# YouTube Shorts Scraper for Trends & Channels (`runtime/youtube-shorts-scraper`) Actor

Scrape YouTube Shorts from channels or direct URLs and extract titles, views, likes, comments, hashtags, descriptions, transcripts, and automation-ready trend signals.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/runtime/youtube-shorts-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [scraping automation](https://apify.com/runtime) (community)
- **Categories:** Social media, Videos, Automation
- **Features:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 70 total users, 0 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 2 bookmarks
- **User rating**: 2.59 out of 5 stars

## Pricing

from $35.00 / 1,000 shorts results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## YouTube Shorts Scraper for Trends & Channels

> **中文简介 / Chinese summary**
>
> - **功能：** 监控 YouTube Shorts：标题、播放量、点赞、评论、排名、话题标签、描述和字幕。
> - **输入示例：** `{"channel":"https://www.youtube.com/@Dior/shorts","max_videos":20}`
> - **计费：** 按结果付费（pay-per-result），价格见本页 **Pricing** 标签；可设置单次运行最大费用以控制支出。
> - **支持：** 遇到问题请在 **Issues** 标签提交，并附上输入参数和 Run ID。

Monitor YouTube Shorts from channels or direct Shorts URLs and extract titles,
views, likes, comments, rankings, hashtags, descriptions, transcripts, and
automation-ready trend signals.

### Best for

- Social media teams tracking Shorts by channel or campaign
- Creator teams measuring short-form publishing velocity and engagement
- Trend researchers collecting hashtags, titles, and view signals
- Automation builders sending fresh Shorts records to Sheets, Make, Zapier, n8n,
  or dashboards

### Quick start

Use a small, stable listing run first:

```json
{
  "channel": "https://www.youtube.com/@Dior",
  "max_videos": 5,
  "get_details": false,
  "include_channel_details": false,
  "extract_transcript": false,
  "max_comments_per_video": 0,
  "calculate_engagement": true,
  "batch_size": 1,
  "navigation_timeout_secs": 60,
  "video_timeout_secs": 10,
  "useApifyProxy": true
}
```

Use a smaller enriched run when you need comments, channel details, or
transcripts:

```json
{
  "channel": "https://www.youtube.com/@Dior",
  "max_videos": 3,
  "get_details": true,
  "include_channel_details": true,
  "extract_transcript": true,
  "max_comments_per_video": 5,
  "calculate_engagement": true,
  "batch_size": 1,
  "navigation_timeout_secs": 90,
  "video_timeout_secs": 20,
  "useApifyProxy": true
}
```

### Common workflows

- **Trend monitoring**: run daily on a list of channels and sort by views,
  hashtags, and engagement fields.
- **Creator benchmarking**: compare Shorts volume, ranks, views, likes, and
  comments across channels.
- **Campaign tracking**: scrape direct Shorts URLs and keep `sourceInput`,
  `rank`, and `scrapedAt` for repeatable reporting.
- **AI content research**: enable transcript extraction on a small shortlist and
  feed titles, descriptions, hashtags, and transcripts into summarizers.

### Useful input fields

| Field | Use |
| --- | --- |
| `channel` | One YouTube channel or Shorts URL. |
| `channels` | Batch multiple channels when you want a shared run. |
| `max_videos` | Keep low for enriched runs. |
| `get_details` | Opens each Short for richer metadata. |
| `include_channel_details` | Adds channel-level metadata when available. |
| `extract_transcript` | Best-effort transcript extraction. |
| `max_comments_per_video` | Keep `0` for fast listing runs. |
| `batch_size` | Lower values are slower but more stable. |
| `useApifyProxy` | Recommended for cloud runs. |

### Output fields

The dataset can include:

- `title`
- `url`
- `channelName`
- `channelUrl`
- `views`
- `likes`
- `comments`
- `rank`
- `hashtags`
- `description`
- `duration`
- `publishedDate`
- `engagementRate`
- `qualityScore`
- `transcript`
- `scrapedAt`

### Settings that convert best

- First run: `get_details: false`, `extract_transcript: false`,
  `max_comments_per_video: 0`.
- Enriched run: keep `max_videos` small and raise volume only after a clean
  sample.
- For scheduled monitoring, prefer several small runs over one large run.
- If timeouts occur, lower `max_videos`, `batch_size`, comments, and transcript
  options.

### Cost and runtime expectations

This Actor is pay-per-event. A small run is the best way to inspect output and
estimate cost before scaling. Detail, comments, channel enrichment, and
transcripts require extra browser work and can increase runtime.

### Limitations

YouTube Shorts pages can hide exact metrics, comments, or transcripts and can
change layout without notice. Transcript extraction is best effort. Keep source
URLs and timestamps in downstream reports.

### Support

If a run returns unexpected data, open an issue from the Actor page with the
input used, the run ID, and the result you expected.

# Actor input Schema

## `channel` (type: `string`):

A single YouTube channel URL (e.g., "https://www.youtube.com/@Dior") or a direct short URL (e.g., "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/u6ErkF-9HKc"). The actor appends "/shorts" for channel URLs when needed. Use 'channels' for multiple channels.

## `channels` (type: `array`):

Array of YouTube channel URLs to scrape. Each channel will be processed sequentially. If provided, 'channel' parameter is ignored. Format: \["https://www.youtube.com/@Channel1", "https://www.youtube.com/@Channel2"]

## `get_details` (type: `boolean`):

When enabled, opens each video page to collect descriptions, likes and comments. Disable for faster, more reliable monitoring runs.

## `include_channel_details` (type: `boolean`):

When enabled, captures the About tab once (description, links, joined date, stats) and attaches it to every item.

## `max_videos` (type: `integer`):

The maximum number of videos to load per channel.

## `webhook_url` (type: `string`):

Optional webhook URL to send results to Make.com in real-time. Leave empty to use default Apify dataset.

## `batch_size` (type: `integer`):

Number of videos to process in each batch (useful for Make.com rate limiting). Default: 10

## `delay_between_batches` (type: `integer`):

Delay in milliseconds between processing batches (helps with Make.com rate limits). Default: 1000

## `video_timeout_secs` (type: `integer`):

Maximum seconds to wait when loading an individual video page. Default: 15 (min 5 / max 45).

## `max_request_retries` (type: `integer`):

Advanced: retries for the channel listing page. Default is 1 to handle transient YouTube navigation timeouts without producing failed dataset items.

## `oldest_post_date` (type: `string`):

Filter videos by oldest upload date (YYYY-MM-DD format). Only videos uploaded on or after this date will be included.

## `newest_post_date` (type: `string`):

Filter videos by newest upload date (YYYY-MM-DD format). Only videos uploaded on or before this date will be included.

## `max_comments_per_video` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of comments to extract per video. Default: 10, Max: 100. Higher values take more time.

## `extract_duration` (type: `boolean`):

When enabled, extracts video duration in seconds and ISO format (e.g., 00:00:26).

## `calculate_engagement` (type: `boolean`):

When enabled, calculates engagement metrics (rate, score, category) based on likes, comments, and views.

## `extract_transcript` (type: `boolean`):

When enabled, extracts video transcript/subtitles if available. Opens transcript panel and extracts text content with language detection.

## `request_handler_timeout_secs` (type: `integer`):

Advanced: maximum seconds for processing one channel request. Keep high for larger runs.

## `navigation_timeout_secs` (type: `integer`):

Advanced: maximum seconds for page navigation before retry/fallback. Fast mode defaults to 60; detail mode automatically uses at least 120 seconds for reliability.

## `time_buffer_secs` (type: `integer`):

Advanced: stop processing this many seconds before the Actor timeout to save partial results instead of timing out.

## `useApifyProxy` (type: `boolean`):

Enable Apify Proxy. Recommended for cloud runs; disable for local smoke tests without an Apify proxy.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Advanced Apify Proxy or custom proxy settings.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "channel": "https://www.youtube.com/@Dior/shorts",
  "get_details": false,
  "include_channel_details": false,
  "max_videos": 20,
  "batch_size": 10,
  "delay_between_batches": 1000,
  "video_timeout_secs": 15,
  "max_request_retries": 1,
  "oldest_post_date": "2025-01-01",
  "newest_post_date": "2025-12-31",
  "max_comments_per_video": 10,
  "extract_duration": true,
  "calculate_engagement": true,
  "extract_transcript": false,
  "request_handler_timeout_secs": 240,
  "navigation_timeout_secs": 60,
  "time_buffer_secs": 30,
  "useApifyProxy": true,
  "proxyConfiguration": {}
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `videos` (type: `string`):

Complete dataset of all scraped YouTube Shorts videos with full metadata

## `overview` (type: `string`):

Quick overview of videos with key fields: ID, title, URL, rank, views, velocity, engagement, performance score, extraction status, hashtags, description, and comments count

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("runtime/youtube-shorts-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("runtime/youtube-shorts-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{}' |
apify call runtime/youtube-shorts-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,runtime/youtube-shorts-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/0ktkc30saXgT9cl3W/builds/nADP4ZDNC6AwP5PSh/openapi.json