YouTube Channel Scraper

Overview

youtube-channel-scraper.js is a Node.js module designed to scrape all videos from a specified YouTube channel. It retrieves comprehensive details for each video, including the title, an embed link, the timestamp of publication, and a detailed breakdown of the video description.

Prerequisites

Node.js installed on your system.
An active YouTube Data API key.
The Channel ID of the YouTube channel you wish to scrape.

Installation

Clone or download youtube-channel-scraper.js into your Node.js project.
Ensure you set the following environment variables:

YOUTUBE_API_KEY=your_youtube_api_key
YOUTUBE_CHANNEL_ID=your_channel_id

Replace your_youtube_api_key and your_channel_id with your actual API key and YouTube channel ID.

Usage

As a Standalone Script

To run the script independently, use Node.js:

node youtube-channel-scraper.js

This command lists all videos from the specified YouTube channel and outputs the details to the console.

As an Importable Module

To use youtube-channel-scraper in your Node.js project, import the listAllVideos function:

const listAllVideos = require('./path/to/youtube-channel-scraper');

listAllVideos()
  .then(videos => console.log(videos))
  .catch(error => console.error(error));

This function returns a promise that resolves to an array of video details.

Features

The module retrieves the following details for each video in the specified YouTube channel:

Video Title: The title of the video.
Embed Link: A direct link to embed the video.
Timestamp of Publication: The publication date and time of the video.
Video Description: The whole video description.

Limitations

Be mindful of the quota limits associated with your YouTube Data API key.
Pagination for channels with a very large number of videos is not specifically handled.

mitcdh/youtube-channel-scraper