innertube 1.0.4

Python Client for Google's Private InnerTube API. Works with Youtube, YouTubeMusic etc.

innertube

Python Client for Google's Private InnerTube API. Works with: YouTube, YouTube Music, YouTube Kids, YouTube Studio

About

This library handles low-level interactions with the InnerTube API that is used by each of the YouTube services. Google hasn't made much public about the API, and recently all App interactions use protobuf making them hard to reverse-engineer. The only articles I could find online are:

• Gizmodo - How Project InnerTube Helped Pull YouTube Out of the Gutter
• Fast Company - To Take On HBO And Netflix, YouTube Had To Rewire Itself

Installation

The innertube library uses Poetry and can easily be installed from source, or using pip

Using pip (from source)

$ pip install git+https://github.com/tombulled/innertube

Usage

>>> import innertube
>>>
>>> # Construct a client
>>> client = innertube.InnerTube(innertube.Client.WEB)
>>>
>>> # Get some data!
>>> data = client.search(query = 'foo fighters')
>>>
>>> # Power user? No problem, dispatch requests yourself
>>> data = client('browse', json = {'browseId': 'FEwhat_to_watch'})
>>>
>>> # The core endpoints are implemented, so the above is equivalent to:
>>> data = client.browse('FEwhat_to_watch')

Why not just use the YouTube Data API?

It's entirely up to you and your needs, however this library provides functionality you wont get from the Data API, but it comes at somewhat of a cost (explained below)

	This Library	YouTube Data API
No Google account required	✓	✗
No request limit	✓	✗
Clean, reliable, well-structured data	✗	✓

Wait a sec! What do you mean it's not clean, reliable and well-structured??

Well, the private InnerTube API is not designed for consumption by users, it is used to render and operate the various YouTube services.

What does that mean?

Simply put, the data returned by the InnerTube API will need to be parsed and sanitised to extract the usable data as it will contain a lot of fluff that is unlikely to be of any use. These higher-level clients are in the works!

Clients

This table shows all the devices and services that work with the InnerTube API. For example, you could query the API as if you were using the YouTube app on your Tv!

	YouTube	YouTubeMusic	YouTubeKids	YouTubeStudio
Web	WEB	WEB_REMIX	WEB_KIDS	WEB_CREATOR
Android	ANDROID	ANDROID_MUSIC	ANDROID_KIDS	ANDROID_CREATOR
Ios	IOS	IOS_MUSIC	IOS_KIDS	IOS_CREATOR
Tv	TVHTML5

Endpoints

Only the core, unauthenticated endpoints are currently implemented. However, between all of these you should be able to access all the data you need.

	YouTube	YouTubeMusic	YouTubeKids	YouTubeStudio
config	✓	✓	✓	✓
browse	✓	✓	✓	✓
player	✓	✓	✓	✓
next	✓	✓	✓	✗
search	✓	✓	✓	✗
guide	✓	✓	✗	✗
music/get_search_suggestions	✗	✓	✗	✗
music/get_queue	✗	✓	✗	✗

What about Authentication?

The InnerTube API uses OAuth2, however I have been unable to successfully implement authentication. Therefore, this library currently only provides unauthenticated access to the API.

Credits

Here's a list of the awesome libraries that helped make innertube

PyPi	Source
requests	https://github.com/psf/requests
pydantic	https://github.com/samuelcolvin/pydantic
addict	https://github.com/mewwts/addict
attrs	https://github.com/python-attrs/attrs
furl	https://github.com/gruns/furl
humps	https://github.com/nficano/humps
parse	https://github.com/r1chardj0n3s/parse
toolz	https://github.com/pytoolz/toolz