YouTube Comments Scraper

Overview

This actor extracts comments and metadata from YouTube videos, bypassing the official API's rate limits and data restrictions. It's useful for gathering engagement data like author info, timestamps, likes, and replies for analysis, lead generation, or community research.

Key Features

• Rich Data Extraction: Pulls comment text, author names, channel info, timestamps, likes, reply counts, and pinned/hearted status.
• Sorting: Collect comments sorted by "Top" (most liked/relevant) or "Newest First".
• Bulk Operations: Scrape comments from multiple video URLs or entire playlists in a single run.
• Flexible Export: Download results in CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML. Integrate directly with Google Sheets, Make, Zapier, or Slack.
• Scalability: Handles scraping from a single video to large-scale projects with hundreds of links.

How to Use

1. Log in: Sign in to your Apify account.
2. Find the Actor: Search for "apify youtube comment scraper" in the Apify Store and open it.
3. Configure Input: Paste YouTube video URLs into the Start URLs field. You can also upload a CSV or Google Sheet containing links.
4. Set Options: Choose sort order, limit the maximum number of comments, and configure whether to include replies or detect hearted/pinned comments.
5. Run: Click Start. Monitor progress in the run console.
6. Get Results: Once complete, download your dataset in your preferred format or send it to a connected app.

Input/Output

Input Configuration (example):

{
  "startUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"],
  "sortBy": "top", // or "newest"
  "maxComments": 1000,
  "includeReplies": true
}

Output Data:
The actor outputs a structured dataset. Each item typically contains:
* text: The full comment text.
* author: Commenter's display name and channel info.
* date: Timestamp when the comment was posted.
* likes: Number of likes on the comment.
* replyCount: Number of replies to the comment.
* isPinned / isHearted: Boolean flags if the creator pinned or "hearted" the comment.

Results are available for download in the Apify console in formats like JSON, CSV, or Excel.