YouTube Scraper Actor A powerful Apify Actor that scrapes YouTube videos from channels, playlists, or search results without using the official YouTube API. Built with Python and the scrapetube library. ## Features - Channel Scraping: Get videos from any YouTube channel - Support for channel ID, URL, or username - Filter by content type (videos, shorts, streams) - Sort by newest, oldest, or popular - Playlist Scraping: Extract all videos from any playlist - Search Scraping: Search YouTube and get results - Filter by result type (video, channel, playlist, movie) - Sort by relevance, upload date, view count, or rating - No API Key Required: Uses scrapetube to scrape data without YouTube API limitations - Proxy Support: Optional proxy configuration to avoid blocking - Structured Output: Clean, normalized data with thumbnails, view counts, and more ## Input Parameters ### Required - scrapeType (string): Choose what to scrape - channel, playlist, or search ### Channel Scraping - channelId (string): YouTube channel ID (e.g., UCXuqSBlHAE6Xw-yeJA0Tunw) - channelUrl (string): Full channel URL (alternative to channel ID) - channelUsername (string): Channel username without @ (alternative to channel ID) - contentType (string): Type of content - videos, shorts, or streams (default: videos) - sortBy (string): newest, oldest, or popular (default: newest) ### Playlist Scraping - playlistId (string): YouTube playlist ID ### Search Scraping - searchQuery (string): Search term to find videos - resultsType (string): video, channel, playlist, or movie (default: video) - sortBy (string): relevance, upload_date, view_count, or rating (default: relevance) ### Common Parameters - maxVideos (integer): Maximum number of videos to scrape (default: 100) - sleepInterval (number): Seconds to sleep between requests to prevent blocking (default: 1) - proxyUrls (array): Optional proxy URLs in format http://username:password@host:port ## Output The actor outputs structured data for each video including: - videoId: YouTube video ID - title: Video title - url: Full YouTube URL - channelName: Channel name - channelId: Channel ID - viewCount: Number of views - publishedTime: When the video was published - lengthText: Video duration - thumbnailUrl: Video thumbnail image URL - descriptionSnippet: Short description excerpt - rawData: Complete raw data from scrapetube ## Example Usage ### Scrape Latest Videos from a Channel json { "scrapeType": "channel", "channelUsername": "LinusTechTips", "contentType": "videos", "sortBy": "newest", "maxVideos": 50 } ### Search YouTube json { "scrapeType": "search", "searchQuery": "python tutorial", "resultsType": "video", "sortBy": "view_count", "maxVideos": 100 } ### Scrape a Playlist json { "scrapeType": "playlist", "playlistId": "PLrAXtmErZgOeiKm4sgNOknGvNjby9efdf", "maxVideos": 200 } ## Local Development ### Prerequisites - Python 3.11+ - Apify CLI ### Install Apify CLI Windows: powershell irm https://apify.com/install-cli.ps1 | iex macOS/Linux: bash curl -fsSL https://apify.com/install-cli.sh | bash ### Setup and Run 1. Install dependencies: bash pip install -r requirements.txt 2. Create a local input file .actor/INPUT.json: json { "scrapeType": "search", "searchQuery": "apify tutorial", "maxVideos": 10 } 3. Run locally: bash apify run ### Deploy to Apify Platform 1. Login to Apify: bash apify login 2. Push the actor: bash apify push ## Technical Details - Runtime: Python 3.11 - Base Image: apify/actor-python:3.11 - Main Libraries: - apify - Apify SDK for Python - scrapetube - YouTube scraping library ## Notes - The actor respects YouTube's structure and implements rate limiting via sleepInterval - No authentication or API key required - Data extraction is based on YouTube's public HTML structure - Some fields may be unavailable depending on the video/channel ## Contributing This actor was generated as part of the Apify AI Challenge. Feel free to submit improvements! ## License ISC ## Support For issues or questions, please open an issue on the GitHub repository.