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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

POST /v1/youtube/search

YouTube search

Search YouTube and return normalized mixed results from the default results page.

Parameters

query string required Search query string. The alias `q` is also accepted.
pages number Number of search result pages to fetch (1-20).
POST /v1/youtube/channel/videos

YouTube channel videos

Fetch videos from a YouTube channel videos tab using public web continuations.

Parameters

channel_url string Provide one of channel_url, handle, or channel_id to identify the channel.
handle string YouTube channel handle, with or without the leading @.
channel_id string YouTube channel ID.
pages number Number of result pages to fetch (1-20).
POST /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_url string Provide one of channel_url, handle, or channel_id to identify the channel.
handle string YouTube channel handle, with or without the leading @.
channel_id string YouTube channel ID.
sort string Shorts ordering: `latest`, `popular`, or `oldest`.
pages number Number of result pages to fetch (1-20).
POST /v1/youtube/video

YouTube video

Fetch a YouTube video page with normalized metadata and top-level comments.

Parameters

video_url string Provide one of video_url or video_id. Accepts watch URLs, short URLs, and shorts URLs.
video_id string YouTube video ID.
pages number Number of top-level comment pages to fetch (1-20).
POST /v1/youtube/video/comments

YouTube video comments

Fetch top-level comments for a YouTube video using the public watch page and comments continuations.

Parameters

video_url string Provide one of video_url or video_id. Accepts watch URLs, short URLs, and shorts URLs.
video_id string YouTube video ID.
pages number Number of top-level comment pages to fetch (1-20).

Features

What makes this API powerful and reliable

Search YouTube and return normalized video, channel, and playlist results
Fetch channel videos by channel URL, handle, or channel ID
Fetch channel shorts with latest, popular, or oldest sorting
Retrieve watch-page metadata together with top-level comments
Fetch comments only when you do not need video metadata
Structured JSON output with pagination fields for multi-page collection

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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