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This tutorial walks you through sending a synchronous request to each Bright Data YouTube Scraper API endpoint. By the end, you’ll have working examples for channels, videos, and comments.

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Prerequisites

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Request structure

Every synchronous request follows the same pattern: 
POST https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id={DATASET_ID}&format=json
Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN
Content-Type: application/json

[{"url": "https://www.youtube.com/..."}]
The only thing that changes between endpoints is the dataset_id and the input URL format.
Synchronous requests support up to 20 URLs and have a 1-minute timeout. If the request takes longer, the API automatically returns a snapshot_id instead. See async requests.

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Channels

Dataset ID: gd_lk538t2k2p1k3oos71 
curl -X POST \
  "https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id=gd_lk538t2k2p1k3oos71&format=json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '[{"url": "https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast"}]'
You should see a 200 response. This takes 10-30 seconds. 
[
  {
    "channel_name": "MrBeast",
    "channel_url": "https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast",
    "subscribers": 358000000,
    "total_videos": 850,
    "total_views": 50000000000,
    "description": "...",
    "is_verified": true
  }
]
Full Channels response schema

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Videos

Dataset ID: gd_lk56epmy2i5g7lzu0k 
curl -X POST \
  "https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id=gd_lk56epmy2i5g7lzu0k&format=json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '[{"url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"}]'

[
  {
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up",
    "channel_name": "Rick Astley",
    "views": 1500000000,
    "likes": 16000000,
    "date_posted": "2009-10-25T00:00:00.000Z",
    "duration": "3:33",
    "description": "...",
    "num_comments": 2700000
  }
]
Full Videos response schema

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Comments

Dataset ID: gd_lk9q0ew71spt1mxywf 
curl -X POST \
  "https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/scrape?dataset_id=gd_lk9q0ew71spt1mxywf&format=json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '[{"url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"}]'

[
  {
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "comment_user": "user123",
    "comment_user_url": "https://www.youtube.com/@user123",
    "comment_date": "2024-04-05T12:30:00.000Z",
    "comment": "This song never gets old!",
    "likes": 250,
    "replies": 12,
    "comment_id": "UgyKz0..."
  }
]
Full Comments response schema

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Quick reference: dataset IDs

EndpointDataset IDURL pattern
Videosgd_lk56epmy2i5g7lzu0kyoutube.com/watch?v={video_id}
Channelsgd_lk538t2k2p1k3oos71youtube.com/@{handle}
Commentsgd_lk9q0ew71spt1mxywfyoutube.com/watch?v={video_id}

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Output formats

Control the response format with the format query parameter:
ValueDescription
jsonJSON array (default)
ndjsonNewline-delimited JSON, one record per line
csvComma-separated values

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Next steps

Async batch requests

Scrape hundreds of URLs in a single batch job.

API reference

Full parameter and response field reference.