Make a YouTube comment archiver

Creating a YouTube comment archiver means building a tool or script that fetches comments from a YouTube video and stores them (archives) for later use or analysis. Here’s a simple way to do this using Python and the YouTube Data API.

How It Works:

• Use the YouTube Data API v3 to fetch comments from a video.

• Save comments in a file (e.g., JSON or CSV) for archiving.

Prerequisites:

1. Python installed on your system.

2. Google Cloud Console project with YouTube Data API enabled.

3. API Key from Google Cloud Console.

Step-by-Step Python Script

python
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import os
import json
import requests

API_KEY = 'YOUR_YOUTUBE_API_KEY'
VIDEO_ID = 'YOUR_VIDEO_ID'
COMMENTS_PER_PAGE = 100  # max allowed by YouTube API

def get_comments(video_id, api_key):
    comments = []
    base_url = "https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/commentThreads"
    params = {
        'part': 'snippet',
        'videoId': video_id,
        'maxResults': COMMENTS_PER_PAGE,
        'textFormat': 'plainText',
        'key': api_key
    }

    while True:
        response = requests.get(base_url, params=params)
        if response.status_code != 200:
            print(f"Error: {response.status_code} - {response.text}")
            break
        
        data = response.json()
        for item in data.get('items', []):
            comment = item['snippet']['topLevelComment']['snippet']
            comments.append({
                'author': comment['authorDisplayName'],
                'comment': comment['textDisplay'],
                'published_at': comment['publishedAt'],
                'like_count': comment['likeCount']
            })
        
        # Pagination check
        if 'nextPageToken' in data:
            params['pageToken'] = data['nextPageToken']
        else:
            break

    return comments

def save_comments_to_json(comments, filename):
    with open(filename, 'w', encoding='utf-8') as f:
        json.dump(comments, f, ensure_ascii=False, indent=4)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    video_id = VIDEO_ID
    api_key = API_KEY

    comments = get_comments(video_id, api_key)
    print(f"Fetched {len(comments)} comments.")

    save_comments_to_json(comments, f'{video_id}_comments.json')
    print(f"Comments saved to {video_id}_comments.json")

How to Use

• Replace 'YOUR_YOUTUBE_API_KEY' with your actual API key.

• Replace 'YOUR_VIDEO_ID' with the YouTube video ID you want to archive comments from.

• Run the script; it will fetch all comments and save them in a JSON file named {video_id}_comments.json.

Notes

• YouTube API quota limits apply — extensive fetching might require quota management.

• This script archives only top-level comments; replies can be added with an extension.

• You can modify output to CSV if needed for easier reading or Excel import.

If you want me to build a version that includes replies or exports to CSV, just ask!