Export YouTube Comments Without Usernames — for Sentiment and Research

What it does

When you analyse YouTube comments, the useful part is what people said, not who said it. Yet most comment exports hand you display names, channel IDs and profile pictures, which turns a sentiment dataset into a list of identifiable people you then have to manage. This actor strips those fields from every row by design.

It reads comments through the official YouTube Data API v3 with your own free API key. Each row holds the comment text, like count, reply count, published and edited dates, comment ID and video ID. Turn on includeReplies to add replies as their own rows, linked to the parent by parentId and capped by maxRepliesPerComment (default 20), so one enormous thread cannot consume the run.

It fits sentiment analysis, audience research, product feedback mining, LLM and RAG datasets and moderation reviews. Comments cost $0.50 per 1,000, and one free key covers about 1 million comments a day. If you need to know who commented, this is deliberately not the tool for that.

How it works

1. Video URLs or IDs are read from videoUrls and comment threads are fetched with commentThreads.list, 100 per call.
2. Top-level comments are capped per video by maxCommentsPerVideo, sorted newest first or by YouTube's top comments via commentOrder.
3. With includeReplies on, up to 5 replies come with each thread call, and longer threads are fetched with comments.list up to maxRepliesPerComment.
4. Author display name, channel ID, profile image and channel URL are removed from every row before it is written to your dataset.
5. Videos with comments turned off, or that are private or deleted, produce a free error row.

Input example

A typical run input (JSON). Every field is also available as a form in the Apify console.

{
  "apiKey": "AIzaSy...your-own-key",
  "mode": "comments",
  "videoUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw"
  ],
  "maxCommentsPerVideo": 500,
  "includeReplies": true,
  "maxRepliesPerComment": 20,
  "commentOrder": "relevance"
}

Output example

Every comment and reply is one row with its text, likes and date, and replies are marked with isReply, as in this sample:

Pricing

Pay per event: you are charged only for the results you receive, with no subscription. Set a maximum total charge on any run and it stops cleanly at the cap.

Prices are read from the live Apify Store listing when this page is built. The listing is always authoritative.

Use cases

How it compares

If your project genuinely needs to know who commented, or whether the creator pinned or hearted a comment, a scraper that keeps author fields is the better fit. This actor is for work where the text matters and the identities are a liability.

Limits and honest notes

• You need your own free YouTube Data API v3 key (see the 4-step guide above). Without one the run stops at once with instructions, and nothing is charged.
• Quota is per Google Cloud project: 10,000 units/day for free. Unit costs: videos.list, channels.list, playlistItems.list, commentThreads.list and comments.list cost 1 unit each, and search.list costs 100. A quotaExceeded error stops the run cleanly; rows already delivered are kept, and the failed call is free.
• Only public data the API returns for an API key: no private or unlisted-by-ID-only details, no dislike counts (removed by YouTube), no revenue, no watch time, and no subscriber lists. Channels that hide their subscriber count give subscriberCount: null.
• Like counts that the creator hides come back as null. Counts are YouTube's own; subscriber counts are rounded by YouTube to 3 significant figures.
• Free rows (type error) cover invalid inputs, videos and channels that are not found, private or deleted, and videos with comments disabled.
• You must refresh or delete stored API data within 30 days (YouTube Developer Policies III.E.4). We keep nothing after the run.
• The run's spend limit is respected: each page of rows is charged before it is delivered, and the run stops cleanly at the cap.
• Author identity is never returned: no display name, author channel ID, profile image or channel URL. If you need commenter lists, this is not the actor for you. The comment text itself is returned as written, so an @mention a commenter typed stays in the text.
• The API does not say whether a comment is pinned or hearted by the creator, so those fields are not in the rows. Videos with comments turned off give a free error row.
• maxCommentsPerVideo counts top-level comments only. Replies are capped per comment by maxRepliesPerComment (default 20, 0 = no replies, max 1,000). Up to 5 replies come with the thread call; more cost 1 extra quota unit per 100 replies. Every reply is its own comment-result row.

FAQ

Use it from code

Run the actor through the Apify API with the input above.

cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/actor-forge~youtube-comments-api/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"apiKey": "AIzaSy...your-own-key", "mode": "comments", "videoUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw"], "maxCommentsPerVideo": 500, "includeReplies": true, "maxRepliesPerComment": 20, "commentOrder": "relevance"}'

JavaScript (Node.js)

// Node.js 18+ (built-in fetch). Set APIFY_TOKEN in your environment.
const input = {
  "apiKey": "AIzaSy...your-own-key",
  "mode": "comments",
  "videoUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw"
  ],
  "maxCommentsPerVideo": 500,
  "includeReplies": true,
  "maxRepliesPerComment": 20,
  "commentOrder": "relevance"
};

const res = await fetch(
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/actor-forge~youtube-comments-api/run-sync-get-dataset-items",
  {
    method: "POST",
    headers: {
      Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.APIFY_TOKEN}`,
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
    body: JSON.stringify(input),
  }
);
const items = await res.json();
console.log(items.length, items[0]);

Python

# pip install apify-client   (set APIFY_TOKEN in your environment)
import os
from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient(os.environ["APIFY_TOKEN"])
run_input = {
    "apiKey": "AIzaSy...your-own-key",
    "mode": "comments",
    "videoUrls": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw"
    ],
    "maxCommentsPerVideo": 500,
    "includeReplies": True,
    "maxRepliesPerComment": 20,
    "commentOrder": "relevance"
}

run = client.actor("actor-forge/youtube-comments-api").call(run_input=run_input)
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

The run-sync-get-dataset-items endpoint waits for the run (up to 5 minutes) and returns the dataset rows directly. For longer runs, start the run asynchronously and read the dataset when it finishes, as the Python example does. Replace APIFY_TOKEN with your own token from the Apify console.

Step-by-step guides

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