import json import os from yt_dlp import YoutubeDL url = "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW7vWfRI5oI" original_path = "docs/comments_ORIGINAL.json" # the original, authentic comments from before cutoff (in case they get edited/deleted one day) output_path = "docs/comments.json" CUTOFF = 1767247567 # Jan 1 2026 UTC at SIX SEVEN # Load the frozen original comments (pre-cutoff, never modified) original = json.load(open(original_path, encoding="utf-8")) if os.path.exists(original_path) else [] # ^^ this is a LONG ternary btw with YoutubeDL({"skip_download": True, "getcomments": True}) as ydl: scraped = ydl.extract_info(url, download=False).get("comments", []) new_by_id = {} for c in scraped: if c.get("timestamp", 0) >= CUTOFF and c.get("id"): new_by_id[c["id"]] = c # we'll grab comments that are after the cutoff, those are what will be appended merged = original + sorted(new_by_id.values(), key=lambda x: x.get("timestamp", 0)) with open(output_path, "w", encoding="utf-8") as f: json.dump(merged, f, indent=2, ensure_ascii=False) print(f"Done\n{len(original)} original comments + {len(new_by_id)} new comments = {len(merged)} total")