YouTube Channel Scraper

A browser-based YouTube channel discovery and scraping tool.

Part of ScrapeClaw — a suite of production-ready, agentic social media scrapers for Instagram, YouTube, X/Twitter, and Facebook built with Python & Playwright, no API keys required.

---
name: youtube-scrapper
description: Discover and scrape YouTube channels from your browser.
emoji: 📺
version: 1.0.2
author: influenza
tags:
  - youtube
  - scraping
  - social-media
  - channel-discovery
  - influencer-discovery
metadata:
  clawdbot:
    requires:
      bins:
        - python3
        - chromium

    config:
      stateDirs:
        - data/output
        - data/queue
        - thumbnails
      outputFormats:
        - json
        - csv
---

Overview

This skill provides a two-phase YouTube scraping system:

Channel Discovery — Find YouTube channels via Google Search (browser-based, no API key required)
Browser Scraping — Scrape public channel data using Playwright with anti-detection (no login required)

Features

🔍 - Discover YouTube channels by location and category
🌐 - Full browser simulation for accurate scraping
🛡️ - Browser fingerprinting, human behavior simulation, and stealth scripts
📊 - Channel info, subscribers, views, videos, engagement data, and media
💾 - JSON export with downloaded thumbnails
🔄 - Resume interrupted scraping sessions
⚡ - Auto-skip unavailable channels and low-subscriber profiles
🌍 - Built-in residential proxy support with 4 providers
🗺️ - Regional configs for US, UK, Europe, India, Gulf, and East Asia

Usage

Agent Tool Interface

For OpenClaw agent integration, the skill provides JSON output:

# Discover YouTube channels (returns JSON queue)
python scripts/youtube_channel_discovery.py --categories tech --locations India

# Scrape from a queue file
python scripts/youtube_channel_scraper.py --queue data/queue/your_queue_file.json

# Full orchestration — discover + scrape in one go
python scripts/youtube_orchestrator.py --config resources/scraper_config_ind.json

Output Data

Channel Data Structure

{
  "channel_name": "Marques Brownlee",
  "channel_url": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd",
  "subscribers": 19200000,
  "total_views": 4500000000,
  "video_count": 1800,
  "description": "MKBHD: Quality Tech Videos...",
  "joined_date": "Mar 21, 2008",
  "country": "United States",
  "profile_pic_url": "https://...",
  "profile_pic_local": "thumbnails/mkbhd/profile_abc123.jpg",
  "banner_url": "https://...",
  "banner_local": "thumbnails/mkbhd/banner_def456.jpg",
  "influencer_tier": "mega",
  "category": "tech",
  "scrape_location": "New York",
  "scraped_at": "2026-02-17T12:00:00",
  "recent_videos": [
    {
      "title": "Galaxy S26 Ultra Review",
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...",
      "views": 5200000,
      "published": "2 days ago",
      "duration": "14:32",
      "thumbnail_url": "https://...",
      "thumbnail_local": "thumbnails/mkbhd/video_0_ghi789.jpg"
    }
  ]
}

Queue File Structure

{
  "location": "India",
  "category": "tech",
  "total": 20,
  "channels": ["@channel1", "@channel2", "..."],
  "completed": ["@channel1"],
  "failed": {"@channel3": "not_found"},
  "current_index": 2,
  "created_at": "2026-02-17T12:00:00",
  "source": "google_search"
}

Influencer Tiers

Tier	Subscribers Range
nano	< 1,000
micro	1,000 – 10,000
mid	10,000 – 100,000
macro	100,000 – 1M
mega	> 1,000,000

File Outputs

Queue files: data/queue/{region}/{location}_{category}_{timestamp}.json
Scraped data: data/output_{region}/{channel_name}.json
Thumbnails: thumbnails_{region}/{channel}/profile_*.jpg, thumbnails_{region}/{channel}/video_*.jpg
Progress: data/progress/discovery_progress_{region}.json

Configuration

Regional config files live in resources/:

resources/scraper_config_us.json
resources/scraper_config_uk.json
resources/scraper_config_eur.json
resources/scraper_config_ind.json
resources/scraper_config_gulf.json
resources/scraper_config_east.json

Example config (resources/scraper_config_ind.json):

{
  "proxy": {
    "enabled": false,
    "provider": "brightdata",
    "country": "",
    "sticky": true,
    "sticky_ttl_minutes": 10
  },
  "categories": [
    "gaming", "tech", "beauty", "fashion", "fitness",
    "food", "travel", "music", "education", "comedy",
    "lifestyle", "cooking", "diy", "art", "finance",
    "health", "entertainment"
  ],
  "locations": [
    "India", "Mumbai", "Delhi", "Bangalore", "Hyderabad",
    "Chennai", "Kolkata", "Pune", "Ahmedabad", "Jaipur"
  ],
  "max_videos_to_scrape": 6,
  "headless": false,
  "results_per_search": 20,
  "search_delay": [3, 7],
  "scrape_delay": [2, 5],
  "rate_limit_wait": 60,
  "max_retries": 3
}

Filters Applied

The scraper automatically filters out:

❌ Unavailable or terminated channels
❌ Channels with < 500 subscribers (configurable)
❌ Non-existent channel URLs
❌ Already scraped entries (deduplication)
❌ Rate-limited requests (auto-retry with backoff)

Anti-Detection

The scraper uses multiple anti-detection techniques:

Browser fingerprinting — Rotating fingerprint profiles (viewport, user agent, timezone, WebGL, etc.)
Stealth JavaScript — Hides navigator.webdriver, spoofs plugins/languages/hardware, canvas noise, fake chrome object
Human behavior simulation — Random delays, mouse movements, scrolling patterns
Network randomization — Variable timing between requests
Request interception — Blocks known fingerprinting and tracking scripts

Troubleshooting

No Channels Discovered

Try different location/category combinations
Check if Google Search is returning CAPTCHA pages
Run with --headless false to debug visually

Rate Limiting

Reduce scraping speed (increase delays in config)
Run during off-peak hours
Use a residential proxy (see below)

Browser Crashes

The orchestrator auto-restarts the browser every 50 channels
Interrupted scrapes can be resumed — queue files track progress automatically

🌐 Residential Proxy Support

Why Use a Residential Proxy?

Running a scraper at scale without a residential proxy will get your IP blocked fast. Here's why proxies are essential for long-running scrapes:

Advantage	Description
Avoid IP Bans	Residential IPs look like real household users, not data-center bots. YouTube is far less likely to flag them.
Automatic IP Rotation	Each request (or session) gets a fresh IP, so rate-limits never stack up on one address.
Geo-Targeting	Route traffic through a specific country/city so scraped content matches the target audience's locale.
Sticky Sessions	Keep the same IP for a configurable window (e.g. 10 min) — critical for maintaining a consistent browsing session.
Higher Success Rate	Rotating residential IPs deliver 95%+ success rates compared to ~30% with data-center proxies on YouTube.
Long-Running Scrapes	Scrape thousands of channels over hours or days without interruption.
Concurrent Scraping	Run multiple browser instances across different IPs simultaneously.

Recommended Proxy Providers

We have affiliate partnerships with top residential proxy providers. Using these links supports continued development of this skill:

Provider	Best For	Sign Up
Bright Data	World's largest network, 72M+ IPs, enterprise-grade	👉 Get Bright Data
IProyal	Pay-as-you-go, 195+ countries, no traffic expiry	👉 Get IProyal
Storm Proxies	Fast & reliable, developer-friendly API, competitive pricing	👉 Get Storm Proxies
NetNut	ISP-grade network, 52M+ IPs, direct connectivity	👉 Get NetNut

Setup Steps

1. Get Your Proxy Credentials

Username (from your provider dashboard)
Password (from your provider dashboard)
Host and Port are pre-configured per provider (or use custom)

2. Configure via Environment Variables

export PROXY_ENABLED=true
export PROXY_PROVIDER=brightdata    # brightdata | iproyal | stormproxies | netnut | custom
export PROXY_USERNAME=your_user
export PROXY_PASSWORD=your_pass
export PROXY_COUNTRY=us             # optional: two-letter country code
export PROXY_STICKY=true            # optional: keep same IP per session

3. Provider-Specific Host/Port Defaults

These are auto-configured when you set the provider name:

Provider	Host	Port
Bright Data	`brd.superproxy.io`	`22225`
IProyal	`proxy.iproyal.com`	`12321`
Storm Proxies	`rotating.stormproxies.com`	`9999`
NetNut	`gw-resi.netnut.io`	`5959`

Override with PROXY_HOST / PROXY_PORT env vars if your plan uses a different gateway.

4. Custom Proxy Provider

For any other proxy service, set provider to custom and supply host/port manually:

{
  "proxy": {
    "enabled": true,
    "provider": "custom",
    "host": "your.proxy.host",
    "port": 8080,
    "username": "user",
    "password": "pass"
  }
}

Running the Scraper with Proxy

Once configured, the scraper picks up the proxy automatically — no extra flags needed:

# Discover and scrape as usual — proxy is applied automatically
python scripts/youtube_orchestrator.py --config resources/scraper_config_ind.json

# The log will confirm proxy is active:
# INFO - Proxy enabled: <ProxyManager provider=brightdata enabled host=brd.superproxy.io:22225>
# INFO - Browser using proxy: brightdata → brd.superproxy.io:22225

Using the Proxy Manager Programmatically

from proxy_manager import ProxyManager

# From config (auto-reads config from resources/)
pm = ProxyManager.from_config()

# From environment variables
pm = ProxyManager.from_env()

# Manual construction
pm = ProxyManager(
    provider="brightdata",
    username="your_user",
    password="your_pass",
    country="us",
    sticky=True
)

# For Playwright browser context
proxy = pm.get_playwright_proxy()
# → {"server": "http://brd.superproxy.io:22225", "username": "user-country-us-session-abc123", "password": "pass"}

# For requests / aiohttp
proxies = pm.get_requests_proxy()
# → {"http": "http://user:pass@host:port", "https": "http://user:pass@host:port"}

# Force new IP (rotates session ID)
pm.rotate_session()

# Debug info
print(pm.info())

Best Practices for Long-Running Scrapes

Use sticky sessions — YouTube requires consistent IPs during a browsing session. Set "sticky": true.
Target the right country — Set "country": "us" (or your target region) so YouTube serves content in the expected locale.
Combine with existing anti-detection — This scraper already has fingerprinting, stealth scripts, and human behavior simulation. The proxy is the final layer.
Rotate sessions between batches — Call pm.rotate_session() between large batches of channels to get a fresh IP.
Use delays — Even with proxies, respect scrape_delay in config (default 2-5s) to avoid aggressive patterns.
Monitor your proxy dashboard — All providers have dashboards showing bandwidth usage and success rates.

Notes

No login required — Only scrapes publicly visible content
Checkpoint/resume — Queue files track progress; interrupted scrapes can be resumed automatically
Rate limiting — Waits 60s on rate limit, exponential backoff on consecutive failures
Resilient orchestration — Auto-restarts browser, retries failed channels, graceful shutdown on SIGINT/SIGTERM
Regional configs — Pre-built configs for 6 regions covering 200+ cities worldwide

Youtube Scrapper

Description