What's in the download
One row per comment in your Excel/CSV file (or one object in JSON). The fields:
- author — the channel name of the commenter
- author_channel_url — link to that commenter's YouTube channel
- comment — the comment text, with @mentions and hashtags preserved
- likes — like count on the comment
- published_at — ISO 8601 UTC timestamp
- updated_at — last edit timestamp (if the comment was edited)
- reply_to — the parent comment's author for replies (empty for top-level)
- is_pinned, is_hearted_by_creator — bonus signals on which comments the channel owner highlighted
- permalink — direct URL to the comment on YouTube
Format guide
Excel (.xlsx)
Pre-formatted with auto-filter on every column, frozen header row, and timestamp columns formatted as Excel dates. Available on every plan including the free tier.
CSV (.csv)
UTF-8 with BOM (so Excel-on-Windows opens it correctly), RFC 4180-compliant escaping. Available from the Personal plan up.
JSON (.json)
Nested reply structure preserved. Best for programmatic consumers. Available on the Business plan.
What it filters out
YouTube applies its own held-for-review and shadow-block layers. We respect them — what you get is what a logged-out viewer sees on the video page. Comments hidden by the creator or auto-flagged by YouTube's spam filter aren't in the download.
Common workflows
- Creator monthly reporting — download all comments from the month's uploads, count by channel, identify top engaged subscribers.
- Sponsored-video deliverables — when a brand asks for "all comments on the sponsored upload", deliver them an Excel + screenshot in minutes.
- Product-launch giveaway — download then run our random comment picker against the export.
- Sentiment analysis — pipe the CSV into ChatGPT or Anthropic Claude with a "score 1-5 for positive sentiment" prompt.
- Academic research — bulk-download comments across many videos for discourse analysis or NLP training data.
YouTube Live and Shorts
This page handles regular YouTube videos and Shorts. For chat from a Live broadcast use our YouTube Live chat exporter — it pulls the live-chat replay rather than the video's comment thread.
Plan limits
Per-video size scales with your plan. Free (no signup): up to 100 results per video. Personal: 5,000. Premium: 50,000. Business: 250,000 — see pricing for the full feature comparison and API tiers for the API-specific limits.