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

🎬 Extract YouTube video metadata, comments, captions, and channel info at scale. Pull titles, views, likes, durations, and thumbnails for any search query. Perfect for content research, competitor benchmarking, and NLP pipelines. Optional comment and subtitle extraction for deep analysis.

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

## Pricing

$10.00 / 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 — Apify Actor

Scrapes YouTube video metadata, comments, transcripts, and channel information using **Crawlee** + **Playwright**.

### Features

- ✅ Extract video title, description, views, likes, duration, publish date
- ✅ Channel name and URL
- ✅ Video tags and thumbnail URL
- ✅ Comments — author, text, date (optional)
- ✅ Transcripts / captions (optional)
- ✅ Search by query
- ✅ Scrape all videos from a channel
- ✅ Start from any list of video or channel URLs
- ✅ Proxy support via Apify proxy
- ✅ Configurable limits (max videos, max comments)

### Input

| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|-------|------|---------|-------------|
| `startUrls` | array | `[]` | YouTube video or channel URLs |
| `searchQuery` | string | — | YouTube search query |
| `channelUrl` | string | — | YouTube channel URL (e.g. `https://www.youtube.com/@channel`) |
| `maxVideos` | integer | `10` | Max videos to scrape (1–500) |
| `proxyConfiguration` | object | Apify proxy | Proxy config |
| `includeComments` | boolean | `false` | Scrape comments? |
| `maxComments` | integer | `50` | Max comments per video (0–500) |
| `includeTranscripts` | boolean | `false` | Scrape transcripts? |
| `language` | string | `en` | Language code for UI / captions |

At least one of `startUrls`, `searchQuery`, or `channelUrl` must be provided.

### Output

Each result is a JSON object with:

```json
{
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...",
  "title": "Video Title",
  "channelName": "Channel Name",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@channel",
  "views": 123456,
  "likes": 7890,
  "publishDate": "Apr 15, 2025",
  "description": "Full video description...",
  "tags": ["tag1", "tag2"],
  "duration": "12:34",
  "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/.../hqdefault.jpg",
  "comments": [
    {
      "author": "User Name",
      "text": "Great video!",
      "date": "2 days ago"
    }
  ],
  "transcript": "Full transcript text..."
}
```

If a video fails to scrape, the result contains `url` and an `error` field.

### Local Development

```bash
## Install dependencies
npm install

## Syntax check
npm run check

## Run (requires Apify API token in env)
npm start
```

### Deployment

Deploy to Apify Console:

```bash
npx apify push
```

Or use the Apify CLI:

```bash
npm install -g apify-cli
apify push
```

### License

Apache 2.0

# Actor input Schema

## `startUrls` (type: `array`):

List of YouTube video URLs or channel URLs to start scraping from.

## `searchQuery` (type: `string`):

YouTube search query to find videos. Example: 'node.js tutorial'.

## `channelUrl` (type: `string`):

YouTube channel URL to scrape all videos from (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/@channelname).

## `maxVideos` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of videos to scrape.

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

Apify proxy configuration for avoiding IP blocks.

## `includeComments` (type: `boolean`):

Whether to scrape comments from each video.

## `maxComments` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of comments to scrape per video.

## `includeTranscripts` (type: `boolean`):

Whether to scrape video transcripts/captions.

## `language` (type: `string`):

Language code for transcripts and UI (e.g. 'en', 'ja', 'es'). Default: 'en'.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "startUrls": [],
  "maxVideos": 10,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  },
  "includeComments": false,
  "maxComments": 50,
  "includeTranscripts": false,
  "language": "en"
}
```

# 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 = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("oneary/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 = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("oneary/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 '{}' |
apify call oneary/youtube-video-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/QMH4AqASszltsdprJ/builds/Le7Zvw5384zUdNggf/openapi.json