DESCRIPTION

A wrapper around youtube Apis:

• https://developers.google.com/resources/api-libraries/documentation/youtube/v3/python/latest/
• https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/docs/

GOAL

I created this package to simplify some typical tasks related to the Youtube API. The installed youtube3 command provides the common operations; the Python API remains available for applications that need more control.

INSTALL

pip install youtube3

This installs the library and the youtube3 command:

youtube3 --help

OPTIONAL DOWNLOADS (POC)

Install the optional downloader from this checkout in a virtual environment (the environment can live anywhere):

python3 -m venv ~/.venvs/youtube3
source ~/.venvs/youtube3/bin/activate
python -m pip install -e ".[download]"
youtube3 download video VIDEO_ID --dry-run
youtube3 download video VIDEO_ID --output ./videos --quality 720

Download one public video using a video ID, an HTTPS YouTube watch URL or a youtu.be link. It uses no Google API login or saved profiles; browser cookies are used only when explicitly requested below. A watch link containing a playlist still selects only that video. --quality limits the height; the actual resolution depends on available formats. Existing files are preserved and interrupted downloads can resume. After this feature is released, install it with pip install "youtube3[download]".

Preview a public playlist, or a range using 1-based, inclusive positions:

youtube3 download playlist PLAYLIST_ID --output ./videos
youtube3 download playlist PLAYLIST_ID --output ./videos --start 2 --end 10
youtube3 download playlist PLAYLIST_ID --output ./videos --start 2 --end 10 --apply

Without --apply, the playlist command only reads public playlist metadata and prints the selection; --dry-run explicitly requests the same preview. This requires the download extra and read-only network access, and writes no files. Each entry shows whether it will download or skip as archived, unavailable or duplicated. The preview does not verify media availability. With --apply, it prints the selection and downloads those exact video IDs, without rereading the playlist. Numbered filenames preserve the original playlist positions, such as 00002 - Title [video-id].mp4.

Both commands use OUTPUT/.youtube3-download-archive.txt to remember completed YouTube video IDs. Repeating a download to the same output folder skips those IDs even if their titles change. yt-dlp records completion after downloading and postprocessing; a failure stops the run, and rerunning retries the unfinished entries. Use --archive PATH on either command to share a different archive across output folders. Its parent folder is created only when downloading. The archive is the record of completion: if you delete a media file and want to fetch it again, remove its youtube VIDEO_ID line from the archive first.

For longer playlists, optionally continue after individual failures and save per-video results:

youtube3 download playlist PLAYLIST_ID --output ./videos --apply --continue-on-error --report run-1.json
youtube3 download retry run-1.json
youtube3 download retry run-1.json --apply --continue-on-error --report run-2.json

--continue-on-error and --report are independently optional. The default still stops at the first failure. A run with any failed downloads exits with status 1 even when it continues through the remaining entries. Reports require --apply and a new file path; existing files are preserved. A report is created before the first download and checkpointed after each result. It records downloaded, failed, skipped and not_attempted entries, plus the selected IDs, original positions, quality, media options and absolute output/archive paths. It excludes raw backend errors and media URLs; download errors appear in the terminal. Keep reports locally if playlist titles or local paths are personal.

download retry previews only failed entries offline, without the download extra. --apply uses the saved settings and original positions without rereading the playlist, and rechecks the archive so already completed IDs are skipped. Reports refer to paths on the machine that created them. A retry report can itself be used for another retry; use a fresh --report path each time. Entries marked not_attempted after an interruption or an early stop are not retried by this command: rerun the original playlist selection to finish them. The archive remains the completion record if a run is interrupted between a download and its report checkpoint.

Limit media transfer bandwidth and automatic retry attempts when needed:

youtube3 download video VIDEO_ID --limit-rate 1.5M --retries 3 --fragment-retries 2
youtube3 download playlist PLAYLIST_ID --apply --limit-rate 500K --retries 0 --report limited-run.json

--limit-rate is in bytes per second. K, M and G use powers of 1024; 500K, 2MiB and raw byte counts are accepted. The cap applies per media transfer. --retries limits HTTP retries after the initial attempt, and --fragment-retries limits retries per media fragment. Both take nonnegative integers; zero disables the corresponding retries. Omitted settings retain yt-dlp defaults. These controls are passed to the yt-dlp media downloader; they do not change playlist metadata requests or the batch stop/continue policy. Previews display the settings without transferring media.

Batch reports save these controls and download retry reuses them. New reports use schema version 3; existing version-1 reports still work using default transfer settings, and version-2 reports retain their saved limits. Older youtube3 checkouts reject newer report versions rather than silently discarding the saved limits.

Inspect formats before downloading. This lists format IDs, containers, resolutions, codecs and known sizes (~ marks an estimate); it reads metadata online without downloading media or writing files:

youtube3 download formats VIDEO_ID

Use a format ID from that list to select a particular stream, or combine a video-only ID and an audio-only ID:

youtube3 download video VIDEO_ID --format-id 18
youtube3 download video VIDEO_ID --format-id 137+140
youtube3 download video VIDEO_ID --audio-only --format-id 140 --audio-format mp3
youtube3 download playlist PLAYLIST_ID --format-id 18 --apply --report formats-run.json

These IDs are examples; use the IDs available for your video. A single ID downloads exactly that stream, which may contain video, audio or both. A VIDEO_ID+AUDIO_ID pair requires video-only followed by audio-only and checks for FFmpeg and ffprobe before downloading. --audio-only accepts a single audio-only ID and still supports conversion. Exact selection cannot be combined with --quality, and it does not fall back to a different format if unavailable. The option accepts IDs, not arbitrary yt-dlp format expressions.

Exact selections add [format-IDS] to filenames and -format-IDS to their default archive names, for example .youtube3-download-archive-format-137+140.txt. This lets different choices coexist in the same output folder. An explicit custom --archive still deduplicates only by video ID; use different custom archive paths to keep multiple selections. Playlist numbering is preserved, and reports save the exact choice for download retry. Previewing a playlist does not check whether every entry offers that format; unavailable choices fail on apply and can be recorded with the existing batch reporting options.

For audio only, keep the native audio container or explicitly convert it:

youtube3 download video VIDEO_ID --audio-only --output ./audio
youtube3 download video VIDEO_ID --audio-only --audio-format mp3 --output ./audio
youtube3 download playlist PLAYLIST_ID --audio-only --output ./audio
youtube3 download playlist PLAYLIST_ID --audio-only --output ./audio --apply

Native audio selects an audio-only stream. --audio-format supports mp3, m4a, opus, flac and wav, requires --audio-only, and checks for the FFmpeg and ffprobe executables before downloading. --quality applies to video and cannot be combined with --audio-only. A single-video audio dry run works without these tools or the optional downloader.

Audio uses separate default archives: .youtube3-download-archive-audio-native.txt or .youtube3-download-archive-audio-FORMAT.txt in the output folder. Downloading a video therefore does not suppress a later audio download. Audio filenames also include [audio-native] or [audio-FORMAT], in addition to any exact [format-IDS] marker. Each mode has its own media and postprocessing input, so conversion preserves previously downloaded video or native audio files. Playlist position prefixes remain in place. An explicit --archive PATH continues to deduplicate by video ID regardless of media mode; use different custom archive paths when you want both modes.

Save captions, metadata and thumbnails alongside media with opt-in flags, supported by both video and playlist commands:

youtube3 download video VIDEO_ID --subtitles en,de --write-metadata --write-thumbnail
youtube3 download playlist PLAYLIST_ID --subtitles en --auto-subtitles --write-metadata --apply

--subtitles takes comma-separated language codes, such as en,de,pt-BR. --auto-subtitles also permits automatic captions for those languages; manual captions take priority when both exist. Available captions are saved separately in VTT format when offered, otherwise the best available subtitle format. Missing caption languages or thumbnails are reported by yt-dlp and do not prevent the media download. Metadata is saved as .info.json; thumbnails use their supplied image format. These flags do not add sidecars to an ID already in the archive: use a new --archive PATH to revisit it. Existing files are preserved.

The base pip install youtube3 does not install yt-dlp. Download help and the single-video --dry-run also work without the extra. That dry run prints the plan without contacting YouTube, checking availability or creating files.

Install the FFmpeg executable separately to merge video and audio streams. For full YouTube support, yt-dlp also needs a supported JavaScript runtime (Deno is recommended upstream); the extra includes its EJS Python component. See yt-dlp's dependency instructions. The extra does not install these external executables. YouTube extraction may need yt-dlp updates as the site changes; upgrade with pip install --upgrade "yt-dlp[default]".

Before extraction, youtube3 checks PATH for deno, node and qjs and enables the discovered runtimes in yt-dlp. yt-dlp checks their versions and chooses a usable runtime; finding an executable alone does not establish compatibility. The download extra requires yt-dlp 2025.11.12 or newer, which supports this runtime configuration; reinstalling the extra upgrades older versions. Install Deno (recommended), Node 22+ or a supported QuickJS version using the upstream runtime setup guide. For WSL, install the runtime inside the WSL environment running youtube3. If none is found, youtube3 warns before extraction and continues: some metadata or formats may still be available. This check covers format inspection, playlist previews, video/playlist downloads and applied batch retries. Single-video dry runs and report retry previews stay offline without probing runtimes. Runtime selection follows the current PATH each time; no runtime path or setting is saved in batch reports. Custom runtime paths are not exposed as wrapper options.

HTTP 429 means YouTube is rate limiting requests; stop requests and try again later. A sign-in/bot challenge means public extraction is blocked. youtube3 reports these separately from missing runtimes and does not add an automatic retry for either error. Installing a runtime does not guarantee either block will clear. Playlist enumeration can succeed even when downloading its videos is blocked. HTTP 429, yt-dlp's “rate-limited by YouTube” session error, and bot/CAPTCHA challenges stop the playlist/batch even with --continue-on-error; remaining entries stay not_attempted. Retry selects failed entries only: rerun the original selection to include unattempted entries.

New video/playlist CLI runs default to five seconds between successive video extraction attempts. Use --sleep-interval 10 to increase this interval, or --sleep-interval 0 to disable it. This spaces extraction attempts, not media bandwidth or every individual HTTP request. The library leaves pacing unchanged unless TransferOptions(sleep_interval=...) is supplied. Reports preserve the interval; download retry --sleep-interval N overrides it. Older reports retain their original unpaced behavior unless overridden.

You may explicitly supply cookies to video, formats, playlist and retry commands:

youtube3 download video VIDEO_ID --cookies /path/to/youtube-cookies.txt
youtube3 download formats VIDEO_ID --cookies-from-browser firefox
youtube3 download playlist PLAYLIST_ID --cookies-from-browser firefox --browser-profile default --apply --report run.json
youtube3 download retry run.json --cookies-from-browser firefox --apply

Choose either a Netscape cookie file or a browser. --browser-profile accepts a profile name/path and requires --cookies-from-browser. Browser extraction uses the selected browser's local profiles; on WSL a Windows browser profile may not be accessible or decryptable from Linux. Use a browser in the environment running yt-dlp, or explicitly supply a compatible cookie file. Cookie files are loaded into memory and the supplied file is not rewritten. Malformed files are rejected without displaying their contents. With cookies enabled, raw backend diagnostics are suppressed to avoid exposing session data. Reports save only that cookies were used, not the cookie source, browser/profile or cookie contents; applying a retry requires explicitly supplying cookies again. Single-video dry runs and report previews do not read cookies or browser profiles. Format inspection and playlist previews read metadata online and do access the requested cookie source, even without --apply.

Cookies are session credentials: keep exported files outside the repository and do not share them. Account use can result in temporary or permanent restrictions; use cookies only when necessary. Cookies do not guarantee access or remove rate limits. See yt-dlp's YouTube cookie guidance. Google API OAuth profiles remain separate. PO-token providers and automatic browser challenges are not included.

Media retrieval from YouTube has not been live-verified; automated tests use canned metadata and local media transport, including checks with real yt-dlp and conversion of generated audio with FFmpeg when available.

USAGE

Create an OAuth client of type "Desktop app" in the Google Cloud console, enable the YouTube Data API v3, and download its client secrets file. Then:

from youtube3 import YoutubeClient
youtube = YoutubeClient("path/to/client_secrets.json")

The first run opens the browser to log in (on WSL or a headless machine, open the printed URL yourself). The login is saved as token.json next to the client secrets, readable by you only (mode 0600 on Linux and macOS; on Windows an ACL that grants your account alone, not the folder's inherited permissions), and refreshed on later runs; pass token_file= to keep it elsewhere. Never commit either file.

The library logs what it changes through the youtube3 logger; call logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO) to see it.

Set up OAuth client secrets once, then create a profile for the channel or brand account you want to use:

youtube3 setup path/to/client_secrets.json
youtube3 profiles add caramellalynx
youtube3 profiles list

Use youtube3 <command> --help for all options. Examples:

youtube3 playlist show --playlistId <id>
youtube3 playlist move --playlistSource <id> --playlistTarget <id> --start 0 --end 10 --apply
youtube3 likes export --out liked.json
youtube3 video check --videoId <id> --country DE

Operations that change many things (moving, removing, publishing and unliking) are dry runs unless given --apply. The equivalent Python API is documented below and is unchanged.

SEVERAL CHANNELS

A login belongs to the one channel (or brand account) you pick on Google's consent screen, and the API cannot list the channels you manage. So each channel is logged in once and saved as a profile:

youtube3 profiles adopt caramellalynx   # an existing token, without logging in again
youtube3 profiles add diego             # the browser asks which account or brand
youtube3 profiles list

Then give --profile NAME to any command. It prints "Signed in as ()" before doing anything, checks that the saved login still belongs to that channel (1 quota unit) and refuses to run otherwise, and names its files after the profile: liked-diego.json, liked-diego.html.

• Each profile is one file, ~/.config/youtube3/profiles/NAME.json (on Windows %APPDATA%\youtube3\profiles\NAME.json), outside any repository and readable by you only. It holds the channel and its login together, and is only ever replaced whole, by a login whose channel checked out. A login that fails, is interrupted or runs at the same time as another leaves the old profile or the new one, never a mix.
• A profile's channel is recorded when its login is made (add, adopt) and never changed afterwards: a profile with no channel, or an unreadable file, is refused, not rebound to whatever login it has.
• youtube3 profiles add NAME on an existing profile logs in again, and keeps the new login only if it is for the profile's channel. The same holds when a saved login has expired and the browser opens by itself. add also repairs a profile that is refused as unreadable or without a channel.
• All channels share one quota: 10,000 units a day for the Cloud project.

LIKES

youtube3.likes exports your liked videos and unlikes them in bulk, safely:

youtube3 likes export --out liked.json
youtube3 likes unlike --from liked.json --channel "Some Channel" --liked-before 2020-01-01
youtube3 likes unlike --from liked.json --unavailable --apply   # clears deleted and private ones
youtube3 likes relike --from unliked-20260924-120000.json --apply

• The export lists every like, newest first: video id, title, channel, when you liked it, when it was published, a thumbnail, and whether it is still available (deleted and private videos stay in your likes). Each export reports what changed since the previous one.
• youtube3 likes unlike selects from an export by channel (id or title), date, ids or availability; the criteria combine. It shows what it would do and changes nothing without --apply.
• YouTube refuses to rate deleted or private videos, so those are removed from the Liked videos playlist instead. They cannot be liked again.
• An applied run writes unliked-<time>.json; youtube3 likes relike replays it to like the available ones again.
• Right after a run, the API can still list a removed like for a moment; the export is updated by the run itself.
• Quota: listing costs 1 unit per 50 likes; unliking costs 50 units per video (rating, or removing an unavailable one), out of 10,000 a day. A run rates at most --limit (150) videos and stops cleanly at the quota; run it again the next day for the rest.

These files are personal data; .gitignore keeps them out of git.

YOUR CHANNEL

youtube3.channel lists every video uploaded to the channel you are signed in as (the profile's channel), private and unlisted included:

youtube3 channel videos --out channel.json

• It prints one line per video, newest upload first: id, published date, privacy, views, duration and title, and writes the same to a JSON export (default channel.json, or channel-<profile>.json).
• Quota: 1 unit per 50 videos for the listing, plus 1 unit per 50 for the privacy, views and duration.

In Python: youtube3.channel.export_channel_videos(client, path), or client.iterate_channel_videos() for the records themselves.

LANDING PAGE

youtube3.page turns an export into one web page of your likes:

youtube3 likes page --from liked.json --out liked.html

Open the file in any browser; it needs no server. It shows every like as a card (thumbnail, title, channel, when you liked it and when it was published), with a search over titles and channels that ignores case and accents, a channel filter with counts, five sorts, and a switch to show deleted and private videos. Everything is inside the one file except the thumbnails, which load from YouTube's image host (i.ytimg.com) and nowhere else. It is personal data too: liked*.html is ignored by git.

In Python: youtube3.page.build_page(export, path, title="Liked videos"), where export is a dict or the path of an export file.

PUBLISHING

Upload the video in YouTube Studio (videos uploaded through an unaudited API project are locked private), then set everything else in one command:

youtube3 publish VIDEO_ID --title "My title" --thumbnail thumb.jpg --schedule 2026-10-01T18:00
youtube3 publish VIDEO_ID --title "My title" --thumbnail thumb.jpg --schedule 2026-10-01T18:00 --apply

• Without --apply it only reads the video and shows each change (old -> new), the thumbnail check and the quota cost.
• --title, --description or --description-file, --tags a,b, --private/--unlisted/--public, and --schedule WHEN (ISO 8601; local time without an offset). A scheduled video stays private until then; an already public video cannot be scheduled.
• The thumbnail must be a PNG or JPEG of at most 2 MB and at least 640 px wide; 1280x720 is recommended. Custom thumbnails need a phone-verified channel (https://www.youtube.com/verify): the plan checks this first and refuses the thumbnail, sending nothing, until YouTube says so.
• YouTube resets every setting of a part it is sent without, so the changes are sent together with the video's current settings: nothing else (embeddable, license, made for kids, tags, category) changes.
• Quota: reading 1 unit, updating 50, setting the thumbnail 50.

The same in Python: youtube3.publish.plan_publish(client, video_id, ...) returns the plan, and youtube3.publish.apply_publish(client, plan) sends it.

WATCH HISTORY

Not supported. YouTube removed the watch history from the Data API in 2016, and the only other source is a Google export (Takeout or the Data Portability API), which takes hours and exports whichever account the browser has selected, not reliably the channel you meant. See it and delete from it on https://myactivity.google.com.

YOUTUBECLIENT

The methods of YoutubeClient:

• login: Log in with the client secrets and a saved token, and return the API service.
• list_channels: Retrieve information about YouTube channels using their IDs.
• like_video: Like a video by providing its ID.
• update_snippet: Update the snippet information of a video using its ID and the new snippet.
• update_status: Set a video's privacy to private, unlisted or public, keeping its other status settings.
• get_channel_snippet: Retrieve the snippet information of a channel using its ID.
• get_channel: Retrieve information about a channel using its ID.
• get_channel_name: Retrieve the title of a channel using its ID.
• get_video: Retrieve information about a video using its ID.
• get_video_content_details: Retrieve the content details of a video using its ID.
• upload_thumbnail: Set a video's custom thumbnail from a local PNG or JPEG file (max 2 MB; the channel must be verified); youtube3.publish.check_thumbnail(path) checks one first.
• get_video_snippet: Retrieve the snippet information of a video using its ID.
• get_channel_id: Retrieve the ID of a channel that a video belongs to using the video's ID.
• get_subscriptions_channel_ids: Retrieve one page of the IDs and titles of the channels you are subscribed to.
• get_channels: Retrieve your own channel's content details.
• uploads_playlist: Retrieve the id of your own channel's uploads playlist.
• iterate_channel_videos: Iterate over the videos uploaded to your channel as records (see YOUR CHANNEL), newest first.
• iterate_subscriptions_in_channel: Iterate over all the channels you are subscribed to.
• liked_channel: Retrieve the ID of the playlist of your liked videos.
• iterate_liked_videos: Iterate over your liked videos as records (see LIKES), newest like first.
• playlist_snippet: Retrieve the snippet information of a playlist using its ID.
• playlist_name: Retrieve the title of a playlist using its ID.
• videos_in_playlist: Retrieve one page (up to 50) of the videos in a playlist.
• video_details: Retrieve one page (up to 50) of videos' snippet, content details, statistics and status, keyed by id.
• iterate_videos_in_playlist: Iterate over a playlist page by page, at most maxCount pages when given.
• delete_from_playlist: Remove the videos at positions start to end - 1 from a playlist; apply=False only lists them. Returns the video ids.
• copy_to_playlist: Copy the videos at positions start to end - 1 of a playlist to another; apply=False only lists them. Returns the video ids.
• subscribe_channel: Subscribe to a channel using its ID.
• verify_video: Say whether a video exists and can be watched in a country (default DE): not in its blocked list, and in its allowed list when it has one.

Upgrading from 1.x

Version 2.0.0 breaks the 1.x API:

• get_related_videos, iterate_related_videos and get_recommended are removed: YouTube no longer serves related videos or recommendations through the API.
• login returns the API service alone, not a (service, flags) tuple: replace service, flags = youtube.login(path) with service = youtube.login(path).
• YoutubeClient(client_json_file=None, debug=False, *, token_file=None, service=None): the client secrets file is read from the path given (1.x read client_secrets.json from that path's directory, whatever the file name); the login is saved in token.json next to it, not in youtube.dat, so the first 2.0 run logs in again; service= passes an already-built client instead of logging in.
• oauth2client is no longer a dependency.
• ChannelNotFoundException is an Exception, no longer a BaseException.
• verify_video returns False only for an API error (HttpError); other exceptions now propagate instead of being printed and swallowed.
• What the library changes is logged through the youtube3 logger instead of printed.
• copy_to_playlist and delete_from_playlist act on positions start to end - 1 for any start; in 1.x a start above 0 did nothing.

DEVELOPMENT

Python 3.11 or newer. BSD-3-Clause licensed (LICENSE).

pip install -e ".[dev]"
ruff check
pytest

The tests run offline: they build the client over canned responses (tests/conftest.py) and never touch a real account. The process for changes is in AGENTS.md, the requests in ROADMAP.md.