YouTube Channel Scraper

📌 What is a YouTube Channel Scraper?

Octoparse's YouTube Channel Scraper collects structured public data from channel pages without custom code. It supports six YouTube channel tabs: videos, shorts, live, podcasts, playlists, and posts. That means you can use one workflow to monitor standard uploads, short-form content, live streams, podcast collections, playlists, and community posts across one or many channels.

You can submit one or multiple channel handles and extract public channel metadata in structured rows for downstream analysis.

💰 Pricing

Current price: $0.2 / 1,000 lines. Billing is based on the number of output lines produced by the task.

📦 Output

Choose a tab to collect the corresponding fields. A field can be empty when YouTube does not provide that value for a particular item.

• Videos: title, author, video URL, publish time, view count, duration, cover image URL, and video ID.
• Shorts: title, URL, view count, and cover image URL.
• Live: title, author, live URL, streamed time, view count, duration, cover image URL, and video ID.
• Podcasts: collection name, episode count, update time, description, item title, author, URL, publish time, view count, duration, cover image URL, and item ID.
• Playlists: collection metadata plus item title, author, URL, publish time, view count, duration, cover image URL, and item ID; these rows use the Podcast_* field names emitted by the template.
• Posts: post content, image URL, linked video URL, post time, like count, and comment count.

videos

{
  "Video_title": "How to Scrape Business Data from Google Maps with Octoparse | Cat Cafe Example",
  "Video_author": "@Octoparsewebscraping",
  "Video_URL": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhbIzV6YoEo",
  "Video_publish_time": "4 months ago",
  "Video_view_count": "436 views",
  "Video_length": "4:31",
  "Video_cover_URL": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/YhbIzV6YoEo/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEnCNACELwBSFryq4qpAxkIARUAAIhCGAHYAQHiAQoIGBACGAY4AUAB&rs=AOn4CLB_WilrzAOjKn8xPGdaZBeE_WvD-g",
  "Video_video_id": "YhbIzV6YoEo"
}

shorts

{
  "Short_title": "Paying For Food With My Car",
  "Short_URL": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/f7y2XikE7sY",
  "Short_view_count": "20M views",
  "Short_cover_url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/f7y2XikE7sY/sardefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEoCJUDENAFSFqQAgHyq4qpAxcIARUAAIhC2AEB4gEKCBgQAhgGOAFAAQ==&rs=AOn4CLA228a31OifBaqjwSFOR9NY5mCdhg"
}

live

{
  "Live_title": "🔴 Al Jazeera English | Live",
  "Live_author": "@aljazeeraenglish",
  "Live_URL": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCNeDWCI0vo",
  "Live_streamed_time": "",
  "Live_view_count": "",
  "Live_length": "LIVE",
  "Live_cover_URL": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/gCNeDWCI0vo/hqdefault.jpg?v=640a78c8&sqp=-oaymwEnCNACELwBSFryq4qpAxkIARUAAIhCGAHYAQHiAQoIGBACGAY4AUAB&rs=AOn4CLBSFSY8FO0BvJwxW58NpZrz0-Nk4w",
  "Live_id": "gCNeDWCI0vo"
}

podcasts

{
  "Podcast_collection_name": "The OpenAI Podcast",
  "Podcast_collection_episode_count": "23 episodes",
  "Podcast_collection_update_time": "Last updated on Jul 16, 2026",
  "Podcast_collection_description": "",
  "Podcast_title": "What racing reveals about working with AI — the OpenAI Podcast Ep. 22",
  "Podcast_author": "OpenAI",
  "Podcast_URL": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNPjRpNtQ7s&list=PLOXw6I10VTv9GAOCZjUAAkSVyW2cDXs4u&index=1&pp=iAQB",
  "Podcast_publish_time": "2 weeks ago",
  "Podcast_view_count": "9.1K views",
  "Podcast_length": "41:24",
  "Podcast_cover_URL": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KNPjRpNtQ7s/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEnCNACELwBSFryq4qpAxkIARUAAIhCGAHYAQHiAQoIGBACGAY4AUAB&rs=AOn4CLDnBSNijuZVFRuVYWiLAEk1xmZxSA",
  "Podcast_id": "KNPjRpNtQ7s"
}

playlists

Playlist collection and item output use the same Podcast_* field names because both tabs return collection metadata and video-list items.

{
  "Podcast_collection_name": "ChatGPT Work for Sales: AI Workflows and Demos",
  "Podcast_collection_episode_count": "4 videos",
  "Podcast_collection_update_time": "208 views",
  "Podcast_collection_description": "See how sales teams use ChatGPT Work across the sales cycle—from pipeline and forecast intelligence to account planning, customer outreach, meeting preparation, call analysis, and revenue insights.\n\nThese demos show how sellers and sales leaders can focus on the right opportunities, prepare with more context, and take the next step with confidence.\n\nLearn how ChatGPT Work can help your sales team:\nhttps://openai.com/business/solutions/sales/",
  "Podcast_title": "ChatGPT Work for Sales: Revenue Intelligence for Sales Leaders",
  "Podcast_author": "OpenAI",
  "Podcast_URL": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-g6E-qtCjA&list=PLOWA0iXOgMJY&index=1&pp=iAQB",
  "Podcast_publish_time": "8 days ago",
  "Podcast_view_count": "6.6K views",
  "Podcast_length": "2:29",
  "Podcast_cover_URL": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/g-g6E-qtCjA/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEnCNACELwBSFryq4qpAxcIARUAAIhC2AEB4gEKCBgQAhgGOAFAAQ==&rs=AOn4CLCbHfHZpOaU7W2eFau2tujEKNvrfw",
  "Podcast_id": "g-g6E-qtCjA"
}

posts

{
  "Post_content": "Some more fun wedding photos 🥰",
  "Post_image_URL": "",
  "Post_video_URL": "",
  "Post_time": "13 days ago",
  "Post_like_count": "3.3M likes",
  "Post_comment_count": "59K"
}

🎯 Use Cases

• YouTube competitor analysis: Submit competitor channel handles, compare publishing activity and view-count text, and review the results in a spreadsheet. For a repeatable research process, follow this step-by-step social media competitor analysis guide.
• Creator and influencer research: Collect publishing history and public content metadata to support creator shortlisting and campaign research.
• Content planning and trend research: Analyze videos and Shorts to identify recurring topics, formats, and content gaps for editorial planning.
• Social media monitoring: Use scheduled Octoparse runs to capture new uploads, Shorts, community posts, and live events for an internal monitoring workflow.
• AI-powered data workflows: Move exported CSV or JSON data into an AI workflow for topic classification, content summaries, pattern analysis, or activity alerts. For implementation ideas, explore these AI scraping use cases with Octoparse MCP.

🐙 Why Octoparse

• Ready-to-use workflow: The extraction steps are already configured, so you can start collecting YouTube channel data without building scraping logic from scratch.
• Multi-tab coverage: One template supports videos, Shorts, live streams, podcasts, playlists, and posts in the same product entry point.
• Batch-friendly input: Submit multiple channel handles in one run when you need broader monitoring coverage.
• Structured, repeatable output: Results are returned as rows that are easier to review, compare, filter, and process than manual copy-paste.
• Cloud-friendly execution: Run the task in Octoparse without relying on a local browser session to collect every row by hand.

Octoparse also supports scheduled collection, structured exports, OpenAPI-based workflows, and the AgentTools API around the template. You can combine recurring exports or API workflows with your own dashboard or AI workflow when you need ongoing monitoring rather than a one-time dataset.

How does Octoparse compare with other YouTube scraping tools?

The main differences are setup model, bulk-input workflow, YouTube coverage, and automation options. This comparison focuses on documented capabilities rather than frequently changing prices.

This template is a strong fit when you want repeatable channel monitoring and structured exports without building an API pipeline or training a separate browser robot. If you need several tabs, run the template once per tab and combine the exported datasets.

📝 Input

Complete the following fields:

• Usernames to Scrape (Required) — Enter one or multiple YouTube channel handles. Supports up to 100,000 entries per run, one per line.
• Sort Posts By (Required) — Choose whether to start from the latest or the oldest content on the selected tab.
• Stop Extraction At (End Date)（If the Tab is shorts don't fill in here） (Optional) — Enter a date in YYYY-MM-DD format when you want the task to stop at a date boundary. Leave this blank when the selected tab is shorts.
• Tab (Required) — Choose one of these options: videos, shorts, live, podcasts, playlists, posts.

🚀 How to Use

1. Open the template and start a new task.
2. Enter one or more YouTube channel handles in Usernames to Scrape.
3. Select the Tab you want to collect.
4. Set Sort Posts By to latest or oldest.
5. If needed, enter Stop Extraction At (End Date)（If the Tab is shorts don't fill in here） in YYYY-MM-DD format.
6. Run the task and review the Data Preview and collected rows.
7. Export the results in your preferred format for analysis or reporting.

⚠️ Limitations

• This template collects public YouTube channel content exposed through the selected tab.
• Different tasks populate different fields based on the selected tab content.
• Leave the end-date field blank when the selected tab is shorts.
• Publish-time and view-count values may be returned in YouTube display text formats such as 4 months ago or 436 views.
• This template focuses on channel-tab content metadata, not transcript extraction or comment-thread collection.

💡 Tips

• Use clean channel handles such as @channelname when possible.
• Run one Tab per task so the exported results are easier to review.
• Use videos for standard uploads, shorts for short-form content, and posts for community-post monitoring.
• Start with a small sample before launching a large multi-channel batch.
• If you need comments or transcripts, pair this template with a more specific YouTube template.

❓ FAQ

What does this YouTube Channel Scraper collect?

It collects structured public data from the selected YouTube channel tab, including titles, URLs, publish-time text, view-count text, durations, cover images, collection metadata, and community-post fields.

What input does this YouTube Channel Scraper require?

Use the fields listed in the Input section: channel handles, sort order, optional end date, and the target tab.

Can I scrape multiple YouTube channels at once?

Yes. You can enter multiple handles in Usernames to Scrape, with one handle per line.

Can I scrape YouTube Shorts with this template?

Yes. The shorts tab returns Shorts-specific fields such as title, URL, view count, and cover image URL.

Can I stop scraping at a specific date?

Yes, but leave the end-date field blank when the selected Tab is shorts.

Does this template collect YouTube comments?

No. Use the YouTube Comments & Replies Scraper when comments and reply threads are the primary output.

How much does this YouTube Channel Scraper cost?

The current price is $0.2 / 1,000 lines, and billing is based on the number of output lines produced by the task.

🔗 Related Templates

• YouTube Channel Scraper (Free) — Use this if you want a lighter no-charge option focused on channel-level public data and video-list output.
• YouTube Transcript Scraper — Use this when transcript text is more important than channel-tab metadata.
• YouTube Comments & Replies Scraper — Use this when your main goal is comment research, sentiment analysis, or reply-thread collection.