Video search monitoring
Use YouTube endpoints to turn video search monitoring into repeatable API requests with documented inputs and JSON responses.
Build creator intelligence, video research, transcript, and audience-comment workflows without maintaining YouTube scrapers.
Collect YouTube video, channel, playlist, search, transcript, and comments data through documented Crawlora API endpoints.
Endpoint families
6
Documented params
58
Examples
15
Live catalog snapshot
Active endpoints
15
Methods
GET
Required params
31
Schema refs
15
{
"platform": "YouTube",
"endpoint": "youtube-video",
"method": "GET",
"path": "/youtube/video/{id}",
"auth": "apiKey"
}Related use cases
Free tools
Showcase proof
Explore structured examples generated from public YouTube videos. See how Crawlora turns transcripts, comments, metadata, topics, and summaries into JSON for creator intelligence, RAG, content research, and monitoring workflows.
Transcript, comment, summary, topic, and metadata records for public AI videos.
Open examplesStructured public podcast and interview examples for searchable video research.
Open examplesFounder, market, and operator video examples for public business intelligence workflows.
Open examplesCreator and audience intelligence examples built from public transcripts, metadata, and comments.
Open examplesOpen the full Crawlora YouTube video intelligence showcase library.
Open examplesUse cases
Collect YouTube video, channel, playlist, search, transcript, and comments data through documented Crawlora API endpoints.
Use YouTube endpoints to turn video search monitoring into repeatable API requests with documented inputs and JSON responses.
Use YouTube endpoints to turn creator and channel research into repeatable API requests with documented inputs and JSON responses.
Use YouTube endpoints to turn transcript and comments analysis into repeatable API requests with documented inputs and JSON responses.
Managed execution
Every figure below is read from the live YouTube endpoint catalog — 15 endpoints, 58 documented request parameters, and 15 published response schemas — the same catalog Docs and Playground run against.
15 documented YouTube endpoints, grouped into 10 request families — Channel, Comments and Transcript, plus 7 more.
58 request parameters are documented across those YouTube endpoints, 31 of them required — the full input contract is public before you write any integration code.
15 of the 15 YouTube endpoints ship a recorded example response, and 15 carry a documented response schema — you can code against the real JSON before the first request.
YouTube endpoints document their error responses (400, 404, 429, 500 and 503) alongside the success schema, so a block, a rate limit, or a missing record comes back as a typed error rather than silently empty data.
15 hosted MCP tools back the YouTube endpoints, so an agent can call the same routes with the same parameters and the same JSON contract, with no custom glue.
Coverage map
/youtube/channel/{id}/videos
/youtube/comments/{id}
/youtube/transcript/{id}
/youtube/captions/{id}
/youtube/playlist/{id}
/youtube/profile/{id}
Featured endpoints
/youtube/video/{id}Returns the metadata of a YouTube video by its 11-character `id`: title, description, channel id and title, publication time, duration in seconds, and view, like and comment counts. Some fields are best-effort.
Sampled 14 Oct 2026: 10 of 10 fields returned with a value. published_at: 2025-06-18; duration_seconds: 2,423.
MCP tool youtube_video
/youtube/transcript/{id}Returns transcript segments for a YouTube video using YouTube's native player captions. Set `format=text`, `format=srt`, or `format=vtt` to receive plain-text output instead of the standard response envelope. Returns `404` when the video currently has no transcript/captions available in any language — this is a normal, non-retryable result, not an error condition. Returns `503` when the request is temporarily blocked or rate-limited; retrying after a short delay may succeed.
Response notes
- `404` — the video currently has no transcript/captions available in any language. This is a normal result for videos without captions (e.g. never had them, or auto-captions were never generated), not a transient failure — retrying will not help. - `503` — the request was temporarily blocked or rate-limited upstream. This is a transient condition; retrying after a short delay may succeed.
Sampled 14 Oct 2026: 520 items, 0 fields filled in every item, 3 not. start: 0.4 to 2,346.39, median 1,076.77; duration: 0.08 to 30.45, median 3.12.
MCP tool youtube_transcript
/youtube/comments/{id}Returns one page of top-level comments for a YouTube video by its 11-character `id`. Each comment has its id, content, author `user_name` and `channel_id`, `likes_count`, `reply_count` and `published_time`. Comments with replies may include their own `continuation_token`; pass that token to `/youtube/comments/{id}/replies`. Pass the response-level `continuation_token` here for deterministic pagination. If omitted, the service discovers an initial cursor or may resume the most recently cached cursor for this video.
Sampled 14 Oct 2026: 20 items, 7 fields filled in every item, 1 not. published_time: 2025-10-13 to 2026-01-16; reply_count: 0 to 33, median 1.
MCP tool youtube_comments
/youtube/searchReturns normalized YouTube search results using YouTube's InnerTube search API. Pass `continuation_token` from a previous response to retrieve the next page. Use `q` as the primary query parameter; `search_query` is accepted as an alias. `hl` and `gl` localize ranking and result context; they default to `en` and `US`. Named filters cover the public web search filters. Account-only chips such as Watched and Unwatched are not exposed.
Sampled 14 Oct 2026: 20 items, 6 fields filled in every item, 13 not. position: 1 to 20, median 10; url: youtube.com.
MCP tool youtube_search
/youtube/profile/{id}Returns the profile of a YouTube channel by `id`, which can be a channel id, `@handle`, `/c` or `/user` path, bare username or full channel URL. The profile has channel id, name and URL, bio, join date, region, profile picture, links, and `stats` with `followers_count`, `videos_count` and `views_count`.
Sampled 14 Oct 2026: 14 of 14 fields returned with a value. created_at: 2026-10-13; stats.followers_count: 2,089,999.
MCP tool youtube_profile
/youtube/playlist/{id}Returns a YouTube playlist by playlist id or full playlist URL: title, URL, owning channel, video count and thumbnail, plus its videos with position, title, video id, duration, channel and view count. Pass the returned `continuation_token` to page through longer playlists.
Sampled 14 Oct 2026: 16 items, 12 fields filled in every item. position: 1 to 16, median 8; url: youtube.com.
MCP tool youtube_playlist
Related APIs
Social & Creator Platforms
Turn Twitch's public channel, stream, clip, and team data into structured JSON — live status and viewer counts, top games, clips, VODs, and team rosters — as normalized JSON. Credential-free.
Social & Creator Platforms
Track creator and video activity, discover sounds and LIVE streams, and study public ad creatives through documented TikTok API routes.
Social & Creator Platforms
Turn Instagram public data into structured inputs for social listening and creator research.
Company coverage
Alphabet Inc. · GOOGL
YouTube is operated by Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL). Crawlora's SEC endpoints take the same company's CIK, so filings, financials, insider transactions and 13F holdings come from the same API key as the YouTube endpoints above.
Other Alphabet Inc. platforms in the catalog
How to scrape YouTube
YouTube holds transcripts, comments, and channel data that power research and AI pipelines. Crawlora's YouTube endpoints return them as structured JSON — including full transcripts. A pull on 2026-10-27 for web scraping tutorial reported about 1,865,743 estimated results, returned 18 mixed items on page 1, and returned 10 suggestions for web scr.
/youtube/profile/OpenAI returned channel_id UCXZCJLdBC09xxGZ6gcdrc6A with 2,100,000 followers, 907 videos and 284,945,300 views on 2026-10-30. That channel_id drives /youtube/channel/{id}/videos (30 rows with duration_seconds and published_text), /shorts (48 rows with view_count), /playlists (27 playlists) and /search?q=, and each response returns a continuation_token for the next page.
/youtube/captions/DB9mjd-65gw?lang=en returned 520 caption segments, and /youtube/comments/DB9mjd-65gw with limit=10 returned 20 comments, each with likes_count, reply_count and its own continuation_token. Treat limit as a floor on batch size, not an exact page length.
/youtube/playlist/{id} for the 3Blue1Brown linear algebra list returned video_count as the text 16 videos beside 16 items, each with type, position, video_id and duration. Parse the count from items, not from the label.
Pipe transcripts into LLMs and vector stores, or re-run to track views and new comments.
search reported estimated_results 1,865,743 but returned 18 items, and each has a type and position. The first was a video, Web Scraping with Python - Beautiful Soup Crash Course by freeCodeCamp.org (video_id XVv6mJpFOb0).
Each item has a type (the first was a video), so branch on it before reading fields. Page with continuation_token.
Client libraries
Install the dedicated YouTube client for your language. Each package covers the YouTube endpoints on this page and calls Crawlora's hosted API with your API key.
npm install @crawlora-org/youtubenpmpip install crawlora-youtubePyPIgo get github.com/Crawlora-org/crawlora-youtubepkg.go.devgem install crawlora-youtubeRubyGemsnet.crawlora:crawlora-youtubeMaven Centralcomposer require crawlora/youtubePackagistcargo add crawlora-youtubecrates.ioAgent skills
Install a Crawlora agent skill and your agent can pull YouTube data as JSON through the documented API, without writing a scraper. These skills cover YouTube:
Pulls structured YouTube data — video and channel details, transcripts/captions, comments, playlists, and search — via the Crawlora API as clean…
npx skills add github.com/Crawlora-org/crawlora-skills --skill youtube-researchMap observed YouTube topic and format coverage using Crawlora searches, channel samples, videos, and available captions. Use for an evidence-based…
npx skills add github.com/Crawlora-org/crawlora-skills --skill youtube-content-gap-analysisBuild a sourced brand-mention and reputation brief from bounded Reddit, TikTok, and YouTube searches and comment samples through Crawlora. Use to…
npx skills add github.com/Crawlora-org/crawlora-skills --skill brand-mention-researchFAQ
Send a YouTube video or channel URL to Crawlora's YouTube endpoint and get structured JSON — title, views, likes, channel stats, full transcript, and comments — no API quota to manage. Collect public data and respect YouTube's terms.
Yes — Crawlora returns the full transcript for videos that have captions, ideal for RAG and content research. You can also try it instantly with the free YouTube Transcript Extractor at /tools/youtube-transcript-extractor.
Yes. The official YouTube Data API v3 works well but has a limited daily quota (10,000 units by default), needs OAuth or API-key setup, and doesn't return video transcripts. Crawlora's YouTube endpoints have no per-day quota to manage, use one x-api-key, and include full transcripts and comments as JSON — a practical alternative for research, RAG, and monitoring.
Collecting publicly accessible video, transcript, and comment data is generally permissible if you respect YouTube's terms of use, robots directives, rate limits, and applicable law. This is for public data you're authorized to collect.
18 mixed items on 2026-10-27 for web scraping tutorial, with a continuation token for more.