Extract YouTube Video and Channel Data via API

Video details, channel information, full subtitles, comments, and search. YouTube data extraction. Structured JSON without YouTube Data API quota complexity.

Start with Starter Plan — 7-Day Free Trial View API Documentation
Five dedicated YouTube endpoints Full subtitle/transcript extraction in any language Video comments with reply threads Channel video listings with pagination

YouTube's Data API Is Powerful but Punishing

YouTube's official Data API v3 is one of the more generous platform APIs. It works. The problem is quota management. Every operation costs quota units (some cost 1, some cost 100), the daily quota resets at midnight Pacific, and exceeding it means your application stops working until tomorrow. Audit the quota calculator before you build anything — you'll find that comment threads cost 100 units per request, which means your 10,000-unit daily quota gets you exactly 100 comment pulls.

For subtitle extraction, the official API requires OAuth authentication and only works for videos you own or have caption editing access to. Getting transcripts from public videos requires either the community captions API (deprecated) or building a workaround.

Most teams that need YouTube data at scale either burn through their quota in hours, build complex quota-management systems, or give up and scrape manually.

Five Endpoints for Complete YouTube Data

Video Details /api/youtube/video

Full video metadata: title, description, view count, like count, comment count, duration, publish date, channel info, tags, category, and thumbnail URLs.

Parameters

Parameter Type Required Description
video_id string Yes* YouTube video ID
url string Yes* Full YouTube video URL (alternative)

Response Example

{
  "video_id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up",
  "description": "The official video for \"Never Gonna Give You Up\"...",
  "channel": {
    "name": "Rick Astley",
    "id": "UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw",
    "subscriber_count": 4200000
  },
  "views": 1500000000,
  "likes": 16000000,
  "comments": 2800000,
  "duration": "PT3M33S",
  "published_at": "2009-10-25T06:57:33Z",
  "tags": ["rick astley", "never gonna give you up", "80s music"],
  "category": "Music",
  "thumbnails": {
    "default": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/default.jpg",
    "high": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/hqdefault.jpg",
    "maxres": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/maxresdefault.jpg"
  }
}

Cost: 1 credit.

Video Subtitles /api/youtube/video/subtitles

Extract full subtitles/transcripts with timestamps. Supports multiple languages when available. Returns timestamped segments for precise content analysis.

Parameters

Parameter Type Required Description
video_id string Yes YouTube video ID
language string No Language code (e.g., “en”, “es”, “ja”)

Response Example

{
  "video_id": "abc123",
  "language": "en",
  "segments": [
    {"start": 0.0, "end": 4.2, "text": "Welcome to today's deep dive on data infrastructure."},
    {"start": 4.2, "end": 8.1, "text": "We're going to cover three architectural patterns."},
    {"start": 8.1, "end": 12.5, "text": "Pattern one: event-driven data pipelines."}
  ]
}

Cost: 1 credit.

Video Comments /api/youtube/video/comments

Extract comments on any video. Returns comment text, author info, like counts, timestamps, and reply threads.

Parameters

Parameter Type Required Description
video_id string Yes YouTube video ID
count integer No Number of comments
cursor string No Pagination cursor

Cost: 1 credit per page.

Channel Videos /api/youtube/channel/videos

List all videos from a channel with metadata. Returns video IDs, titles, view counts, and publish dates for further enrichment.

Parameters

Parameter Type Required Description
channel_id string Yes YouTube channel ID
count integer No Number of videos
cursor string No Pagination cursor

Cost: 1 credit per page.

Search Videos /api/youtube/search/videos

Search YouTube by keyword. Returns matching videos with basic metadata for further enrichment.

Parameters

Parameter Type Required Description
query string Yes Search keywords
count integer No Results per page
cursor string No Pagination cursor

Cost: 1 credit per page.

Code Examples

Python — Video Analysis 
import requests

API_KEY = "YOUR_API_KEY"
BASE = "https://api.anysite.io"
headers = {"access-token": API_KEY}

# Get video details
video = requests.post(
    f"{BASE}/api/youtube/video",
    headers=headers,
    json={"video_id": "abc123"}
).json()

print(f"Title: {video['title']}")
print(f"Views: {video['views']:,} | Likes: {video['likes']:,}")

# Extract full transcript
subtitles = requests.post(
    f"{BASE}/api/youtube/video/subtitles",
    headers=headers,
    json={"video_id": "abc123", "language": "en"}
).json()

full_text = " ".join(seg["text"] for seg in subtitles["segments"])
print(f"Transcript length: {len(full_text)} characters")

# Get top comments
comments = requests.post(
    f"{BASE}/api/youtube/video/comments",
    headers=headers,
    json={"video_id": "abc123", "count": 50}
).json()

for comment in comments["comments"][:10]:
    print(f"  {comment['author']}: {comment['text'][:80]}... ({comment['likes']} likes)")
Python — Content Research Pipeline 
# Search for videos on a topic, then extract transcripts
search = requests.post(
    f"{BASE}/api/youtube/search/videos",
    headers=headers,
    json={"query": "kubernetes tutorial 2026", "count": 20}
).json()

for video in search["results"][:5]:
    subtitles = requests.post(
        f"{BASE}/api/youtube/video/subtitles",
        headers=headers,
        json={"video_id": video["video_id"], "language": "en"}
    ).json()

    if subtitles.get("segments"):
        transcript = " ".join(s["text"] for s in subtitles["segments"])
        print(f"\n{video['title']} ({video['views']:,} views)")
        print(f"Transcript: {transcript[:200]}...")
Video details 
curl -X POST "https://api.anysite.io/api/youtube/video" \
  -H "access-token: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"video_id": "abc123"}'
Subtitles 
curl -X POST "https://api.anysite.io/api/youtube/video/subtitles" \
  -H "access-token: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"video_id": "abc123", "language": "en"}'
Node.js — Video Details 
const response = await fetch("https://api.anysite.io/api/youtube/video", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "access-token": "YOUR_API_KEY",
    "Content-Type": "application/json"
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    video_id: "abc123"
  })
});

const video = await response.json();
console.log(`${video.title}: ${video.views} views`);
Node.js — Subtitles 
const subRes = await fetch("https://api.anysite.io/api/youtube/video/subtitles", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "access-token": "YOUR_API_KEY",
    "Content-Type": "application/json"
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    video_id: "abc123",
    language: "en"
  })
});

const subs = await subRes.json();
const transcript = subs.segments.map(s => s.text).join(" ");
console.log(`Transcript: ${transcript.slice(0, 200)}...`);
Video details 
anysite api /api/youtube/video video_id=abc123
Subtitles 
anysite api /api/youtube/video/subtitles video_id=abc123 language=en
Search videos 
anysite api /api/youtube/search/videos query="data engineering" count=20
Channel videos 
anysite api /api/youtube/channel/videos channel_id=UCxyz count=50
Batch: get details for multiple videos 
anysite api /api/youtube/video --from-file video_ids.txt \
  --input-key video_id --parallel 5 --format csv
YAML Pipeline — Video Research 
name: youtube-research
sources:
  search:
    endpoint: /api/youtube/search/videos
    input:
      query: "AI infrastructure tutorial"
      count: 20

  details:
    endpoint: /api/youtube/video
    depends_on: search
    input:
      video_id: ${search.video_id}

  transcripts:
    endpoint: /api/youtube/video/subtitles
    depends_on: search
    input:
      video_id: ${search.video_id}
      language: en
    on_error: skip

  comments:
    endpoint: /api/youtube/video/comments
    depends_on: search
    input:
      video_id: ${search.video_id}
      count: 20
    on_error: skip

storage:
  format: parquet
  path: ./data/youtube-research

Use Cases

Content Research and Competitive Analysis

Problem

Understanding what content performs in your niche on YouTube requires watching hours of videos, noting view counts, and manually analyzing what topics drive engagement. Comparing competitor channels means tracking dozens of accounts.

Solution

Search for niche-relevant videos, pull view counts and engagement data, and extract transcripts for content analysis. Compare channels by posting frequency, average views, and engagement rates. Use LLM analysis on transcripts to categorize topics and identify content gaps.

Result

A content strategy built on data. Know which topics get views, which formats perform, and where competitors aren't covering the audience's questions.

Video Transcript Analysis and Summarization

Problem

YouTube contains the world's largest library of expert-level content: conference talks, tutorials, product demos, and interviews. But the content is locked in video format. You can't search inside videos, extract key points, or build knowledge bases without watching it.

Solution

Extract timestamped transcripts from any video. Feed transcripts into LLM analysis for summarization, key point extraction, and topic classification. Build searchable knowledge bases from video content.

Result

Every YouTube video becomes a queryable text document. Search across thousands of transcripts, extract specific sections by timestamp, and build knowledge bases without watching a single minute.

Market Research via Comments

Problem

YouTube comments contain raw, unfiltered customer feedback, product comparisons, feature requests, and pain points. For product and market research, this is gold — but extracting and analyzing comments at scale isn't practical manually.

Solution

Pull comments from competitor product videos, industry reviews, and tutorial content. Use LLM analysis to categorize sentiment, extract feature requests, and identify common pain points.

Result

A structured view of customer sentiment from YouTube comments. Know what people love, hate, and wish existed — straight from the audience, not filtered through surveys.

Educational Content Indexing

Problem

Organizations with large video libraries (training content, webinars, documentation) need searchable indexes. Users can't find the specific tutorial segment they need without watching entire videos.

Solution

Extract transcripts from your entire video library. Build a search index over the text content. Link search results to specific timestamps for direct navigation.

Result

A searchable knowledge base built from video content. “How do I configure the webhook?” returns the exact video and timestamp, not a list of 45-minute tutorials.

How Anysite Compares

Feature Anysite YouTube Data API v3 Apify yt-dlp
Video details 1 credit 1–3 quota units Actor-based Free (CLI)
Subtitles 1 credit (any public video) OAuth required (own videos) Actor-based Free (CLI)
Comments 1 credit/page 100 quota units/request Actor-based Not available
Channel videos 1 credit/page 100 quota units Actor-based Free (CLI)
Search 1 credit/page 100 quota units Actor-based Not available
Daily limits Credit-based (no daily reset) 10,000 units/day Actor limits None
Auth API key OAuth 2.0 + project API key None
Pipeline support YAML pipelines + batch None Actor scheduling CLI only
Other platforms 9+ sources YouTube only 1,800+ actors YouTube + others

YouTube's Data API quota system means comment extraction (100 units per request) burns through your 10,000 daily quota after just 100 requests. With Anysite, 100 comment pages costs 100 credits — no daily reset, no quota management complexity.

Subtitle extraction through YouTube's official API requires OAuth and only works for videos you own. Anysite extracts subtitles from any public video with available captions.

yt-dlp is excellent for downloading videos and subtitles but doesn't provide structured API access, comment extraction, or search capabilities.

Pricing

Endpoint Cost Notes
Video details 1 credit Full metadata
Video subtitles 1 credit All available languages
Video comments 1 credit/page Per page of comments
Channel videos 1 credit/page Per page of video listings
Search videos 1 credit/page Per page of results

Cost Examples by Use Case

Use Case Monthly Volume Credits Recommended Plan
Research 50 videos (details + subtitles) 100 requests 100 Starter ($49/mo)
Monitor 10 channels (weekly) 40 channel pages 40 Starter ($49/mo)
Comment analysis (50 videos x 5 pages) 250 comment pages 250 Starter ($49/mo)
Full research pipeline search + details + transcripts + comments ~500 Starter ($49/mo)

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I get subtitles for any YouTube video?
You can extract subtitles from any video that has captions available (auto-generated or manually uploaded). Most English-language videos have auto-generated captions. If no captions exist, the endpoint returns an empty result.
What languages are supported for subtitles?
The API supports any language that has captions available on the video. Specify the language code (e.g., “en”, “es”, “ja”, “de”) in the request. If the requested language isn't available, check the video for available caption languages.
How do I get all comments on a video?
Use cursor-based pagination on the comments endpoint. Each page returns a batch of comments with a cursor for the next page. Continue until has_more is false. For videos with thousands of comments, this may require many pages.
Can I search within video transcripts?
The API returns the full transcript as timestamped segments. For cross-video search, extract transcripts into your own search index (Elasticsearch, DuckDB, or the CLI's built-in SQL query capabilities).
How does this compare to YouTube's quota system?
YouTube's Data API gives you 10,000 quota units per day. Comment threads cost 100 units each (= 100 requests/day). Search costs 100 units. With Anysite, there's no daily reset — you use credits from your monthly balance at your own pace, with no per-day restrictions.
Can I download videos?
No. Anysite extracts structured metadata, subtitles, and comments. It doesn't download video files. For video downloading, tools like yt-dlp are purpose-built for that.

Related Endpoints

Reddit Post Data

Discussions about the same topics

Twitter User Data

Cross-platform creator analysis

LinkedIn Post Data

B2B content intelligence

Start Extracting YouTube Data

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