# YouTube Featured Channels Scraper (`vanity_arias/iris-channel-discovery`) Actor

Get the featured & recommended channels a YouTube creator endorses on their Channels tab. Input a channel ID, get clean deduped channel IDs — ideal for niche mapping, competitor discovery, and influencer research. No API key, no quota; residential proxy handled automatically.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/vanity\_arias/iris-channel-discovery.md
- **Developed by:** [Nvikelo Nyathi](https://apify.com/vanity_arias) (community)
- **Categories:** SEO tools, Videos
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 97.6% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $5.00 / 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 Featured Channels Scraper

Give it a YouTube channel ID, get back the **featured / recommended channels** that creator endorses on their **Channels** tab — clean, deduped channel IDs ready for your pipeline.

This is the strongest "same niche, creator-approved" signal on YouTube: channels a creator chooses to feature are almost always direct peers, collabs, or their own side channels. Perfect seed-expansion for niche mapping.

### Use cases

- **Niche mapping** — start from one known channel, snowball outward to map an entire niche.
- **Competitor discovery** — find who your competitors publicly associate with.
- **Influencer research** — build lists of adjacent creators for outreach or sponsorship scouting.
- **Recommendation seeds** — feed adjacent channels into your own analytics or ML pipeline.

### Input

```json
{
  "channelId": "UCsBjURrPoezykLs9EqgamOA",
  "maxChannels": 50
}
```

| Field | Type | Notes |
|-------|------|-------|
| `channelId` | string (required) | The seed channel ID (`UC…`). |
| `maxChannels` | integer | Cap on returned channels. Default 50, max 200. |
| `proxyConfiguration` | object | Preconfigured — residential proxy is used automatically (YouTube blocks datacenter IPs). You normally don't need to touch this. |

Don't have the channel ID? Run your handles or URLs through [YouTube Channel ID Finder](https://apify.com/vanity_arias/youtube-channel-id-finder) first — batch in, canonical `UC…` IDs out.

### Output

Dataset items, one per adjacent channel, seed excluded, deduped, in the order the creator lists them:

```json
[
  { "channelId": "UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA" },
  { "channelId": "UC-lHJZR3Gqxm24_Vd_AJ5Yw" }
]
```

Minimal by design — pipe the IDs into the YouTube Data API, another scraper, or your own tooling for stats, titles, and uploads.

### How it works

The actor fetches the channel's **Channels** tab through Apify residential proxy (with consent cookies pre-set, so EU interstitials don't blank the result) and parses the embedded `ytInitialData` — no browser, no YouTube API key, no quota.

### Limitations (honest ones)

- Only returns channels the creator **chose to feature** on their Channels tab. A channel that features nothing returns 0 results — that's YouTube, not a bug.
- This is not the "viewers also watch" algorithm — it's the creator's own endorsement list, which is usually higher-signal.
- One run = one seed channel. Loop over your seed list to snowball.

### FAQ

**How do I find the featured channels of a YouTube channel?** They live on the channel's **Channels** tab — this actor scrapes that tab and returns the clean, deduped channel IDs so you don't have to click through manually.

**I only have a handle (@name), not a UC… ID — what now?** Resolve it first with [YouTube Channel ID Finder](https://apify.com/vanity_arias/youtube-channel-id-finder), then feed the ID here.

**Does it need a YouTube API key?** No. It parses the public Channels tab through residential proxy — no API key, no quota, no browser.

### Related actors

- [YouTube Channel ID Finder](https://apify.com/vanity_arias/youtube-channel-id-finder) — resolve handles/URLs to canonical channel IDs
- [YouTube Outlier Finder](https://apify.com/vanity_arias/youtube-outlier-finder) — find a channel's breakout videos vs its baseline
- [YouTube Transcript Scraper — Batch + SRT/VTT](https://apify.com/vanity_arias/youtube-transcript-scraper-batch) — bulk transcripts, subtitles, LLM-ready text

# Actor input Schema

## `channelId` (type: `string`):

The YouTube channel ID (UC…) to expand from.

## `maxChannels` (type: `integer`):

Cap on returned adjacent channels.

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

Apify Proxy — residential required (YouTube blocks datacenter IPs).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "channelId": "UCsBjURrPoezykLs9EqgamOA",
  "maxChannels": 50,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ]
  }
}
```

# 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 = {
    "channelId": "UCsBjURrPoezykLs9EqgamOA"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("vanity_arias/iris-channel-discovery").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 = { "channelId": "UCsBjURrPoezykLs9EqgamOA" }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("vanity_arias/iris-channel-discovery").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 '{
  "channelId": "UCsBjURrPoezykLs9EqgamOA"
}' |
apify call vanity_arias/iris-channel-discovery --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/6Brgsg6bHvaYhulcY/builds/0zQHYg6ug4u0ROZOm/openapi.json