YouTube search API reference

GET /v1/youtube/search

Videos, channels, playlists, Shorts and live streams for a query. Shorts and live results are Posts of type short and live. For stricter title matching use YouTube's intitle: operator.

Cost: 1 credit
Cache: Results are kept up to 30 days; send max_age_days to reuse them for free.
Timeout: A request still running after about 25 seconds answers 202 with a job to poll (Batch and jobs).

Parameters#

Name	Type	Required	Description
`query`	string	yes	Search terms. Also accepted as `keyword`, `q`.
`type`	string	no	Kind of result. One of `video`, `channel`, `playlist`, `short`, `live`. Also accepted as `filter`. Also accepted values: `videos` for `video`, `shorts` for `short`, `channels` for `channel`, `playlists` for `playlist`.
`upload_date`	string	no	Upload date filter. One of `hour`, `today`, `week`, `month`, `year`. Also accepted as `uploadDate`. Also accepted values: `this_week` for `week`, `this_month` for `month`, `this_year` for `year`.
`duration`	string	no	Video length (videos only, not Shorts). One of `short`, `medium`, `long`. Also accepted values: `under_3_min` for `short`, `between_3_and_20_min` for `medium`, `over_20_min` for `long`.
`sort`	string	no	Order of results. YouTube now answers `latest` and `rating` in relevance order, so they are refused with invalid_params; use `relevance` or `popular` (view count) and narrow with `upload_date`. One of `relevance`, `latest`, `popular`, `rating`. Default `relevance`. Also accepted as `sort_by`, `sortBy`, `order`.
`include_extras`	boolean	no	Also fetch likes, comment count and description per video (slightly slower). Default `false`. Also accepted as `includeExtras`.

Every request also accepts:

cursor: the cursor from the previous page (Pagination).
region: two-letter country code for results that vary by country. Changing it restarts the cursor chain.
trim: true for a smaller response without null fields and extra.
raw: true to also get the platform's original object as raw.
max_age_days: accept a cached result up to this many days old, for 0 credits (Caching).

Example request#

Set your key in the environment first (see Authentication).

1curl -G "https://api.socialscrape.dev/v1/youtube/search" \2  -H "x-api-key: $SOCIALSCRAPE_API_KEY" \3  --data-urlencode "query=lofi hip hop" \4  --data-urlencode "type=playlist"

1import os2import requests34params = {5    "query": "lofi hip hop",6    "type": "playlist",7}8res = requests.get(9    "https://api.socialscrape.dev/v1/youtube/search",10    headers={"x-api-key": os.environ["SOCIALSCRAPE_API_KEY"]},11    params=params,12)13body = res.json()1415if body["ok"]:16    print(body["data"])17else:18    print(body["error"]["code"], body["error"]["message"])

1const url = new URL("https://api.socialscrape.dev/v1/youtube/search");2url.search = new URLSearchParams({3  "query": "lofi hip hop",4  "type": "playlist"5}).toString();6const res = await fetch(url, {7  headers: { "x-api-key": process.env.SOCIALSCRAPE_API_KEY! },8});9const body = await res.json();1011if (body.ok) {12  console.log(body.data);13} else {14  console.error(body.error.code, body.error.message);15}

1{2  "nodes": [3    {4      "name": "SocialScrape YouTube search",5      "type": "n8n-nodes-base.httpRequest",6      "typeVersion": 4.2,7      "position": [8        0,9        010      ],11      "parameters": {12        "method": "GET",13        "url": "https://api.socialscrape.dev/v1/youtube/search",14        "sendQuery": true,15        "queryParameters": {16          "parameters": [17            {18              "name": "query",19              "value": "lofi hip hop"20            },21            {22              "name": "type",23              "value": "playlist"24            }25          ]26        },27        "sendHeaders": true,28        "headerParameters": {29          "parameters": [30            {31              "name": "x-api-key",32              "value": "={{ $env.SOCIALSCRAPE_API_KEY }}"33            }34          ]35        }36      }37    }38  ],39  "connections": {}40}

Example response#

This is a sample from a recorded response, lists and long text are shortened. Status 200.

200 OKSample response

1{2  "ok": true,3  "credits_charged": 1,4  "credits_remaining": 4999,5  "cached": false,6  "cached_at": null,7  "request_id": "req_3838b9f141b89fb3defc3c92",8  "data": {9    "object": "list",10    "items": [11      {12        "object": "collection",13        "platform": "youtube",14        "id": "PLF3eNE6vR-4WsBf8qnJLqBywqX39QczxJ",15        "url": "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF3eNE6vR-4WsBf8qnJLqBywqX39QczxJ",16        "kind": "playlist",17        "title": "1 Hour of Lofi Hip Hop",18        "description": null,19        "owner": {20          "id": null,21          "handle": null,22          "name": "the bootleg boy 2",23          "url": null,24          "avatar_url": null,25          "verified": null26        },27        "item_count": 75,28        "cover_url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1TVlO05Ugjw/hq720.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEXCNAFEJQDSFryq4qpAwkIARUAAIhCGAE=&rs=AOn4CLD21TbNM4alSYIuPb7svRS8e_47Ug",29        "updated_at": null,30        "extra": null31      },32      {33        "object": "collection",34        "platform": "youtube",35        "id": "PLeY3OWvWpq2NZ1yVqYevCYIN5AQwsWXtj",36        "url": "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeY3OWvWpq2NZ1yVqYevCYIN5AQwsWXtj",37        "kind": "playlist",38        "title": "The-Simpsons-Chill-Music",39        "description": null,40        "owner": {41          "id": null,42          "handle": null,43          "name": "B1G T3A",44          "url": null,45          "avatar_url": null,46          "verified": null47        },48        "item_count": 30,49        "cover_url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iicfmXFALM8/hq720.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEXCNAFEJQDSFryq4qpAwkIARUAAIhCGAE=&rs=AOn4CLDmeuvnlUc6oCTTZIH_Rouwm-HK7g",50        "updated_at": null,51        "extra": null52      }53    ],54    "cursor": "o20",55    "has_more": true,56    "parent": null57  },58  "cursor": "o20",59  "has_more": true60}

Response#

A list of Post or Profile or Collection or Community objects in data.items, with data.cursor and data.has_more.

See Data models for every field. The envelope around data is described in Responses.

Errors#

Failures are free: credits_charged is 0. Branch on error.code, never on the message.

Code	HTTP	Retry	Meaning
`invalid_params`	400	no	A parameter is missing, unknown or has the wrong type.
`not_found`	404	no	The platform says this profile, post or item does not exist.

Every request can also fail with the account and platform errors listed on the Errors page.

Example error:

1{2  "ok": false,3  "error": {4    "code": "invalid_params",5    "message": "A parameter is missing, unknown or has the wrong type.",6    "retryable": false7  },8  "credits_charged": 0,9  "request_id": "req_4a2a4bda84085b7dfd559740"10}

YouTube channel details (GET /v1/youtube/channel)
YouTube channel videos (GET /v1/youtube/channel/videos)
Search inside a YouTube channel (GET /v1/youtube/channel/search)
YouTube channel playlists (GET /v1/youtube/channel/playlists)
YouTube channel Shorts (GET /v1/youtube/channel/shorts)
YouTube channel live streams (GET /v1/youtube/channel/lives)
YouTube channel community posts (GET /v1/youtube/channel/community-posts)
YouTube video or Short details (GET /v1/youtube/video)

Parameters#

Example request#

Example response#

Response#

Errors#

Related endpoints#