modbender 🎬 Ultimate YouTube Scraper
Get comprehensive YouTube video data including metadata, statistics, descriptions, thumbnails, and optionally transcripts.
Why This Skill?
YouTube videos require multiple APIs to get complete data. This skill intelligently uses:
- YouTube Data API (FREE) → Video metadata, stats, description
- Apify API (OPTIONAL) → Only when transcripts requested
Advantages
💰 Cost Effective
- Default: YouTube API only (free quota)
- Transcript: Only 1 Apify request when explicitly requested
- No wasted API calls
⚡ Fast Performance
- YouTube API: ~200ms response
- Apify: Only loads when needed
📊 Complete Data
| Data | Source |
|---|---|
| Title | ✅ YouTube API |
| Description | ✅ YouTube API |
| Channel Name | ✅ YouTube API |
| View Count | ✅ YouTube API |
| Like Count | ✅ YouTube API |
| Comment Count | ✅ YouTube API |
| Upload Date | ✅ YouTube API |
| Thumbnail URL | ✅ YouTube API |
| Tags | ✅ YouTube API |
| Transcript | ✅ Apify (on demand) |
🔄 Intelligent Flow
┌─────────────────┐
│ Input: URL/ID │
└────────┬────────┘
│
▼
┌─────────────────┐
│ YouTube API │ ◄── FREE, always runs
│ (viewCount, │
│ description, │
│ title, etc.) │
└────────┬────────┘
│
┌────┴────┐
│ │
▼ ▼
┌───────┐ ┌──────────────┐
│ -- │ │ --transcript │
│info │ │ is requested │
│only │ └──────┬───────┘
└───┬───┘ │
│ ▼
│ ┌─────────────────┐
│ │ Apify API │ ◄── Only runs if
│ │ (transcript) │ explicitly asked
│ └────────┬────────┘
│ │
└─────┬───────┘
│
▼
┌─────────────────┐
│ Full Output │
└─────────────────┘
Credentials Setup
Option 1: Environment Variables
export YOUTUBE_API_KEY="AIzaSy..."
export APIFY_TOKEN="apify_api_..."
Option 2: Credentials File (Recommended)
Add to ~/.openclaw/credentials/api-credentials.json:
{
"google": {
"api_key": "AIzaSy..."
},
"apify": {
"api_key": "apify_api_..."
}
}
Getting YouTube API Key
- Go to Google Cloud Console
- Create a project
- Enable YouTube Data API v3
- Create credentials (API Key)
- Free quota: 10,000 units/day
Getting Apify Token
- Go to Apify
- Sign up / Login
- Copy API token from Settings
Usage
Default (Info Only - FREE)
python3 get_transcript.py "VIDEO_ID"
python3 get_transcript.py "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"
Output:
============================================================
📺 Video Title
============================================================
📅 2026-02-16
👤 Channel Name
👁️ 92,875 views
👍 5,525 likes
💬 737 comments
📝 AÇIKLAMA:
----------------------------------------
Video description here...
With Transcript (Uses Apify)
python3 get_transcript.py "VIDEO_ID" --transcript
python3 get_transcript.py "VIDEO_ID" -t
python3 get_transcript.py "VIDEO_ID" --transcript --lang tr
Info Only (Skip Transcript Check)
python3 get_transcript.py "VIDEO_ID" --info-only
Examples
Basic Video Info
python3 get_transcript.py dQw4w9WgXcQ
Video + Turkish Transcript
python3 get_transcript.py Oi3Z1wlZXhg --transcript --lang tr
Video + Auto-detect Transcript
python3 get_transcript.py VIDEO_ID --transcript
Save to File
python3 get_transcript.py VIDEO_ID > output.txt
python3 get_transcript.py VIDEO_ID --transcript > full_output.txt
How It Works
1. Video ID Extraction
Automatically handles all YouTube URL formats:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_IDhttps://youtu.be/VIDEO_IDhttps://www.youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_IDVIDEO_ID(direct)
2. YouTube API Call (Free)
GET https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/videos
?part=snippet,statistics
&id=VIDEO_ID
&key=YOUR_API_KEY
Returns:
- Title, description, channel
- View count, like count, comment count
- Upload date, thumbnail, tags
3. Apify API Call (On Demand)
Only runs if --transcript flag provided:
POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/karamelo~youtube-transcripts/run-sync-get-dataset-items
Returns:
- Video captions/transcript
API Quotas
YouTube Data API (Free)
- 10,000 units/day (default)
- Video list: 1 unit per request
- Enough for ~10,000 video queries/day
Apify
- Free tier available
- ~$0.004 per run (very cheap)
- Only charged when transcript requested
Troubleshooting
| Issue | Solution |
|---|---|
| "API key not found" | Set YOUTUBE_API_KEY env var or add to credentials |
| "Video not found" | Check video ID is correct |
| "No transcript found" | Video may not have captions. Try --lang auto |
| "Apify error" | Check APIFY_TOKEN is set correctly |
Why Not Use Just One API?
- Only YouTube API: Can't get transcripts (no captions endpoint)
- Only Apify: Wastes credits for basic info, can't get view counts
- This skill: Best of both worlds!
Files
get_transcript.py- Main script
Credits
- YouTube Data API v3
- karamelo/youtube-transcripts Actor