# YouTube Scraper - Videos, Channels & Transcripts (No API Key) (`parseforge/youtube-scraper`) Actor

Scrape YouTube videos, channels, and transcripts without an API key. Search by keyword, extract channel profiles, video metadata, view counts, and full transcripts. Ideal for content research, competitive analysis, and dataset building. Fast and reliable structured output.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/parseforge/youtube-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [ParseForge](https://apify.com/parseforge) (community)
- **Categories:** Automation, Social media, Other
- **Stats:** 76 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 2 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $3.00 / 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.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

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

![ParseForge Banner](https://github.com/ParseForge/apify-assets/blob/ad35ccc13ddd068b9d6cba33f323962e39aed5b2/banner.jpg?raw=true)

## 🎬 YouTube Scraper

> 🚀 **Collect YouTube videos, channels, and playlist data in minutes.** Search by keyword, paste playlist URLs, or channel handles. Export video stats, metadata, thumbnails, and channel profiles. No coding, no YouTube API key.

The **YouTube Scraper** collects video and channel data from YouTube, returning **25+ fields per video**: title, view count, like count, comment count, duration, upload date, channel name, subscriber count, description, thumbnails, and video URL. Supports search queries, playlist URLs, video URLs, and channel handles. Runs support up to 1,000,000 items on a paid plan.

The Actor supports keyword search with filters (sort order, upload date, duration, video type, features) and direct playlist URL scraping. No YouTube Data API key needed.

| 🎯 Target Audience | 💡 Primary Use Cases |
|---|---|
| Content creators, marketers, market researchers, media agencies, data analysts, academic researchers | Trend research, competitor analysis, content strategy, playlist monitoring, channel benchmarking, audience research |

### 📋 What the YouTube Scraper does

Two input modes with search filters:

- 🔍 **Search mode.** Keywords, video URLs, or channel handles as search queries.
- 📋 **Playlist mode.** Paste playlist URLs to extract all videos in order.
- 📊 **Sort options.** Relevance, upload date, view count, rating.
- 📅 **Upload date filter.** Last hour, today, this week, this month, this year.
- ⏱️ **Duration filter.** Short (<4 min), medium (4-20 min), long (>20 min).
- 🎬 **Video type filter.** Video, channel, playlist, movie.
- 🏷️ **Feature filters.** Live, 4K, subtitles, Creative Commons, 360, VR180, HDR, location.

Each video record includes title, URL, channel name, channel URL, subscriber count, view count, like count, comment count, duration, upload date, description, thumbnails, and tags.

> 💡 **Why it matters:** manually researching YouTube trends, competitor channels, or content strategies means clicking through search results and playlists page by page. This Actor exports structured video data at scale, ready for your dashboards, content calendars, or trend reports.

### 📊 Data fields

Each record includes: `channelId`, `channelName`, `channelUrl`, `duration`, `durationText`, `id`, `isLive`, `isShort`, `publishedAt`, `publishedTimeText`, `scrapedAt`, `thumbnailUrl`, `title`, `transcriptAvailable`, `type`, `url`, `viewCount`, `viewCountText`. All 18 field names come from a real production run, so what you see here is what lands in your dataset.

> ⚠️ **Good to Know:** YouTube search results are personalized by region and account. This Actor uses a neutral, logged-out view for consistent results across runs.

### 🚀 How to use

1. 📝 **Sign up.** [Create a free account with $5 credit](https://console.apify.com/sign-up?fpr=vmoqkp) (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 **Open the Actor.** Go to the YouTube Scraper page on the Apify Store.
3. 🎯 **Set input.** Enter search keywords or paste playlist URLs. Set filters and `maxItems`.
4. 🚀 **Run it.** Click **Start** and let the Actor collect your data.
5. 📥 **Download.** Grab your results in the **Dataset** tab as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

> ⏱️ Total time from signup to downloaded dataset: **3-5 minutes.** No coding required.

### 🔗 Recommended Actors

- [**💬 YouTube Comments Scraper**](https://apify.com/parseforge/youtube-comments-scraper) - Comments and replies from YouTube videos
- [**📸 Instagram Posts Scraper**](https://apify.com/parseforge/instagram-posts-scraper) - Posts and engagement from public profiles
- [**🐦 X.com Tweets Scraper**](https://apify.com/parseforge/x-com-scraper) - Tweet data and engagement metrics
- [**📱 Reddit Posts Scraper**](https://apify.com/parseforge/reddit-posts-scraper) - Reddit posts with engagement data
- [**🎬 Auto Video Thumbnail Generator**](https://apify.com/parseforge/auto-video-thumbnail-generator) - Generate video thumbnails

> 💡 **Pro Tip:** browse the complete [ParseForge collection](https://apify.com/parseforge) for more video and social media scrapers.

> **⚠️ Disclaimer:** this Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by YouTube, Google LLC, or Alphabet Inc. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Only publicly available video metadata is collected.

### 🆘 Need Help?

If you hit a bug, have questions about setup, or need a scraper we haven't built yet, open our [contact form](https://tally.so/r/BzdKgA) or write to parseforge@protonmail.com. We also take on paid custom data projects.

For faster answers, join our [Discord](https://parseforge.co/discord). It's the best place to get support and suggest new actors.

# Actor input Schema

## `playlistUrls` (type: `array`):

YouTube playlist URLs (e.g., https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeiKm4sgNOknc9TTnkwVnCH). Each playlist will be fully scraped up to maxItems.

## `searchQueries` (type: `array`):

Enter search terms, video URLs, or channel handles (@channelname). The actor auto-detects the type and enriches each video with full channel profile.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

How many videos to collect per input.

## `sortBy` (type: `string`):

How to sort search results (applies to search queries only, not playlists)

## `uploadDate` (type: `string`):

Filter search results by upload date

## `videoDuration` (type: `string`):

Filter search results by video length

## `videoType` (type: `string`):

Filter search results by video type

## `features` (type: `array`):

Filter search results by video features (select multiple)

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "playlistUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeiKm4sgNOknc9TTnkwVnCH"
  ],
  "searchQueries": [
    "python tutorial",
    "web scraping"
  ],
  "maxItems": 10,
  "sortBy": "relevance",
  "uploadDate": "any",
  "videoDuration": "any",
  "videoType": "video"
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

Complete dataset with all scraped YouTube videos

## `overview` (type: `string`):

Overview view with key fields displayed in a table format

# 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 = {
    "playlistUrls": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeiKm4sgNOknc9TTnkwVnCH"
    ],
    "searchQueries": [
        "python tutorial",
        "web scraping"
    ],
    "maxItems": 10
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("parseforge/youtube-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 = {
    "playlistUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeiKm4sgNOknc9TTnkwVnCH"],
    "searchQueries": [
        "python tutorial",
        "web scraping",
    ],
    "maxItems": 10,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("parseforge/youtube-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 '{
  "playlistUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeiKm4sgNOknc9TTnkwVnCH"
  ],
  "searchQueries": [
    "python tutorial",
    "web scraping"
  ],
  "maxItems": 10
}' |
apify call parseforge/youtube-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/uS5SBVUT5JRjE5iQn/builds/bHQALjkdCAQ3l7H2r/openapi.json