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YouTube Scraper

Scrape YouTube search results, channel videos, and video details — titles, view counts, durations, channel info, thumbnails, and more. No API key.

What you get

Structured YouTube data across three modes in one actor. Search by keyword, pull a channel's video feed, or fetch details for specific video URLs. Every row includes title, view count, duration, channel, publish time, and thumbnail. No API key or quota to manage.

Output fields

Example output

{
"videoId":"rfscVS0vtbw",
"title":"Learn Python - Full Course for Beginners",
"url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfscVS0vtbw",
"channelName":"freeCodeCamp.org",
"channelUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8butISFwT-Wl7EV0hUK0BQ",
"description":"This course will give you a full introduction into all of the core concepts in python...",
"viewCount":45000000,
"duration":16264,
"durationText":"4:31:04",
"publishedTimeText":"5 years ago",
"thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/rfscVS0vtbw/hqdefault.jpg",
"isLive":false,
"isShort":false
}

Input parameters

Use cases

• Content researchers: Analyze what's trending in a topic or category.
• Marketers: Research competitor channels — upload cadence, top videos, and view patterns.
• Data analysts: Build view-count and duration datasets across niches.
• Media teams: Monitor videos about your brand, product, or industry.
• Educators and curators: Find and track educational content across channels.

Use cases & recipes

Step-by-step guides on thirdwatch.dev/blog:

• Build a YouTube Content Trend Pipeline (2026 Guide)
• Research YouTube Keyword Competition (2026 Guide)
• Scrape YouTube Search and Channel Data at Scale (2026)
• Track YouTube Channel Growth and Views at Scale (2026)

Pricing

Pay-per-result pricing. Tiered discounts apply automatically based on usage volume.

Limitations

• Search pages cap at ~20 videos each — maxResults drives how many pages are fetched.
• Exact like counts are only populated when a video URL is provided directly (not from search pages).
• Very heavy runs can hit rate limits on YouTube's public pages — split large jobs across queries.
• YouTube Shorts are returned in search results with isShort: true.

Compared to alternatives

• vs. streamers/youtube-scraper (per-month licensing): This actor is pay-per-result, so test runs cost cents. One schema covers search, channel feeds, and video details rather than separate endpoints.

Pairs well with TikTok Scraper and Instagram Scraper for cross-platform video research.

FAQ

Can I scrape a channel's full video list? Yes. Pass the channel handle (@freecodecamp) or /channel/UC... URL. maxResultsPerQuery caps how many of their videos come back.

Do I need a YouTube Data API key? No. Quotas and keys are not required.

How accurate are view counts? Counts are pulled live and match what YouTube shows publicly on the video. Drift from real-time counts is possible on fast-moving videos.

Can I filter to Shorts only? Not directly. All videos are returned with isShort flags — filter downstream.

Last verified: 2026-04

More scrapers at thirdwatch.dev.