# YouTube Video Scraper (`mangudai/youtube-video-scraper`) Actor

Scrape YouTube search results, channel videos, and single video pages with no API key and no login. Get title, channel, views, likes, duration, publish date, description, keywords, and thumbnail. Sort and filter by date. $0.43 per 1,000 results.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/mangudai/youtube-video-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Mangudäi](https://apify.com/mangudai) (community)
- **Categories:** Videos, Social media, Open source
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.43 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## YouTube Video Scraper: search, channel videos, and video details

Scrape YouTube without an API key, without a login, and without quotas. Give it keywords, channel handles, video URLs, or all three in one run. Every video comes back as one clean row with title, channel, views, duration, publish date, description, and thumbnail.

Priced at $0.43 per 1,000 results, which is the cheapest listed YouTube video scraper on Apify Store.

### What it does

Three jobs in one actor:

**Keyword search.** Pass any number of search terms. Results paginate past the first page using YouTube's own continuation tokens, so a single query can return thousands of videos. Sort by relevance, upload date, view count, or rating, and narrow to the last hour, day, week, month, or year.

**Channel videos.** Pass a handle like `@mkbhd`, a channel id like `UCBJycsmduvYEL83R_U4JriQ`, or any channel URL. Reads the Videos, Shorts, or Live streams tab and pages through the channel's back catalogue.

**Single videos.** Pass watch URLs, `youtu.be` links, Shorts links, or bare 11-character video IDs. These always come back with the full record: exact view count, like count, complete description, keyword tags, category, and the channel's subscriber count.

Turn on **Fetch full details for every video** to get that same full record for search and channel results too. It costs one extra request per video, so it is off by default.

### Output fields

| Field | Description |
| --- | --- |
| `videoId` | 11-character YouTube video id |
| `title` | Video title |
| `url` | Canonical watch URL |
| `channelName` | Channel display name |
| `channelId` | Channel id (UC...) |
| `channelUrl` | Canonical channel URL |
| `channelSubscribers` | Subscriber count, on detail records |
| `viewCount` | Views as an integer |
| `viewCountText` | Views exactly as YouTube shows them |
| `likeCount` | Likes as an integer, on detail records |
| `duration` | Runtime as `mm:ss` or `h:mm:ss` |
| `durationSeconds` | Runtime in seconds |
| `publishedAt` | ISO timestamp. Exact on detail records, estimated from "4 days ago" on list records |
| `publishedTimeText` | Publish date exactly as YouTube shows it |
| `category` | YouTube category, on detail records |
| `keywords` | Tag array, on detail records |
| `description` | Full description on detail records, snippet on search records |
| `thumbnailUrl` | Thumbnail image |
| `isLive` | Whether the video is or was a live stream |
| `sourceType` | `search`, `channel`, or `video` |
| `sourceQuery` | The query, channel, or URL this row came from |
| `scrapedAt` | ISO timestamp of the run |

### Input

```json
{
  "searchQueries": ["python tutorial"],
  "channelUrls": ["@mkbhd"],
  "videoUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"],
  "maxItems": 50,
  "sortBy": "relevance",
  "uploadDate": "any",
  "channelTab": "videos",
  "fetchVideoDetails": false,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true }
}
```

`maxItems` applies per search query and per channel, not to the run as a whole. Leaving every list empty runs the default search so you always get a non-empty dataset.

### What people use it for

Creator research and influencer discovery, competitor channel tracking, content-gap analysis for SEO, building video datasets for machine learning, monitoring how a brand or product is covered, and pulling trending topics on a schedule.

### Pricing

Pay per event. You pay $0.43 per 1,000 results plus a small actor start fee, and nothing for platform usage. No monthly fee and no rental.

### Notes

Reads only public YouTube pages. Nothing is scraped from behind a login, and no captcha is solved. Keep Apify Proxy enabled so requests are not rate limited. Source code is open on the actor page.

# Actor input Schema

## `searchQueries` (type: `array`):

Keywords to search on YouTube. One run can handle several.

## `channelUrls` (type: `array`):

Channels to read, as a handle (@mkbhd), a channel id (UCBJyc...), or a full channel URL.

## `videoUrls` (type: `array`):

Single videos to scrape in full detail. Accepts watch URLs, youtu.be links, Shorts links, or bare 11-character video IDs.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

How many videos to collect for each search query and each channel. Pagination follows YouTube's continuations.

## `sortBy` (type: `string`):

Sort order applied to search queries. Ignored for channels and single videos.

## `uploadDate` (type: `string`):

Restrict search results to a recent upload window.

## `channelTab` (type: `string`):

Which tab to read on each channel.

## `fetchVideoDetails` (type: `boolean`):

Open each search or channel result to add exact view count, like count, full description, keywords, category, and subscriber count. Slower, one extra request per video.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Apify Proxy keeps requests from being rate limited. Leave it on.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "searchQueries": [
    "python tutorial"
  ],
  "channelUrls": [],
  "videoUrls": [],
  "maxItems": 50,
  "sortBy": "relevance",
  "uploadDate": "any",
  "channelTab": "videos",
  "fetchVideoDetails": false,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `videos` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "searchQueries": [
        "python tutorial"
    ],
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("mangudai/youtube-video-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "searchQueries": ["python tutorial"],
    "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": True },
}

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

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "searchQueries": [
    "python tutorial"
  ],
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}' |
apify call mangudai/youtube-video-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=mangudai/youtube-video-scraper",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/avrmxpCgUrg1YSGHK/builds/DcVYQsS4zUwRd1W8f/openapi.json