The short version
- Paste the targetA video URL, a channel URL, an @handle or a channel ID. Handles and IDs both work.
- Wait for the loadComments arrive in pages of a hundred with a live counter. A large channel pauses after a big batch so one load cannot exhaust the daily allowance.
- SearchType in the search box. Matching happens locally against everything loaded, including replies, and updates as you type.
- Narrow furtherCombine the search with filters for author, date range, minimum word count, or comments carrying a review signal.
Why Ctrl+F fails on YouTube
YouTube loads comments a few at a time as you scroll. Your browser’s find function only searches what is currently in the page, so it looks through the twenty or so comments that happen to be rendered and reports nothing for the other nine thousand.
Scrolling to the bottom first does not really fix it either: YouTube unloads content above as you go, and on a video with tens of thousands of comments you would be scrolling for a very long time to build a set that is still incomplete.
Load first, then search
The public YouTube Data API can list comments in pages of a hundred. ClearComments walks those pages until the set is complete, holds the result in your browser, and searches it locally. Because the whole set is in memory, a match on page ninety appears as fast as a match on page one, and the search covers replies as well as top-level comments — which is where most of the interesting material actually is.
A counter shows progress while it loads, and there is a stop button. On a large channel the load pauses after a big batch rather than continuing indefinitely, because the daily API allowance is shared by everyone using the site.
Searching a channel rather than a video
Paste a channel and the load covers comments across that channel’s videos rather than a single one. That is the version worth doing when you are looking for a person rather than a topic — “has this account commented on us before?” is a channel-level question, and asking it video by video is how it never gets answered.
Filters that pair well with a search
- Author — everything one person said, across everything loaded.
- Date range — what arrived the week a video was picked up somewhere.
- Minimum word count — drops “first” and the emoji-only replies.
- Review signals — only comments flagged as spam, scam, insult, criticism or impersonation.
- Mentions a timestamp — comments pointing at a moment in the video.
Filters combine, and exports follow whatever is on screen, so narrowing first also makes the resulting file smaller.
What stays out of reach
Public comments on public videos only. Comments YouTube has held for review, or already classified as likely spam, are visible to the channel owner alone through an authorised login — no public tool can reach them. Deleted comments are gone for everyone.
Try it
Open ClearComments and paste a channel. Free, no account, nothing uploaded.