# YouTube Channel Scraper (`santamaria-automations/youtube-channel-scraper`) Actor

Scrape videos from any public YouTube channel: title, view count, duration, thumbnail, published date, plus channel name, handle, and subscriber count. Accepts @handle, full URL, or /channel/UCxxx. Detects Shorts. RSS fallback. Pay-per-result.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/santamaria-automations/youtube-channel-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [NanoScrape](https://apify.com/santamaria-automations) (community)
- **Categories:** Social media, Lead generation, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.80 / 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 Channel Scraper

Extract videos from any public YouTube channel: titles, view counts, durations, thumbnails, published dates, plus channel metadata (name, handle, subscriber count). No API key required.

### What It Does

- Accepts `@handle`, full channel URLs, or `/channel/UCxxx` URLs (legacy `/c/name` and `/user/name` also work)
- Extracts channel identity: name, handle, canonical URL, subscriber count, channel ID
- Extracts per-video data: title, views, duration, thumbnail, publication date, Shorts flag
- Detects YouTube Shorts automatically (flagged with `is_short: true`)
- RSS feed fallback if the channel page is temporarily unavailable
- HTTP-only Go actor, runs on 128 MB RAM

### Input

| Parameter | Type | Default | Description |
|-----------|------|---------|-------------|
| `channelUrls` | array | required | YouTube channel URLs or @handles to scrape |
| `maxVideos` | integer | 200 | Maximum videos per channel (0 = unlimited) |
| `proxyConfiguration` | object | Apify proxy | Proxy settings (datacenter works fine) |

#### Example Input

```json
{
  "channelUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/@example_channel",
    "@another_example"
  ],
  "maxVideos": 100
}
```

### Output

Each row is one video with channel context embedded:

| Field | Type | Description |
|-------|------|-------------|
| `channel_id` | string | YouTube channel ID (UCxxx format) |
| `channel_name` | string | Channel display name |
| `channel_handle` | string | Channel @handle |
| `channel_url` | string | Canonical channel URL |
| `channel_subscribers` | string | Subscriber count as YouTube displays it |
| `video_id` | string | YouTube video ID |
| `title` | string | Video title |
| `published_at` | string | Publication time (relative, e.g. "2 years ago") |
| `duration` | string | MM:SS or H:MM:SS |
| `view_count` | integer | View count (null if unavailable) |
| `thumbnail_url` | string | Thumbnail URL (highest resolution) |
| `video_url` | string | Full video URL (uses `/shorts/` for Shorts) |
| `is_short` | boolean | Whether this is a YouTube Short |
| `scraped_at` | string | ISO 8601 scrape timestamp |

#### Example Output

```json
{
  "channel_id": "UCxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
  "channel_name": "Example Channel",
  "channel_handle": "@example_channel",
  "channel_url": "https://www.youtube.com/@example_channel",
  "channel_subscribers": "1.2M subscribers",
  "video_id": "abcDEF12345",
  "title": "Example Video Title",
  "published_at": "3 months ago",
  "duration": "12:34",
  "view_count": 154000,
  "thumbnail_url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/abcDEF12345/hqdefault.jpg",
  "video_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abcDEF12345",
  "is_short": false,
  "scraped_at": "2026-07-18T09:00:00Z"
}
```

### Pricing

Pay-per-result: you only pay for videos actually returned.

| Event | Suggested price |
|-------|-----------------|
| Actor start | $0.001 (one-time per run) |
| Per video result | $0.0008 |

Final prices are set in the Apify Console before publish.

### Notes

- The scraper reads the `/videos` tab of each channel. Shorts appearing in that tab are flagged with `is_short: true`; the `/shorts/` and `/live/` tabs are not scraped separately.
- Pagination is handled automatically via YouTube's internal InnerTube API for channels with hundreds of videos.
- `published_at` is the relative time string YouTube displays (e.g. "2 years ago"), not an absolute timestamp.
- `view_count` is parsed to an integer where possible; live streams and some Shorts may return null.
- Age-restricted or region-blocked channels may return partial results.

### Related Actors

- [Instagram Scraper](https://apify.com/santamaria-automations/instagram-scraper) - profiles and recent posts
- [Twitter Profile Scraper](https://apify.com/santamaria-automations/twitter-profile-scraper) - profile stats and recent tweets
- [TikTok Profile Scraper](https://apify.com/santamaria-automations/tiktok-profile-scraper) - profile stats and recent videos
- [Social Media Email Scraper](https://apify.com/santamaria-automations/social-media-email-scraper) - discover social URLs from a company website

For bug reports or feature requests, open an issue on the actor's Issues tab.

# Actor input Schema

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

YouTube channel URLs or handles to scrape. Accepts @handle format (e.g. @example\_channel), full channel URLs (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/@example\_channel), or /channel/UCxxx URLs. Legacy /c/name and /user/name URLs are supported.

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

Maximum number of videos to scrape per channel. Set to 0 for no limit.

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

Proxy settings for scraping. Datacenter proxies work well for YouTube.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "channelUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/@example_channel"
  ],
  "maxVideos": 200,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `defaultDataset` (type: `string`):

Dataset containing scraped YouTube channel video records

# 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 = {
    "channelUrls": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/@example_channel"
    ],
    "maxVideos": 200
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("santamaria-automations/youtube-channel-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 = {
    "channelUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@example_channel"],
    "maxVideos": 200,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("santamaria-automations/youtube-channel-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 '{
  "channelUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/@example_channel"
  ],
  "maxVideos": 200
}' |
apify call santamaria-automations/youtube-channel-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/PKiTpv6HklGrc4r6H/builds/N4KXF07adv5FwbZXo/openapi.json