YouTube Video Detail Scraper

Extract rich metadata for any YouTube video in bulk — title, channel, view count, description, thumbnails, keywords, upload date, category, and country availability — in a clean structured JSON output.

Why use this actor

• No account / no login required — just give it a YouTube video ID, watch URL, short URL, or Shorts URL.
• No API key needed and no quota — unlike the YouTube Data API, this actor has no daily request cap and no API key to manage.
• Flexible input — 11-character video IDs, full youtube.com/watch?v=... URLs, youtu.be/... short links, and youtube.com/shorts/... Shorts URLs are all accepted in the same list.
• Live view count — the viewCount reflects the count YouTube shows on the page at the moment of scraping, not a cached or aggregated number.
• Bulk input — pass a list of videos in one run; one clean dataset row per video.
• Status-aware — private, removed, age-restricted, and members-only videos surface as a structured _error envelope so you can triage failures.
• Stable JSON output suitable for pipelines, spreadsheets, and databases — every row carries _input, _source, _scrapedAt envelope fields so you can join results back to your input list.

How it works

1. You provide a list of YouTube videos as IDs or URLs (any of the supported URL shapes).
2. The actor opens each video's public watch page and reads the metadata block the same way the YouTube web app does, then assembles a flat JSON record.
3. Unavailable videos (private, removed, age-restricted, region-blocked) return a structured _error instead of crashing the run.
4. Results stream into your dataset, ready to download as JSON, CSV, or Excel.

You do not need to manage scrapers, browsers, or rotating IPs — all handled internally.

Input

{
  "videos": [
    "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw"
  ],
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["DATACENTER"]
  }
}

Field	Type	Description
videos	array	List of YouTube videos to scrape. Accepts 11-character IDs (dQw4w9WgXcQ), full watch URLs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...), short URLs (https://youtu.be/...), and Shorts URLs (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/...).
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify Proxy settings. Datacenter proxy is fine for most workloads.

Output

Input: dQw4w9WgXcQ

{
  "_input": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "_source": "S1-primary",
  "_scrapedAt": "2026-05-18T10:42:41.835602+00:00",
  "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Video) (4K Remaster)",
  "lengthSeconds": "213",
  "viewCount": "1773571537",
  "likesLabel": "",
  "channelId": "UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw",
  "channelTitle": "Rick Astley",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw",
  "isLive": false,
  "isPrivate": false,
  "shortDescription": "The official video for “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley. \n\nNever: The Autobiography OUT NOW! \nFollow this link to get your copy and listen to Rick’s ‘Never’ playlist ... (truncated)",
  "thumbnails": [
    { "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=...", "width": 168, "height": 94 },
    { "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=...", "width": 336, "height": 188 },
    { "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/dQw4w9WgXcQ/maxresdefault.webp", "width": 1920, "height": 1080 }
  ],
  "keywords": [
    "rick astley",
    "Never Gonna Give You Up",
    "rick roll",
    "rickrolled",
    "80s music"
  ],
  "uploadDate": "2009-10-24T23:57:33-07:00",
  "publishDate": "2009-10-24T23:57:33-07:00",
  "category": "Music",
  "isFamilySafe": true,
  "availableCountries": ["AD", "AE", "AF", "AG", "AI", "... 240 more"]
}

Field	Type	Description
_input	string	The video ID or URL exactly as you supplied it. Use this to join results back to your input list.
_source	string	Internal tag for the path used to fetch the record. S1-primary means the fastest, richest path; values starting with S2- indicate a fallback was used.
_scrapedAt	string	ISO-8601 UTC timestamp when the record was scraped.
videoId	string	The canonical 11-character YouTube video ID.
title	string	Video title.
lengthSeconds	string	Video duration in seconds (numeric string, as returned by YouTube).
viewCount	string	Total view count at the moment of scraping (numeric string).
likesLabel	string	Accessibility label for the like button (e.g. "like this video along with 1.2K other people"). Empty string if the video has no public like count. YouTube no longer exposes the raw integer publicly.
channelId	string	Channel ID (the UC... slug). Stable across channel renames.
channelTitle	string	Channel display name.
channelUrl	string	Canonical channel URL (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC...).
isLive	boolean	true if the video is or was a live stream.
isPrivate	boolean	true if the video is private.
shortDescription	string	Video description text (preserves line breaks).
thumbnails	array	List of thumbnail variants. Each item has url, width, height. The largest is usually maxresdefault.webp (1920x1080).
keywords	array	List of video tags / keywords set by the uploader. May be empty.
uploadDate	string	ISO-8601 timestamp the video was uploaded.
publishDate	string	ISO-8601 timestamp the video was published (often equal to uploadDate; differs for premiered videos).
category	string	YouTube category name (e.g. "Music", "Gaming", "Education").
isFamilySafe	boolean	true if YouTube classifies the video as family-safe.
availableCountries	array	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes where the video is viewable.

Error envelope

Videos that are private, removed, age-restricted, or otherwise unavailable return a structured error instead of crashing the run:

{
  "_input": "abc123XYZ45",
  "_source": "S1-primary",
  "_scrapedAt": "2026-05-18T10:42:43.123456+00:00",
  "_error": "login_required",
  "_errorDetail": "Sign in to confirm your age"
}

Common _error values: invalid_input, fetch_failed, parse_failed, login_required (age-restricted), unplayable (removed by uploader / copyright), error (private or deleted).

Filter on _error to triage failed rows.

Pricing

This actor is billed per result: $3.50 per 1,000 videos. Each successful video record = 1 result. Errors (not-found, removed, age-restricted) are not billed.

Other Sosmed Actors

Platform	Actor	Best for
YouTube	YouTube Channel Scraper	Channel profile, subscriber count, video list
YouTube	YouTube Video Comments Scraper	Top-level + replies for any video
Twitch	Twitch Video Detail Scraper	VOD / clip metadata + streamer info
Bluesky	Bluesky Post Detail Scraper	Single post + author + thread context
Instagram	Instagram Post Detail Scraper	Reel / image post + author + caption
X (Twitter)	X Post Detail Scraper	Tweet + author + engagement counters
Reddit	Reddit Post Detail Scraper	Post + subreddit + score + comment count

Browse the full catalog at apify.com/xtracto.

Notes

• YouTube removed exact like counts in 2021; likesLabel returns the labeled string ("like this video along with 1.2K other people") which you can parse to an approximate integer. It is empty when YouTube does not surface a label for the video.
• viewCount is the live count at scrape time, not a real-time tick — it lags actual views by seconds to a few minutes.
• Age-restricted videos return _error: "login_required" — they require an authenticated session this actor does not provide.
• Private or deleted videos return _error: "error" with the YouTube-supplied reason in _errorDetail.
• Live streams in progress return partial data — view count and duration may not be finalized.
• Region-blocked videos may succeed but with availableCountries excluding your proxy location. Switch proxy region if you need a specific market.