YouTube Scraper: Videos, Channels, Shorts and Comments

What you can do with it

• See what ranks for a keyword, sorted by date or views and filtered by upload date and length.
• Track the latest videos, Shorts or streams of competitor channels with a published-after cutoff.
• Find channels and subscriber counts behind the videos that rank in your niche.
• Collect top or newest comments, with replies, for audience analysis.

What you get

Results come as rows in an Apify dataset, which you can export as JSON, CSV or Excel or read over the API. These are the main fields:

Pricing

This Actor is pay per event, with one price for every Apify plan, the free plan included. Prices are per 1,000 events.

No run start fee. Prices come from the Apify Store and can change; the Actor's Apify page always shows the current ones. Platform usage is billed through your Apify account.

Run it from code

Create an API token in Apify Console (Settings, API and Integrations) and replace YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN. This call starts a run with a small input and returns the rows when it finishes. Synchronous calls suit small inputs; for big jobs, start a run and read the dataset later.

curl

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/apisamurai~youtube-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
  "searchQueries": [
    "lofi"
  ],
  "maxResultsPerSource": 10
}'

Python (pip install apify-client)

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run_input = {
    "searchQueries": ["lofi"],
    "maxResultsPerSource": 10,
}

# Start the Actor and wait for it to finish.
run = client.actor("apisamurai/youtube-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Read the results from the run's default dataset.
items = client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).list_items().items
for item in items:
    print(item)

JavaScript (npm install apify-client)

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });
const input = {
    searchQueries: ['lofi'],
    maxResultsPerSource: 10,
};

// Start the Actor and wait for it to finish.
const run = await client.actor('apisamurai/youtube-scraper').call(input);

// Read the results from the run's default dataset.
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Client calls follow the Python and JavaScript client docs. The full input reference is on the Actor's Apify page.

FAQ

Do I need a YouTube API key?

No. The Actor reads YouTube's public web API as a logged-out visitor, so there is no Google quota to manage.

Why are some numbers rounded?

Without details, list pages show rounded views and relative ages. Turn on details for exact likes, comment count, tags, category and the exact publish time.

How exact are the limits?

maxResultsPerSource counts saved videos per search term, channel tab or playlist, and the last page is trimmed to it. Duplicates are left out and not charged.

What is not charged?

Duplicates, removed or private videos, and details that fail to load. There is no start fee, so a run that finds nothing costs nothing.

Where do I report a problem?

Email hello@apisamurai.com, or open an issue on the Actor's Apify page.