Frequently asked questions

CommentShark is a web app that helps you scale engagement with your YouTube audience. It's the ultimate YouTube comment management tool. CommentShark allows you to quickly respond to comments, reply to multiple comments at once, use the help of AI to generate replies, template repetitive responses, search and filter your comments, find your top commenters, see your history with them, and much more!

CommentShark connects to your YouTube channel via the official API. You set up "Rules" that match specific text, use AI classification, or text matching patterns. When a new comment matches a rule, CommentShark can automatically reply, moderate (hold for review or reject), or delete the comment—running 24/7 in the background. You choose whether actions happen automatically or require your approval.

YouTube Studio lets you moderate comments manually — one at a time. CommentShark adds automation on top: keyword rules, AI classification, auto-replies, and scheduled moderation across all your videos. Think of it as YouTube Studio's comment tools on autopilot.

Absolutely. We use official YouTube APIs and OAuth 2.0 for secure authentication. We only request the permissions necessary to manage your comments. We don't store your password, and you can revoke access at any time via your Google Account settings. See more at our Terms of Service.

To get started, simply sign up with your Google account and link your YouTube channel. From there, you can start exploring the different features and configure your settings. Just login at /dashboard to get started.

Yes. CommentShark installs as an app from your browser (look for "Install" in the address bar on desktop or Android, or Share > Add to Home Screen on iPhone and iPad). Push notifications are enabled per device from your profile settings, so you can hear about things like replies waiting for your approval the moment they happen, even when the dashboard is closed. On iPhone and iPad, push requires the app to be added to your Home Screen first. See step-by-step install instructions for iOS and Android.

Yes — CommentShark is a Progressive Web App (PWA), so it installs straight from your browser on iPhone, iPad, or Android with no app store required. Once installed it runs full-screen like a native app and can send push notifications. See how to install it for step-by-step instructions.

Yes — every account starts on the Free plan with no card required. It includes AI-generated replies on keyword and regex rules, capped at 15 executions per month so you can try the workflow on real comments before paying. When you outgrow the cap, upgrade from the Billing page to Plus, Pro, or Premium for higher limits and AI comment classification.

CommentShark has a flexible pricing model to suit your needs. Current plans include:

• Free: 20 comment actions per month.
• Starter ($19.00/mo): 500 comment actions per month plus AI features.
• Creator ($49.00/mo): 1,500 comment actions per month.
• Custom: if you need more than that, get in touch and we'll put together a plan that fits your channel, with priority support and an onboarding call.

See the latest details on our pricing page.

If you reach your monthly limit for comment actions, CommentShark pauses running your rules until your next billing cycle. You'll be notified, so you never find out by accident. From there you have two ways to start again immediately: move up a plan, or buy a one-time action pack that tops up this account without changing your plan.

Yes. Each CommentShark workspace is linked to a single YouTube channel, but one login can reach all of the channels you own or have been invited to, and you switch between them from your Profile page.

If you own several channels, set them up like this:

1. Connect each channel separately with Google sign-in, picking that channel when Google asks which account to use.
2. While signed in to each channel, go to Settings → Team Access and invite your own email address as an Admin.
3. Accept each invite from your inbox. After that, sign in once and the My Channel Access section on your Profile page lists every channel with a Switch button, so there is no signing in and out.

If you were invited to manage someone else's channel and do not have a channel of your own, use the Team Member Sign In page to request a magic link.

What to expect. Switching is instant, but there is no single merged feed showing every channel's comments in one stream. You work in one channel's workspace at a time, which is usually what you want, since rules, tone, and approval queues are all per channel. If you run several channels, a common setup is to point every channel's contact email at the same inbox, so the approval emails all arrive in one place with Approve and Reject buttons you can click from the email itself. That inbox becomes your shared queue, and you only open a channel's dashboard when you want to edit a reply before it posts.

Billing. Billing is normally one subscription per channel, and only the channel owner can manage it. Admins can run the workspace but cannot change billing. If you are managing several channels and per-channel billing does not fit how you work, get in touch and we'll sort out something that does.

No. For channels set to “Made for Kids,” YouTube disables its channel-wide comments API as part of COPPA compliance, so CommentShark can't sync or reply to comments on those channels, even if individual videos still show comments. This is a YouTube restriction on children's content, not a CommentShark limitation.

CommentShark accounts are created by the YouTube channel owner through Google sign-in. If you manage or work on a channel but are not the account owner, you cannot sign up directly — the owner needs to create the account first, then invite you as a team member.

Once the owner has signed up, they can go to Settings → Team Access and invite you by email. You'll receive a magic link to accept the invite — no YouTube credentials or CommentShark subscription required on your end.

If you've already been invited and just need to log in again, use the Team Member Sign In page to request a fresh magic link.

Yes! You can invite team members to help manage your CommentShark account without sharing your YouTube credentials. Go to Settings → Team Access to invite people by email. You can assign roles like Admin (full access except billing), Editor (can reply and manage rules), or Viewer (read-only). Team members will receive an invite link at their email address, and returning delegates can use the Team Member Sign In page to request a fresh login link later. Only the channel owner can upgrade, cancel, or otherwise manage billing.

You can permanently delete your account and all associated data from the Profile page in your dashboard. Scroll to the bottom to find the "Danger Zone". This action is irreversible.

Yes! You can choose between Autonomous mode (replies are posted immediately) or Approval Required mode. In Approval Required mode, all AI-generated replies go to a queue where you can edit, approve, or reject them before they go live.

We use advanced AI models to analyze the sentiment and context of each comment. You can set custom instructions (e.g., "Be polite and grateful" or "Answer as a pirate") or use our smart templates. The AI generates a unique, personalized response that sounds like you. It learns from your previous replies to provide more natural responses, and you can provide more context to the AI to help it generate more accurate responses.

Three things shape the voice, and the most important one is free: your own replies. Every reply you write on YouTube syncs back into CommentShark and becomes an example. When a new comment arrives, we pull up to five of your past replies into the prompt, favoring the ones you wrote to similar comments, so the AI can see how you actually answer. The fastest way to teach it your style is simply to keep replying on YouTube the way you always have. Replies the AI wrote itself are deliberately excluded from those examples so it never drifts by learning from its own output, though replies you edited before approving do count because they carry your voice. On top of that, each rule has its own instructions where you can spell out tone and talking points, and your Channel Context blurb tells the AI who you are, what your channel covers, and how you talk to your audience. CommentShark can draft that blurb for you once it has enough of your replies to work from, and you can edit it any time.

Comment actions execute after comments are synced from YouTube. Paid channels sync every 30 minutes, so the average response time is around 15 minutes. Free tier channels sync every 2 hours, so actions can take up to a couple of hours. This sync schedule ensures reliable delivery while managing API quota efficiently. You can see which comments were read and which ones matched your rules in the Activity tab.

The first time CommentShark loads your comments into our database (for example when you open the Comments page or a video for the first time after connecting), we do not run reply rules on that ingest. That prevents flooding old threads with automated replies. After that, new comments are eligible once they appear in a sync. On paid plans, background sync runs every 30 minutes; opening Comments while logged in can also refresh from YouTube if your data is more than about a minute stale.

Yes! Beyond automatic replies, you can create rules that hold comments for review, reject them outright, or delete your own replies/comments. For comments left by other viewers, YouTube's API removes them via moderation actions rather than direct deletion. This is perfect for filtering spam, hate speech, or policy-violating content before it appears on your videos. Learn more about our YouTube comment moderation capabilities.

YouTube API limitations — CommentShark uses the official YouTube API, so we only support actions YouTube exposes. That means we cannot:

• Like or heart comments
• Pin or unpin comments (YouTube's API doesn't expose pin status directly, so our pinned comment tooling uses a heuristic)
• Edit comments written by other viewers
• Mark comments as spam via a dedicated spam action
• List or discover rejected comments after they've been rejected
• Manage comments on videos where YouTube has disabled comments
• Manage comments on private videos. YouTube removes the comment section from private videos entirely (even in YouTube Studio), so there is nothing to sync or reply to
• Post a reply to a video that has since been deleted. If a video is removed while a reply is awaiting approval, that reply can no longer be posted and will show as failed in your activity feed
• Reply to live chat during an active live stream — live chat is a separate YouTube API from regular comments and is not supported

Product limitations — a few things CommentShark doesn't do by design:

• Rules are not real-time. Comments are synced on a schedule (every 30 minutes on paid plans, every 2 hours on free), so there's a natural delay before automation runs.
• Rules are forward-looking only. They only apply to comments posted after the rule is enabled. Use the Replay feature (paid plans) to retroactively process older comments.
• One channel per account. Each CommentShark account manages one YouTube channel. To manage additional channels, the channel owner must create a separate account and invite you as a team member.
• Your channel's comments only. CommentShark can only manage comments on videos you own or have been granted access to. It cannot act on comments on other channels' videos.
• Public videos only. Comment sync and automation cover your public videos. Unlisted videos (including most YouTube ad and promoted videos) aren't currently synced. If unlisted video support matters for your workflow, get in touch.

No. Comments on YouTube are classified as spam by Youtube if they violate policy guidelines. You can read more about YouTube's spam policies and community guidelines.

The Bulk Pinned Comment Editor lets you scan your recent videos for pinned comments and update them all at once. You can use find & replace, apply a template with variables like {video_title} or {channel_name}, or edit each comment individually. It's perfect for keeping your pinned comments consistent across all your videos.

Yes — paid users get an activity report summarizing the same KPIs as the analytics dashboard (replies posted, time saved, top rules, success rate). Choose daily, weekly, or monthly cadence from Settings → Notifications. Reports skip periods with zero activity, so you'll never get a 'nothing happened' email.

Sign in with your YouTube account, create auto reply rules with text match or AI triggers, choose a response template or AI-generated reply, and activate the rule so CommentShark can post for you 24/7.

Auto reply rules combine a match condition, a response, and a posting mode. CommentShark monitors incoming comments, checks them against your rule logic, and either posts immediately or queues the reply for approval based on your settings.

Yes. You can create reusable templates with variables, add AI instructions for tone or talking points, and tailor responses for different scenarios so every automated comment still sounds on brand.

Yes. Paid plans can retroactively replay rules on older comments from a single video or from a channel date in the past. Replayed matches count against your normal monthly comment-action quota, action emails stay suppressed, user-initiated replays have a 18-hour cooldown between runs, and past-date channel replays use the calendar date you selected in your local time zone.

Yes! Use the "Test all rules" button on the auto-reply rules page. Simply paste sample comment text to instantly see which rules match, why they matched, and what response would be generated, without posting anything to YouTube. This is the fastest way to verify your rule logic without waiting for actual comments.

Not on their own. Automation rules are forward-looking by default, so they only apply to new comments that arrive after you enable the rule. This prevents accidentally spamming replies on old videos or comments you've already handled manually. When you do want to cover the backlog, paid plans can deliberately replay a rule on older comments from a single video or from a past date you choose.

The Activity tab shows all comments that CommentShark has read, including which ones matched your rules and which were skipped. You can see exactly why a comment matched (or didn't match), which rule triggered, and what action was taken. This is helpful for debugging rules and understanding your automation's behavior.

A few things to check:

• Rules are forward-looking. They only apply to comments posted after the rule was enabled. Existing comments won't trigger it.
• Sync is not instant. Paid channels sync every 30 minutes, so there's a natural delay of up to 30 minutes between a comment being posted and CommentShark processing it.
• Check the Activity tab. Every comment CommentShark processes appears here with a status — actioned, skipped, pending approval, or failed. If a comment was received but didn't trigger your rule, it will show as skipped with the reason.
• Test your rule. Use the "Test all rules" button and paste in the exact comment text to verify your match condition is correct before waiting for real comments.

If the Activity tab shows nothing at all, comments may not have synced yet. Give it one sync cycle (every 30 minutes on paid plans, every 2 hours on free). Still stumped? Contact support and include the rule name and a sample comment — we'll take a look.

It depends on whether the stream is active or already published:

• During an active live stream (live chat): Not supported. YouTube Live Chat is a separate API from the standard comments API, and CommentShark does not connect to it.
• After the live stream ends and is published as a video: Fully supported. Once a live stream is published, it appears in your channel's video library with a regular comment section—just like any other video. CommentShark will sync its comments and apply your rules automatically. No special setup required.

Follow-up rules let you build multi-step conversation funnels. When your bot replies to a comment and the original commenter replies back, CommentShark can automatically continue the conversation with the next step you've defined. This is great for lead capture, onboarding sequences, or guiding viewers through a series of questions.

There is no hard limit on the number of follow-up steps. You can add as many steps as you need to build your conversation funnel. Each follow-up step counts toward your plan's rule limit.

Yes. Follow-up steps count toward your plan's rule limit just like regular rules. Each follow-up reply that gets posted also counts as one comment action toward your monthly comment-action quota (the same quota that covers auto-rule executions and manual replies).

No. CommentShark automatically ignores comments made by the channel owner and comments you've already replied to. This prevents infinite reply loops and duplicate responses. Rules also only apply to new comments received after the rule is enabled (they are forward-looking).

A comment counts the moment one of your rules matches it, not when the action is published. That means:

• Matches sent for approval count, even if you skip or reject them in your approval queue. The matching work (including the AI classification and the drafted reply) has already happened by then.
• Comments that match no rule are free. CommentShark reads every comment on your channel, and reading costs you nothing. Only matches count.
• One comment counts once. Only the highest-priority matching rule fires per comment, so a comment can't burn several actions at once.
• Every action type counts the same. A reply, a delete, a hold-for-review, and a notify-me email are all one comment action.
• Replies you post yourself count too, including replies you write in the dashboard and each follow-up reply in a follow-up chain. Manually deleting or moderating a comment doesn't.

You can see exactly what was matched and what was skipped in the Activity tab.

Your plan's limit is monthly, not daily, so you can spend it as fast as your comments arrive. Behind that there is one safety ceiling: a single channel can take up to 5,000 actions per day.

• It is above every plan's monthly allowance, so if you're spending your plan you will never meet it. It exists to contain a runaway, not to ration your plan.
• Nothing is lost if you do reach it. Remaining actions queue up and resume automatically the next day. They still count once, whenever they run.
• It applies per channel. Extra capacity you've added on top of your plan is spent against the same daily ceiling, so a very large top-up spends out over a few days rather than all at once.

Actions are also spread out within the hour rather than posted in one burst. That is deliberate: a wall of identical replies appearing at once is what makes a comment section look automated.

Since quota is spent on matches, the whole game is making your rules match the comments you actually want handled and nothing else. A few things that help:

• Trigger on distinctive words, not common ones. A rule on "link" or "help" fires on half your comments. A rule on your product name fires on the ones worth answering.
• For AI rules, say what to exclude. Naming the boundary ("questions about my camera gear, not general how-to questions") is what keeps a rule from matching everything.
• Test before you enable. The "Test all rules" button shows you what a rule would match without posting anything, and without spending quota.
• Prune rules that never pull their weight. Check the Activity tab for a rule that keeps matching comments you always skip, and either tighten its trigger or turn it off.

The full write-up lives in our getting started guide and on the comment actions page.

Not currently. All our plans are billed on a monthly basis, giving you the flexibility to upgrade, downgrade, or cancel at any time without long-term commitments.

Use the Contact Sales form and share your team size, goals, and comment volume. We'll follow up with a tailored enterprise plan.

Pick a plan on the pricing page or from the Billing page in your dashboard — either takes you to secure Stripe checkout. There's also a direct link that always works, even if a button in the app misbehaves: go to commentshark.com/checkout, sign in with your YouTube account, and you'll land straight in checkout for the plan you pick.

Open the Billing page in your dashboard and click "Manage Subscription" to open your Stripe customer portal — change your plan, update your payment method, or download invoices there. You can also go directly to commentshark.com/stripe-portal at any time: sign in with your YouTube account and you'll land in the portal (or in checkout, if you don't have a subscription yet).

You can cancel your subscription at any time from the Billing page in your dashboard. Click "Manage Subscription" to open the customer portal where you can manage your plan or cancel. Your features will remain active until the end of your current billing period. If the dashboard button gives you trouble, the direct link commentshark.com/stripe-portal takes you to the same portal.

Then you get your money back. Email support@commentshark.com within 7 days of your first payment and we refund it in full, no questions asked. The guarantee covers your first paid subscription on a self-serve plan, once per account, and the refund goes back to your original payment method. Your account simply returns to the free plan. See the billing section of our Terms of Service for the full wording.

Yes. Action packs are a one-time purchase that adds comment actions to your account without touching your monthly plan. They're built for the month a video takes off, not for a permanent step up.

• Bite Pack · 500 actions · $29
• Feast Pack · 1,500 actions · $79
• Frenzy Pack · 5,000 actions · $189

Buy one from your billing page or your profile page.

One honest note: a pack is priced for convenience, not value. If you go past your limit two months running, moving up a plan is cheaper than buying a pack each month, and we'll say so in the email rather than sell you another pack.

Brand safety refers to protecting your brand's reputation by ensuring your content (and comments) don't appear alongside harmful, offensive, or inappropriate material. On YouTube, toxic comments, spam, and hate speech can damage brand perception—68% of buyers read comments before purchasing. CommentShark's moderation tools help keep your comment sections brand-safe 24/7.

CommentShark uses AI-powered rules to automatically detect and handle problematic comments. You can create rules that:

• Hold for review: Flag suspicious comments for manual approval before they stay visible.
• Reject automatically: Immediately hide spam, hate speech, or policy violations.
• Delete permanently: Remove harmful content entirely.

Rules can use text patterns or AI classification to match comments.

CommentShark can detect and moderate spam (promotional content, scam links), hate speech and toxic language, competitor mentions, off-topic comments, profanity, and any custom criteria you define. Our AI classification understands context—so genuine criticism is distinguished from actual brand attacks.

Yes! CommentShark supports team collaboration for agencies and enterprise brands. You can invite team members to manage comments without sharing YouTube credentials. Features include role-based permissions (Admin, Editor, Viewer), approval workflows where team members review AI suggestions, and activity tracking to see who handled which comments.

CommentShark syncs comments regularly throughout the day. For paid channels, comments are typically read within 30 minutes of being posted. Moderation actions (hold, reject, delete) execute immediately once a comment is matched by your rules.

Yes. CommentShark offers an approval queue where flagged comments go for human review before action is taken. This is perfect for brands that want AI assistance but require human oversight. You can approve, reject, or edit suggested actions before they go live.

CommentShark uses enterprise-grade security. We authenticate via OAuth 2.0 (we never see your password), use encrypted connections for all data, and comply with YouTube's official API policies. You can revoke access anytime via your Google Account settings.

Yes! For agencies, brands, and enterprise teams with custom requirements, we offer tailored pricing and features. Contact us at enterprise@commentshark.com to discuss your needs.

You have three layers. YouTube Studio gives you the basics: a blocked-words list, a hold-for-review setting, and the option to hide a user from your channel. That catches obvious cases but misses anything that dodges a literal word match. The second layer is manual review, which does not scale once a video takes off. The third is automated moderation with CommentShark: write rules in plain language that match by keyword, regex, or AI intent, and it auto-hides or deletes spam, scams, and toxicity 24/7 across every video, with an approval queue for anything you want to review first.

The right tool depends on scale. YouTube Studio is free and fine for a small channel. Social suites like NapoleonCat add moderation but gate auto-moderation behind higher-priced plans and are not YouTube-native. CommentShark is purpose-built for YouTube comment moderation: keyword, regex, and AI rules, auto-hide and auto-delete, a blocked-words list, 100+ language support, and an approval queue, starting free. See our full comparison of YouTube comment tools to weigh the options.

Partly. YouTube Studio can hold potentially inappropriate comments for review and hold comments that match your blocked-words list, but it does not auto-delete, understand intent, or reply. That leaves a gap for scam and impersonation comments that contain no blocked word. CommentShark adds true automated moderation on top: AI-intent rules that auto-hide or remove the comments YouTube's native filters miss, running around the clock.

Brands and agencies moderate at scale with rules plus review. Set keyword, regex, and AI-intent rules that auto-hide spam, scam links, and toxicity across every video and channel, then route anything sensitive to an approval queue so a human signs off before it goes live. CommentShark runs this 24/7 across multiple channels, which is why it fits agencies managing many clients and brands protecting sponsored videos.

Yes. Keyword and blocked-word filters only catch the languages you list, which is a problem for global brands. CommentShark's AI moderation reads and classifies comments in over 100 languages, so it detects spam, scams, and toxicity in Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, Hindi, and more without you writing a word list for each one.

Start with a blocked-words list in YouTube Studio to hold obvious spam, then add rule-based automation for everything it misses. With CommentShark, a rule like "if it looks like a crypto scam, delete it" runs automatically across every video, hiding or removing spam and scam comments the moment they land, with an approval queue if you would rather review first.

Sentiment analysis uses AI to score each comment on a scale from negative to positive. CommentShark automatically classifies every synced comment so you can see at a glance how your audience feels about each video, without reading thousands of comments manually.

Sentiment analysis, AI comment tagging, and the Video Insights dashboard are available on Starter, Creator, Pro, Custom. Free-tier users can upgrade from the Insights page or visit the pricing page to unlock these features.

Comment tags are automatic labels applied to each comment based on its content. Tags include categories like questions, praise, complaints, suggestions, and spam. They let you quickly filter and focus on the comments that matter most.

Yes. You can configure sentiment anomaly alerts from the Insights page. Set a threshold (e.g. 40% negative) and CommentShark will email you when a video crosses it. Alerts have a 6-hour cooldown and only fire when sentiment is getting worse, not when it improves.

Sentiment is scored by an AI language model that reads each comment in the context of your channel, not by keyword matching, so it copes well with slang, emoji, and non-English comments. Individual comments can occasionally be misjudged (sarcasm is hard for any AI), but aggregate trends across a video are highly reliable.

You can scan for pinned comments as often as you like, but bulk edits are limited to once every 18 hours. This protects against accidental mass edits and keeps your YouTube API usage sustainable.

Bulk pinned comment editing is available on paid plans. Scanning and editing have separate limits — Starter can scan 100 and edit 15, and Creator can scan 250 and edit 100. Need more? Get in touch. See pricing for the latest plan details.

Pinned comments are detected by checking if your comment appears first when sorted by relevance. This is a heuristic — YouTube's API does not expose pin status directly. It works reliably in most cases but is not 100% perfect.

No. This tool can only edit existing pinned comments. It cannot pin comments for you or create new pinned comments. You need to pin comments manually through YouTube Studio first.

When you add blocked words to your YouTube channel settings, any comment containing those words or phrases is automatically held for review instead of being published. You can then approve or reject held comments from your YouTube Studio dashboard. Blocked words apply across all your videos and live streams.

Go to YouTube Studio → Settings → Community → Automated Filters. You'll find a Blocked words text box where you can paste a comma-separated list of words and phrases. Click Save when done.

YouTube allows up to 50,000 characters in the blocked words field, which typically accommodates several hundred phrases. Start with the high-severity categories (scams, phishing, hate speech) and add more as needed. Quality matters more than quantity—well-chosen phrases catch more spam than a massive list of single words.

If your blocked words list is too aggressive, it can hold legitimate comments for review, which may frustrate viewers if you don't approve them promptly. To minimize this, use specific phrases instead of single common words, review your held comments regularly, and start conservatively before expanding your list.

It depends on your channel's audience and tone. Family-friendly channels benefit from profanity filters, while channels with mature audiences may find it overly restrictive. Our tool includes a profanity category that's off by default, letting you decide based on your community standards.

Review and update your list every 2-3 months. Spammers regularly change their tactics, using new phrases, Unicode characters, and creative misspellings to evade filters. Check your held comments for new spam patterns and add them to your list.

Blocked words are a great starting point but they're limited to exact text matching. AI moderation tools like CommentShark understand context, detect sentiment, and catch spam that doesn't match any specific keyword. For best results, use both: blocked words as your first line of defense and AI moderation for everything that slips through.

It's a free snapshot of what's happening in a channel's comments. Enter any channel handle or URL into the YouTube Comment Audit and it samples the channel's recent public comments and shows unanswered viewer questions, high-intent comments about buying or working together, the positive/negative sentiment split, and the topics people bring up most. These are follow-up opportunities, not confirmed leads or sales. No signup required.

Yes. You can audit any public channel with no account and no card. It reads public comments through YouTube's official Data API, so it never posts, likes, or changes anything, and no one is notified.

Yes, as long as it's a public channel with comments enabled. Made-for-kids channels and channels with comments turned off can't be analyzed because YouTube restricts comment access for them.

The free audit samples up to the channel's most recent 300 comments across its latest videos, enough for a representative read on questions, sentiment, and intent without a long wait. Connect your channel to CommentShark to work through every comment across all of your videos.

YouTube Studio lists comments one screen at a time with no filter for "never replied", so unanswered questions are easy to lose. The Comment Audit reads a sample of a channel's recent comments and pulls out the viewer questions that got no creator reply, so you can see how many are waiting and answer the ones that still matter. Every unanswered question is someone who reached out and heard nothing back.

There is no universal number, and it naturally drops as a channel grows, since a bigger audience leaves more comments than one person can answer. What matters more than the raw percentage is whether the comments worth a reply, real questions, buying signals, and your most engaged fans, are getting one. The audit shows your reply rate on the sampled comments, compares it to channels of a similar size, and flags the specific conversations still waiting.

YouTube Studio shows comments one at a time, in order, with no way to see the patterns across them. The Comment Audit reads a sample with an AI classifier and summarizes it: how many questions went unanswered, which comments signal buying or collaboration interest, the sentiment split, and the topics viewers keep raising. It is a diagnosis of the whole comment section, not an inbox to scroll.

Yes. It works on any public channel with comments enabled, at any size. Smaller channels simply have fewer comments in the sample, so the read is lighter, and the audit tells you when a sample is thin rather than presenting a shaky number as a confident one.

Yes. The audit scores each sampled comment for meaning rather than keywords, and shows the positive, neutral, and negative split along with the comments that need a careful reply. It runs on the same engine as CommentShark's paid sentiment insights.

A good rhythm is after each upload, once the comments have had a day or two to arrive. Fix the biggest lever the audit names, then re-run it after your next video to watch the score move. Channels that reply while attention is still fresh tend to keep more of it.

Yes. YouTube has no built-in export, but the free YouTube Comment Exporter downloads the comments on any public video or Short to Excel (.xlsx) or CSV — author, comment text, published and edited dates, likes, and a direct link to each comment. No account needed.

Paste the video URL into the YouTube Comment Exporter, click Fetch comments, then Download Excel (.xlsx). The file opens directly in Excel or Google Sheets with one comment per row. A CSV download is also available, UTF-8 encoded so emoji and non-English comments display correctly.

Up to 1,000 of a video's most recent comments without an account, or up to 5,000 if you log in — logging in is free too. Both exports include every available column and format.

Yes — replies are included and linked to their parent comment, with one caveat we'd rather state precisely: YouTube's API returns up to 5 replies per comment thread in a standard export, so threads with longer reply chains include their first 5 replies. Most threads have fewer than 5 replies, so for typical videos the export is complete.

Yes. The exporter works on standard YouTube videos and Shorts — paste either URL format and the comments download the same way.

Yes. Public videos work, and unlisted videos work too as long as you have the link. The exporter reads comments through YouTube's official Data API, which serves the same comments you can see on the watch page. Private videos and videos with comments turned off can't be exported, because YouTube removes the comment section from private videos entirely.

No. Exporting reads public comment data through YouTube's official API — it doesn't post, like, or modify anything, and neither the video's creator nor the commenters are notified.

That's a different job: your own comment history across all videos lives at youtube.com/feed/history/comment_history (or via Google Takeout). The Comment Exporter exports all comments on a specific video instead — and if you want every comment across your own channel in one searchable place, the CommentShark dashboard does that for free.

Yes! The YouTube Comment Searcher supports both standard videos and Shorts. Just paste the URL.

The free YouTube Comment Finder searches by keyword on a single video — you can type an @mention or username and find every comment that contains it, but it doesn't filter results by author name directly. For full filter-by-author across all of your own videos, sign in to the CommentShark dashboard.

Paste the video link into the free YouTube Comment Finder, type the word, phrase, @mention, hashtag, or emoji you remember, and it surfaces every matching comment in seconds — far faster than scrolling. It works on any public video or Short, with no sign-up.

Yes. The YouTube Comment Finder is completely free to search a video's comments by keyword, with no account or credit card required. Signing in raises the per-video search limit and unlocks filtering across all of your own videos.

Yes — keyword search is exactly what the YouTube Comment Finder does. Enter any word or phrase and it returns only the comments that contain it, using the YouTube Data API so results match what is publicly visible on the video.

Logged-out users can search up to 1,000 comments per video. Logged-in users can search up to 2,000 comments.

Yes. Our YouTube comment picker is completely free. There is no charge to paste a video link, retrieve comments, filter duplicate authors, or draw a random winner. No credit card and no sign-up are required for a basic giveaway draw.

Yes. You can run a complete giveaway draw without creating an account. Just paste any public YouTube video or Short URL into the comment picker, choose your filters, retrieve the comments, and pick a random winner. Signing in only unlocks higher comment limits and the full CommentShark dashboard.

Absolutely! Our YouTube Random Comment Picker supports both standard YouTube videos and YouTube Shorts. Simply paste the URL of any public YouTube video or Short.

Yes. The Comment Picker fully supports comments with emojis. Emojis are displayed correctly in the winner selection.

Yes. You can choose to allow multiple entries per user or limit it to one entry per user to ensure fair giveaways.

Yes. We use a cryptographically secure random number generator to select winners, ensuring fair and unbiased results every time.

Our tool uses the YouTube Data API to retrieve comments from any public video and sort them by date posted in ascending order (oldest first). It then displays the very first comment ever posted. For videos with more comments than our search limit, we search within the first 1,000 comments for logged-out users, or 2,000 comments for logged-in users.

Yes! The First Comment Finder supports both standard YouTube videos and YouTube Shorts. Simply paste the URL of any public YouTube video or Short.

Unlisted videos work: paste the video link and the tool reads comments normally. Private videos don't, because YouTube removes the comment section from private videos entirely, so there are no comments to retrieve.

No, deleted comments are not accessible through the YouTube Data API. The First Comment Finder will only show you the oldest comment that is currently visible on the video.

YouTube's comment section offers two sorting options: 'Top comments' and 'Newest first'. However, there's no built-in way to sort comments by oldest first. Our tool solves this problem by using the API to retrieve comments chronologically.