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YouTube Comments Scraper

🌟 YouTube Comments Scraper — Instant comment export for research, moderation, and analytics

📖 Summary A production-ready Apify Actor that fetches public comments from one or more YouTube video URLs and pushes structured results to an Apify Dataset. Plug-and-play in Apify Console — get organized comment data in seconds.

💡 Use cases / When to use

• Export YouTube comments for sentiment analysis, moderation, user research, or training datasets.
• Rapidly collect top / newest / oldest comments for reporting or manual review.
• Integrate comment exports into larger Apify workflows or pipelines.

⚡ Quick Start (Console — one-click)

1. Open this Actor in Apify Console.
2. Paste one or more YouTube video URLs into the Input field (see Inputs below).
3. Click Run — results land in the default Dataset within seconds.

⚙️ Quick Start (CLI + API)

apify-cli (run on Apify platform):

# Run with JSON input file
apify run --input input.example.json

apify-client (Python) — minimal snippet

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient('<APIFY_TOKEN>')
run = client.actor('your-username/your-actor-name').call(run_input={
'startUrls':['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID'],
'maxComments':50,
'getAllComments':False,
'sortBy':'top'
})
print('Run started:', run['id'])

📝 Inputs (fields & schema)

Provide a JSON object to the Actor. The most common field to set in Console is startUrls.

{
"startUrls":["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"],
"maxComments":100,
"getAllComments":false,
"sortBy":"top"
}

Field summary

• startUrls — array|string — Required — one or more YouTube video URLs.
• maxComments — integer — Optional — maximum number of comments to return per video when getAllComments is false.
• getAllComments — boolean — Optional — if true, the Actor attempts to collect all available public comments for each video.
• sortBy — string — Optional — top | newest | oldest. Defaults to top.

⚙️ Configuration

Example Console setup: Paste https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID into the Input field under startUrls, adjust maxComments if you like, then click Run Actor.

📄 Outputs (Dataset / KV examples)

This Actor pushes one JSON object per video run to the default Dataset. Each object includes metadata and an array of comment objects.

Example output (single Dataset item)

{
"video_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID",
"video_id":"VIDEO_ID",
"totalComments":1234,
"scrapedCount":100,
"scrapeInfo":"100 (top 100 comments)",
"comments":[
{
"cid":"Ugz...",
"author":"SomeUser",
"text":"Great video!",
"votes":42,
"time_text":"2 hours ago",
"time_unix":1620000000,
"video_id":"VIDEO_ID",
"video_url":"https://..."
}
]
}

Micro-copy: results are ready to export or feed directly into your analytics pipeline.

🔑 Environment Variables (placeholders)

• APIFY_TOKEN — required for API / CLI runs — use <APIFY_TOKEN> in examples.
• APIFY_PROXY or HTTP_PROXY / HTTPS_PROXY — optional — set when using custom proxies. Use placeholders like <PROXY_USER:PASS@HOST:PORT>.

TODO: If your org requires additional secrets, store them in Apify Console's Secrets and reference them, not in plaintext.

▶️ How to Run

Console

1. Open the Actor page in Apify Console.
2. Paste a startUrls array into the Input editor.
3. Click Run.

CLI

$apify run --input input.example.json

API (apify-client) See the Quick Start snippet above. Use client.actor('owner/actor-name').call(run_input=...) to start a run programmatically and fetch the dataset once finished.

⏰ Scheduling & Webhooks

• Use Apify Console Scheduling to run this Actor on a cron (e.g., daily) for continuous monitoring.
• Configure a webhook in Console to notify your service when a run finishes; then pull the Dataset for post-processing.

🕾️ Logs & Troubleshooting

• Check the run's logs in Apify Console for per-video progress and warnings.

• Common issues:

  • No startUrls provided — ensure startUrls is set; the Actor exits with an error if missing.
  • Incomplete results — if getAllComments is true, large videos may take longer; consider maxComments for predictable runs.
  • Proxy/network failures — see Proxy Configuration below.

🔒 Permissions & Storage Notes

• This Actor collects public comments only. Ensure you comply with YouTube's Terms of Service and your organization's data policies.
• Store credentials as Console Secrets. Do not place tokens or proxy credentials directly in the input.
• The Actor writes results to the default Dataset and exits cleanly.

🔟 Changelog / Versioning

• 1.0.0 — Initial release: stable, production-ready scraping of public comments with sorting and optional full harvesting.

🖌 Notes / TODOs

• TODO: Add rate-limit/backoff configuration for very large runs (reason: avoid temporary network blocks).
• TODO: Consider proxy rotation for large-scale scraping (reason: scale & reliability).

🌍 Proxy Configuration

If you run this Actor at scale or behind network restrictions, you can enable Apify Proxy or provide custom proxies.

• Apify Console (one quick step): On the Actor run page, enable Use Apify Proxy.
• Custom proxy (example): set proxyConfig in input or use environment variables:

{"proxyConfig":{"useApifyProxy":false,"customProxyUrl":"<PROXY_USER:PASS@HOST:PORT>"}}

Or set standard environment variables for processes run via CLI/API:

exportHTTP_PROXY="http://<PROXY_USER:PASS@HOST:PORT>"
exportHTTPS_PROXY="http://<PROXY_USER:PASS@HOST:PORT>"

Security note: Always store proxy credentials as Console Secrets — do not include them in plaintext input files.

TODO: Consider proxy rotation for large-scale scraping to reduce the chance of temporary blocks.

📚 References

• Apify Actors documentation (README & best practices)
• Apify Input/Output schema guidance
• Apify CLI & API usage docs

🤔 What I inferred from main.py

• The Actor accepts startUrls (one or many YouTube video URLs) and iterates through them.
• It supports maxComments (limit), getAllComments (boolean) and sortBy (top|newest|oldest).
• Output is pushed to an Apify Dataset as JSON objects with video_id, scrapedCount, and a comments array.
• The Actor performs network requests to collect public YouTube comments — use proxy settings for scale.

input.example.json

{
"startUrls":[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"
],
"maxComments":100,
"getAllComments":false,
"sortBy":"top",
"proxyConfig":{"useApifyProxy":true}
}

CONFIG.md (optional)

Quick tips

• For stable runs on large channels, enable useApifyProxy and schedule smaller batches.
• Use maxComments for predictable run durations.
• Store APIFY_TOKEN and any PROXY credentials as Console Secrets.

Contact For help integrating this Actor into pipelines, contact your platform administrator or the actor maintainer.