YouTube Scraper API

Use the Bright Data YouTube Scraper API to extract structured data from channels, videos and comments. Handles up to 20 URLs per request.

Send a YouTube URL, get structured JSON back. The Bright Data YouTube Scraper API handles proxies, CAPTCHAs, and parsing so you can focus on your data pipeline.

New to Bright Data? Create a free account and get 5,000 free credits every month, no credit card required. That’s up to 5,000 YouTube records to start scraping. See the free tier.

How it works

You send one or more YouTube URLs to the Bright Data YouTube Scraper API. Bright Data handles the scraping infrastructure and returns clean, structured JSON.

Your app  -->  Bright Data API  -->  Structured JSON
           POST /datasets/v3/scrape
           Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY

All requests use a dataset_id to specify the data type (videos, channels, or comments) and return results in JSON, NDJSON, or CSV.

What the response looks like

A single record returned by the Bright Data YouTube Scraper API. Run the request yourself in the quickstart.

{
  "channel_name": "MrBeast",
  "channel_url": "https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast",
  "subscribers": 358000000,
  "total_videos": 850,
  "total_views": 50000000000,
  "description": "...",
  "is_verified": true
}

Supported data types

Videos

Titles, views, likes, descriptions, durations, and thumbnails. Discover videos by keyword, hashtag, or explore.

Channels

Subscriber counts, video counts, descriptions, and verification status. Discover channels by keyword.

Comments

Comment text, likes, replies, commenter details for any video.

Request methods

The Bright Data Scraper API supports two request methods. Choose based on your volume and latency needs.

Method	Endpoint	Best for
Synchronous	/scrape	Real-time lookups, up to 20 URLs
Asynchronous	/trigger	Batch jobs, 20 or more URLs, production pipelines

Learn more in Understanding sync vs. async requests.

Capabilities and limits

Capability	Detail
Output formats	JSON, NDJSON, CSV
Max URLs per sync request	20
Max URLs per async request	Unlimited, up to 1 GB of input per job
Data freshness	Real-time (scraped on demand)
Delivery options	API download, webhook, Amazon S3, Snowflake, Azure, GCS (all options)
Pricing	Pay per successful record (see pricing)

Common questions

Is the data scraped in real time?

Yes. Each request triggers a live scrape. There is no cached or stale data. Processing time varies with target-site conditions and scraper workload. The Bright Data YouTube Scraper API does not publish a fixed response time. A synchronous request waits up to 1 minute, then returns a snapshot_id and continues asynchronously. Discovery requests always run asynchronously and take longer depending on result volume.

Why do response times change over time?

YouTube changes how its pages are served, and the Bright Data YouTube Scraper API collectors are updated to match. A collector update can change how long a scrape takes even when the success rate stays the same. For production workloads, build against the async workflow or webhook delivery so a longer run does not break the integration.

What is the difference between URL collection and discovery?

URL collection scrapes a specific YouTube page you provide (e.g., a channel URL). Discovery finds YouTube content matching search criteria (e.g., videos by keyword or hashtag) and scrapes the results. Discovery is only available via async requests.

How is this different from scraping using proxies or Web Unlocker?

When scraping using proxies or Web Unlocker, you still need to write and maintain your own parsing logic and update it whenever the target site changes its page structure. The Bright Data Scraper API handles the entire stack: proxy rotation, anti-bot bypassing and parsing. You send a URL or keyword and get clean, structured JSON back, with no scraping infrastructure or parser maintenance on your end.

Next steps

Quickstart

Scrape your first YouTube channel in 5 minutes.

Send your first request

Full code examples in cURL, Python, and Node.js.

API reference

Endpoint specs, parameters, and response schemas.