YouTube Shorts Scraper — Channels, Search & URLs, No Login

Get YouTube Shorts as clean data. Give it channels, keywords or Shorts links and get one row per Short: views, likes, comment count, publish date, length, channel and subscribers, hashtags, the song it uses, and the thumbnail.

🚫 No login · 🔑 No API key · 🍪 No cookies · ⏱️ Newer-than date filter · 💵 From $1.00 per 1,000 Shorts

🎯 Three ways in

You give	You get
Channels — https://www.youtube.com/@NASA, @NASA, a channel id (UC…) or a channel name	the channel's Shorts tab, newest, most popular or oldest first (the same three buttons YouTube shows). Links to other sites (TikTok, Instagram …) are skipped, never guessed
Search Shorts — keywords or #hashtags	YouTube's own Shorts search (the "Shorts" filter, so every result is a Short), by relevance or popularity
Shorts URLs — youtube.com/shorts/…, youtu.be/…, watch links or video ids	those Shorts (a regular video that isn't a Short is not saved — it is listed as NOT_A_SHORT)

Newer than (2026-09-01, 7 days, today …) keeps only Shorts published on or after that day. It works to the day, because YouTube shows a Short's publish date, not its time: an age counts back to the start of that calendar day (UTC), so 1 hour keeps everything published today. Channels are then read newest first and stop at the date; searches use YouTube's upload-date filter plus the exact publish day. Shorts older than the date are never charged.

Many channels and searches are read side by side, so a long list of channels checked for new Shorts finishes in seconds.

🚀 Examples

The latest 50 Shorts of two channels:

{ "channels": ["https://www.youtube.com/@NASA", "@MrBeast"], "maxResults": 50 }

A channel's most popular Shorts:

{ "channels": ["@NASA"], "channelSortBy": "popular", "maxResults": 20 }

Everything a channel posted in the last week:

{ "channels": ["@NASA"], "newerThan": "7 days", "maxResults": 200 }

The most popular Shorts for a keyword this month, as YouTube shows them in Canada:

{ "searchQueries": ["cooking hacks", "#asmr"], "searchSortBy": "popular", "newerThan": "30 days", "country": "CA", "maxResults": 100 }

Specific Shorts:

{ "shortsUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qolQY2JaKwI", "https://youtu.be/xD5Ajj3gFDs"] }

Already using another Shorts scraper? channels, maxResultsShorts, oldestPostDate and sortChannelShortsBy (NEWEST / POPULAR / OLDEST) work as they are; so do startUrls, searchTerms and maxItems.

📦 Output

A real row (2026-10-03):

{
  "id": "qolQY2JaKwI",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qolQY2JaKwI",
  "title": "Nika loves to eat chicken #cat #cats",
  "text": null,
  "hashtags": ["cat", "cats"],
  "viewCount": 418596019,
  "likes": 6167656,
  "commentsCount": 13000,
  "date": "2024-07-22",
  "duration": "0:17",
  "durationSeconds": 17,
  "channelName": "Princess Nika cat",
  "channelId": "UC0X1dp5Gkhos0QJpainsjUA",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@PrincessNikacat",
  "channelUsername": "PrincessNikacat",
  "numberOfSubscribers": 12700000,
  "isChannelVerified": true,
  "channelAvatarUrl": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/ID3nIvzjZc…",
  "musicTitle": "Apprehensive at Best",
  "musicArtist": "Biz Baz Studio",
  "music": [{ "song": "Apprehensive at Best", "artist": "Biz Baz Studio", "album": "Apprehensive at Best" }],
  "engagementRate": 0.0148,
  "viewsPerDay": 520977,
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/qolQY2JaKwI/hqdefault.jpg",
  "input": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qolQY2JaKwI",
  "inputType": "url",
  "order": 1,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-03T23:35:57.240Z"
}

• viewCount is exact; numberOfSubscribers and large commentsCount values are rounded the way YouTube rounds them.
• likes is empty when the creator hides the like count; commentsCount is empty when comments are turned off.
• duration comes from YouTube's Shorts search results or the channel's Shorts playlist; in the rare case YouTube shows neither, it is empty.
• musicTitle / musicArtist / music are filled when YouTube lists the song in the Short's "Music" section. An "original sound" without a listed song leaves them empty.
• engagementRate = (likes + comments) ÷ views; viewsPerDay = views ÷ days since publishing.
• Each Short appears once per run, even if two of your inputs find it.
• Channels and searches are read at the same time, so rows of different inputs can be interleaved; input and order give each input's own order.

The dataset has three table views: Shorts, Engagement and Music. The run's key-value store also holds RUN_REPORT (how the run ended, Shorts per input) and, only when needed, FAILED_INPUTS (channels that don't exist, unavailable Shorts, Shorts URLs that are regular videos (NOT_A_SHORT), inputs YouTube blocked — none of them charged as Shorts).

💵 Pricing

Pay per event:

Event	When	Price
Actor start	once per run (per GB of memory; the default 256 MB = 1)	$0.001
Short	one Short saved to your dataset	$0.0013 ($1.30 per 1,000) on the Free and Bronze plans, $0.0012 ($1.20 per 1,000) on Silver, $0.001 ($1.00 per 1,000) on Gold, Platinum and Diamond
Channel, search or URL checked	each channel or search YouTube answered (with or without new Shorts), and each Shorts URL that turned out private, deleted or not a Short	$0.0003

Examples on the Free plan: the latest 20 Shorts of a channel = $0.001 + $0.0003 + 20 × $0.0013 = $0.0273; 1,000 Shorts from one channel = $1.3013; 20 Shorts URLs = $0.001 + 20 × $0.0013 = $0.027; an hourly check of 10 channels that finds nothing new = $0.001 + 10 × $0.0003 = $0.004 per run. Shorts older than your date, regular videos and unavailable Shorts are never charged as Shorts; channels that don't exist, a channel given twice and inputs YouTube blocks cost nothing. Set a maximum cost per run and the actor stops before going over it — it never reads a Short or checks an input your limit can't pay for.

❓ FAQ

Do I need a YouTube account, cookies or an API key? No. Everything comes from the pages YouTube shows any visitor without logging in. The actor never logs in, never uses cookies, and never touches private or members-only content.

Is it legal to scrape YouTube? This actor only collects publicly available data that anyone can see on YouTube without signing in. Collecting publicly available data is generally legal, but you're responsible for how you use it. Results include channel names, handles and links, which can count as personal data, so follow privacy laws such as GDPR, PIPEDA and CCPA, and YouTube's terms. If you're unsure, check with a lawyer. More on this: Is web scraping legal?

Does it download videos, captions or transcripts? No. It reads the Shorts' public details only: no video files, no captions, no transcripts, and no comment text.

Why is a search different from what I see in the app? YouTube personalizes and reshuffles search results; this actor sees what a logged-out visitor in your Country sees. Channel Shorts tabs are the same for everyone.

Can I run it every hour to catch new Shorts? Yes — schedule it with Newer than set to today (or 1 day). The filter works to the day, so each run returns that day's Shorts; use the id column to keep only the ones you haven't seen yet. A check that finds nothing new costs $0.0003 per channel.

What does "Newer than" do with a popular or oldest order? A date needs the newest-first order to stop at the right place, so with a date set, channels are read newest first (the run's status message says so).

What happens if YouTube blocks a request? Each request is retried on fresh IPs — Apify datacenter IPs first, then the proxy in your input (residential by default). An input that stays blocked is listed in FAILED_INPUTS, not charged, and the run continues. If the very first input is blocked, or two in a row later on, YouTube is blocking the whole run: it stops there and says so instead of spending your money on retries. Runs always finish with the Shorts collected so far and a plain status message.

What if my run's timeout is short? The actor stops reading a little before your timeout and keeps every Short it already saved, so even a 30-second run returns rows.

Is this affiliated with YouTube? No. Not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by YouTube or Google. YouTube and YouTube Shorts are trademarks of Google LLC.