YouTube Scraper - Search, Channels and Playlists

YouTube Scraper - Search, Channels and Playlists

Scrape YouTube videos from any search, channel, playlist or video URL, up to a million per run. Every video comes back as a flat row with its title, URL, thumbnail, duration, upload date, view count and channel profile. No API key and no quota. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

YouTube's official Data API requires a Google Cloud project, OAuth setup, and daily quotas that run out fast. This scraper reads public YouTube pages directly, so you get video metadata, channel info, and captions without any registration. Each result is a flat row with all the fields you need for analysis.

Who uses it	What they scrape YouTube for
Content researchers	Track which topics and creators are trending in a niche over time.
SEO analysts	Gather video titles, descriptions, and tags to reverse-engineer ranking strategies.
Market intelligence teams	Monitor competitor channels and their most viewed uploads.
Data scientists	Build training datasets from YouTube metadata at scale.

What it does

This Actor collects YouTube videos by search query, channel, playlist URL or video URL, and returns each one with its metadata and channel profile as a single flat row.

• 🔍 Search queries: Enter any term and get the matching videos. A video URL or channel handle (@channelname) typed here is detected and read as a video or channel.
• 📺 Channels and videos: A channel returns its uploads, each with the channel profile (subscribers, total videos, total views, verified badge). A video URL or bare video ID returns that video with its exact upload date, category, tags and channel profile.
• 📋 Playlist scraping: Provide one or more playlist URLs and every video in the playlist is collected up to your max limit, with its position in the playlist.
• 📊 Standard fields on every row: view count, duration, upload date, channel name, channel ID and channel handle (when the channel has one), whether the video came from a search, a channel or a playlist.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with YouTube data

📈 Track trending topics.

A content strategist runs daily searches for keywords in their niche and exports the top videos to see what formats and titles are gaining traction.

🔍 Audit competitor channels.

A marketing analyst feeds competitor channel handles into the actor and collects every video's metadata to compare upload frequency, engagement, and topic focus.

🎓 Build a research dataset.

A researcher scrapes every video from a set of educational channels and playlists to study upload cadence, duration and reach across a subject area.

📊 Monitor brand mentions.

A brand manager searches for their product name weekly and collects video titles, descriptions, and comments to gauge public sentiment.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
Video metadata	Title, URL, thumbnail, duration, upload date and view count on every row; description, category and tags for video URLs.
Channel profile	Channel name, URL, subscriber count, total videos, channel description, and avatar.
Playlists and channels	Every upload of a channel, or every video in a playlist, with pagination handled for you.
Search filters	Sort by relevance, upload date, view count, or rating. Filter by upload date, duration, type, and features.

How it compares

Compared to other YouTube scrapers on Apify, this actor enriches every result with the full channel profile, with no extra steps.

Feature	ParseForge	YouTube Scraper
Full video metadata	Yes	Yes
Channel profile (subs, total videos)	Yes	Not listed
Channel uploads with pagination	Yes	Not listed
Playlist scraping	Yes	Not listed
Search filters (date, duration, type)	Yes	Not listed
No API key required	Yes	Yes

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from search queries, playlist URLs, or direct video/channel links, alone or together. Filters for upload date, video duration, video type, and features (HD, subtitles, 4K, live, HDR, VR180) run as each video is read so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
  "playlistUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHQObOWTQDPD3MizzM2xVFitgF8hE_ab"
  ],
  "searchQueries": [
    "python tutorial",
    "web scraping"
  ],
  "maxItems": 10
}

A larger pull:

{
  "playlistUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHQObOWTQDPD3MizzM2xVFitgF8hE_ab"
  ],
  "searchQueries": [
    "python tutorial",
    "web scraping"
  ],
  "maxItems": 200
}

Accepted inputs

• startUrls: channel URLs (/@handle, /channel/UC..., /c/name, /user/name), bare handles (@handle), channel IDs (UC...), video URLs (watch, youtu.be, shorts, live, embed), bare 11-character video IDs, and playlist URLs.
• playlistUrls: playlist URLs or bare playlist IDs (PL..., UU...).
• Every list accepts plain strings or { "url": "..." } objects, the format the Apify API and most integrations send.
• An entry that cannot be read comes back as a row with input, inputField and error. That row is free. A channel, playlist or video that cannot be fetched also comes back as a free error row. The default search runs only when the input has no entries at all, never in place of URLs you gave.

Dates and view counts

• publishedAt (epoch ms) and publishedDate (ISO 8601, UTC) hold the upload date. Search, channel and playlist pages only show a relative age such as "3 weeks ago", so for those rows the date is computed from it and publishedDateIsApproximate is true. Video URLs give the exact date and the flag is false.
• Search and video URL rows have the exact view count. Channel and playlist pages show a rounded count ("5.5M"), so those rows carry that rounded number (5,500,000). A count or date YouTube does not show is null, never 0.
• Playlist rows carry every standard video field plus videoTitle, position, playlistId, playlistTitle, playlistUrl, isPrivate and isDeleted.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 100 videos per search query, channel or playlist. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per input.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the YouTube Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to YouTube through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/youtube-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Look for rows with an error field: each one names the input it belongs to and why it returned nothing. Check that the URL is public and correct; private, deleted and region-restricted playlists and videos cannot be read. Also verify that maxItems is set high enough.

A video URL returns nothing.

YouTube answers LOGIN_REQUIRED on the watch page when the request comes from a datacenter address. Switch the proxy to residential for runs that read individual video URLs. Search, channels and playlists work on the default datacenter proxy.

The actor is running slowly.

Large playlists or broad search queries can take time. Reduce maxItems or narrow your search with filters like upload date or video duration to speed things up.

I see an error about rate limiting.

YouTube may temporarily block rapid requests. The actor handles retries automatically, but if you hit limits, try reducing concurrency or spreading runs over time.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Do I need a YouTube API key?	No. This scraper reads public YouTube pages directly, so you don't need any API key or Google Cloud project.
Can I scrape an entire channel?	Yes. Put the channel's handle (e.g., @channelname), channel URL or channel ID in startUrls, and the actor collects the videos from its Videos tab up to your maxItems limit.
Does it get video transcripts?	No. Transcripts need a signed player session, so they live in a dedicated Actor: YouTube Transcript Scraper.
What is the maximum number of videos I can scrape?	You can set maxItems up to 1,000,000 per input. Free-plan runs are capped at 100 per input.
Can I filter by upload date?	Yes. You can filter search results by last hour, today, this week, this month, this year, or any time.
Does it scrape comments?	No. This actor focuses on video metadata and channel profiles. For comments use YouTube Comments Scraper.
Can I scrape playlists?	Yes. Provide one or more playlist URLs and the actor will scrape every video in each playlist up to your maxItems limit.
What export formats are supported?	You can export the dataset as CSV, JSON, Excel, XML, or HTML directly from the Apify platform.

Next step

Every row is one video, so its columns go straight into the other ParseForge YouTube Actors:

• YouTube Comments Scraper - Replies and Likes: put the url column in startUrls to get the comments and reply threads of each video.
• YouTube Transcript Scraper - Timestamps, SRT and Metadata: put the url column in startUrls, or the id column in videoIds, to get the timestamped transcript. transcriptAvailable tells you in advance which videos have captions.
• YouTube Shorts Scraper - 35 Fields Per Short: put the channelUrl column in channels to get the Shorts of the same channels. Use the @handle links: the Shorts Scraper does not read /channel/UC... links yet.
• YouTube Channel Scraper - Stats and Video List: put the channelUrl column (or channelHandle or channelId) in startUrls to get each channel's subscribers, total views, video count, join date, country and About links in one row.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Google LLC. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.