YouTube Scraping API
Extract YouTube search results, channel videos, channel shorts, watch-page metadata, and top-level comments as structured JSON.
Use Cases
How teams use this API to build powerful applications
Search Landscape Research
Collect normalized YouTube search results for a keyword and capture videos, channels, and playlists from the default results page.
Creator & Competitor Monitoring
Pull a channel's videos tab or shorts tab by channel URL, handle, or channel ID to track what creators are publishing.
Audience Feedback Analysis
Fetch top-level comments, like counts, reply counts, and author metadata to review how viewers are responding to specific videos.
Content Inventory Pipelines
Ingest structured YouTube metadata, links, thumbnails, view counts, and pagination into internal datasets and reporting workflows.
API Endpoints
Available endpoints for the YouTube API
/v1/youtube/channel/shorts YouTube channel shorts
Fetch shorts from a YouTube channel shorts tab using the public web client sort chips and continuations.
Parameters
channel_id string YouTube channel ID (for example UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA). channel_url string YouTube channel URL or tab URL. Handles like https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast and channel IDs are normalized to the requested tab. handle string YouTube channel handle, with or without the leading @. pages number Number of pages to fetch (1-20). sort string Shorts ordering: latest, popular, or oldest. /v1/youtube/channel/videos YouTube channel videos
Fetch videos from a YouTube channel videos tab using public web continuations.
Parameters
channel_id string YouTube channel ID (for example UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA). channel_url string YouTube channel URL or tab URL. Handles like https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast and channel IDs are normalized to the requested tab. handle string YouTube channel handle, with or without the leading @. pages number Number of pages to fetch (1-20). /v1/youtube/search YouTube search
Search YouTube and return normalized mixed results from the default results page.
Parameters
pages number Number of search result pages to fetch (1-20). q string Alias for query. query string Search query string. /v1/youtube/video YouTube video
Fetch a YouTube video page with normalized metadata and top-level comments.
Parameters
pages number Number of comment pages to fetch (1-20). url string Alias for video_url. video_id string YouTube video ID. video_url string YouTube video URL, short URL, or shorts URL. /v1/youtube/video/comments YouTube video comments
Fetch top-level comments for a YouTube video using the public watch page and comments continuations.
Parameters
pages number Number of comment pages to fetch (1-20). url string Alias for video_url. video_id string YouTube video ID. video_url string YouTube video URL, short URL, or shorts URL. Features
What makes this API powerful and reliable
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about the YouTube API
Can I scrape channel videos and shorts separately?
Yes. The API has separate endpoints for a channel's videos tab and shorts tab. The shorts endpoint also supports `latest`, `popular`, and `oldest` sorting.
What does the search endpoint return?
It returns normalized mixed results from the default YouTube search page. Supported result types are `video`, `channel`, and `playlist`.
Do the comment endpoints return replies?
No. The current YouTube comment endpoints return top-level comments only. When available, each comment can include `reply_count`, but reply threads themselves are not expanded.
What identifiers can I use for channels and videos?
For channel endpoints you can provide a channel URL, handle, or channel ID. For video endpoints you can provide a video URL or a video ID.
What is the difference between `/youtube/video` and `/youtube/video/comments`?
`/youtube/video` returns normalized watch-page metadata plus top-level comments. `/youtube/video/comments` returns the comments-only payload when you do not need the video metadata.
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