YouTube Community Posts Scraper

This Apify actor scrapes community posts from YouTube channels (the /posts section) and returns structured JSON data for each post. It accepts various channel identifiers, resolves them to the correct URL, and handles multiple channels in a single run.

Key Features

• Flexible Input: Accepts channel URLs, handles/usernames (e.g., @MrBeast), channel IDs (UC...), or a search keyword. It normalizes these to the canonical /posts URL.
• Multi-Channel Scraping: Process multiple channels by providing an array in startUrls. The maxposts limit applies per channel.
• Structured Output: Returns a detailed JSON object for each post, including text, media, links, engagement metrics, and channel context.
• Proxy Support: Works with Apify Proxy (recommended) or custom proxies for reliable, large-scale scraping.

How to Use

Provide input via the Apify platform's input editor or a JSON configuration. The actor processes inputs with the following priority to select a single channel: keyword → username → channelId → explicit channel_url → first item in startUrls.

To scrape multiple channels, only use the startUrls array. Do not combine it with keyword, username, channelId, or channel_url fields.

Basic Input Example (Single Channel)

{
  "username": "@MrBeast",
  "maxposts": 20
}

Input Example (Multiple Channels)

{
  "startUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast/posts" },
    { "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@PewDiePie/posts" }
  ],
  "maxposts": 10,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]
  }
}

Input Fields

• startUrls (Array): List of channel /posts URLs to scrape.
• username (String): Channel handle (with or without '@').
• channelId (String): YouTube channel ID (starts with 'UC').
• keyword (String): Performs a search and scrapes the first channel result.
• maxposts (Number): Maximum posts to scrape per channel (default: 20).
• proxyConfiguration (Object): Configure Apify Proxy or custom proxies.

Output

The actor pushes one JSON item to the dataset per scraped post. If you scrape 3 channels with maxposts: 5, you'll get up to 15 items.

Each item includes these key fields (among others):
* post_id, post_url
* author_name, author_channel_url
* published_time_text, content_text
* hashtags (Array), linked_videos (Array)
* media_urls (Array), media_thumbnails (Array)
* post_type (e.g., text, image, poll)
* likes (count)
* scraped_at (ISO timestamp)
* channel_url (source channel's posts page)

Proxy Recommendations

For reliable scraping, especially at scale, use Apify Proxy — RESIDENTIAL. For small tests, you can set "useApifyProxy": false, but this may lead to faster IP blocking or CAPTCHAs.