 }

Top-performing recent videos per channel

{ "channels": ["@Fireship"], "source": "videos", "sort": "mostViewed", "limitPerChannel": 10, "includeVideoDetails": true, "maxDetailsPerChannel": 10 }

Keyword watch: reviews mentioning a product

{ "channels": ["@mkbhd", "@UnboxTherapy"], "includeKeywords": ["iPhone", "Pixel"], "excludeKeywords": ["#shorts"], "maxAgeDays": 30 }

Latest Shorts

{ "channels": ["@Fireship"], "source": "shorts", "limitPerChannel": 20 }

Output

Video row (RSS + details):

{
  "type": "video",
  "input": "https://www.youtube.com/@Fireship",
  "kind": "channel",
  "source": "rss",
  "playlistId": null,
  "channelId": "UCsBjURrPoezykLs9EqgamOA",
  "channelTitle": "Fireship",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsBjURrPoezykLs9EqgamOA",
  "channelHandle": "@Fireship",
  "channelSubscribers": 4270000,
  "channelVideoCount": 841,
  "channelTotalViews": 744056340,
  "videoId": "FluKUJyeYD8",
  "title": "Did OpenAI actually build AGI? GPT-6 Astra first look",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FluKUJyeYD8",
  "publishedAt": "2026-09-04T20:14:12+00:00",
  "updatedAt": "2026-09-11T22:17:40+00:00",
  "description": "CodeRabbit Security protects your code…",
  "thumbnail": "https://i3.ytimg.com/vi/FluKUJyeYD8/hqdefault.jpg",
  "views": 3999521,
  "rating": 5,
  "ratingCount": 45194,
  "durationSec": 446,
  "likeCount": 45194,
  "category": "Science & Technology",
  "keywords": ["webdev", "app development"],
  "isLive": false,
  "isShort": false,
  "detailsFetched": true,
  "fetchedAt": "2026-09-12T23:41:12.086Z"
}

Field	Description
type	video or channel (stats row, only with includeChannelStats).
input, kind, source	What you passed, channel/playlist, and which source produced the row.
channelId, channelTitle, channelUrl, channelHandle	Resolved channel identity.
channelSubscribers, channelVideoCount, channelTotalViews, channelCountry	From About page (includeChannelStats), else null. channelCountry is null when the channel does not publish a country (common).
videoId, title, url, thumbnail	Video identity.
publishedAt / publishedAtApprox / publishedText	Exact ISO (RSS/details) or approximate from relative text (tabs).
views, viewsText, rating, ratingCount, likeCount	Engagement.
durationSec, durationText, isShort, isLive, category, keywords	From tab / details.
description	RSS description, truncated to descriptionLength.

Channel row (type: "channel") adds channelDescription, channelJoined, channelAvatar, channelKeywords, channelLinks[], channelIsFamilySafe and the raw subscribersText / videoCountText / totalViewsText. Key-value record SUMMARY: { videos, channels, source, errors[] }.

Use it from code / agents

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/yadroo~youtube-channel-feed/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"channels":["@Fireship"],"maxAgeDays":7}'

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('yadroo/youtube-channel-feed').call({ channels: ['@aiDotEngineer'], includeChannelStats: true });
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient(os.environ["APIFY_TOKEN"])
run = client.actor("yadroo/youtube-channel-feed").call(run_input={"channels": ["@Fireship"], "source": "videos", "sort": "mostViewed"})
items = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items

MCP: connect https://mcp.apify.com and call the yadroo/youtube-channel-feed tool with the same JSON.

Pricing

Pay per event: $0.001 per run start + $0.001 per video. Channel-stats rows are billed like videos. Typical: 10 channels × 15 videos = 150 rows ≈ $0.15; a daily maxAgeDays: 1 watchlist usually yields a handful of rows, under $0.01.

Limits & FAQ

• Only 15 videos? That is YouTube's RSS cap. Use source: "videos" (~30) or "shorts" (~48); for full back-catalogues use a full YouTube scraper.
• Approximate dates on tabs. The Videos/Shorts tabs only show "3 days ago"; publishedAtApprox is computed from that. Turn on includeVideoDetails for exact dates on the videos you care about.
• Rate limits / blocks. 0.5–0.6 s pauses between page fetches, 3 retries with backoff on 429/5xx. Heavy includeVideoDetails budgets on many channels are the only way to get throttled — keep them ≤ 10.
• Private / deleted / renamed. 404 → clear error for that entry in SUMMARY.errors; the run continues with the others and fails only if nothing at all was fetched.
• Members-only / age-restricted videos may miss details.
• Roadmap. Comments count, transcript availability flag, uploads-playlist paging for older videos.

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