youtube.ts

About

This is a wrapper for the Youtube API with typings. It allows you to easily search videos, channels, playlists, and more content from Youtube!

Install

npm install youtube.ts

Getting Started

You will need to obtain a Google API Key from here: https://console.developers.google.com Create a new project and enable Youtube Data API v3.

Searching for channels and subscriptions

import Youtube from "youtube.ts"

async function useAPI() {
  /*Instantiate a new Youtube object with your Google API key.*/
  const youtube = new Youtube(process.env.GOOGLE_API_KEY)

  /*You can find channels by URL or search query. youtube.com/username, /c/username and /user/username links also work.
  The http and www parts can be omitted.*/
  const channel = await youtube.channels.get("https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8qU4aFe81jzG1attsyQ5wQ")
  const channelByCustomURL = await youtube.channels.get("https://www.youtube.com/c/mychannel")
  const channelByQuery = await youtube.channels.get("mychannel")
  

  /*Searching is simple, but beware as it uses 100 quota. Important parameters are q (query) and maxResults.*/
  const channelSearch = await youtube.channels.search({q: "cool channels", maxResults: 10})

  /*You can get the comments in the discussion tab, or all comments in all videos on the channel.*/
  const discussionComments = await youtube.channels.comments("mychannel")
  const allComments = await youtube.channels.allComments("mychannel")

  /*If the channel has their subscriptions set to public, you can also retrieve them all.*/
  const subscriptions = await youtube.channel.subscriptions("some channel")

  /*You will need a subscription ID to get a specific subscription, which can be gotten from the above API call.*/
  const subscription = await youtube.subscriptions.get("g3a2JN_ndb4bKe1baMCxV1arn1DRZpHxVk1i_ZTl4uA")
}
useAPI()

Searching for videos and comments

async function useAPI() {
  /*You can get a video by URL or by search query.*/
  const video = await youtube.videos.get("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yexu92rKpjs")

  /*Searching is basically the same.*/
  const videoSearch = await youtube.videos.search({q: "anime", maxResults: 10})

  /*You can easily retrieve all of the comments on a video.*/
  const comments = await youtube.videos.comments("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLJQ0HO5Alc")

  /*You will need a commentThread ID to get a specific comment thread, and a comment ID to get 
  a single comment. It will be the same if there is only one comment on the thread. The Youtube API
  does not support getting replies of replies, unfortunately.*/
  const comment = await youtube.comments.thread("UgzNgGMYuY6qJl0RV7d4AaABAg")
  const reply = await youtube.comments.get("UgzNgGMYuY6qJl0RV7d4AaABAg")
}

Searching for playlists

async function useAPI() {
  /*Getting the metadata for a playlist is easy, but it won't return any of the items inside the playlist.*/
  const playlist = await youtube.playlists.get("https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1BC175_2xP8ifSS9CM92G5eIOPRG1g7t")

  /*Retrieving all of the items for a playlist is done in a seperate API call.*/
  const playlistItems = await youtube.playlists.items("https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1BC175_2xP8ifSS9CM92G5eIOPRG1g7t")

  /*There are two methods for retrieving a specific item in a playlist. The first is to pass in both the playlist URL and video URL,
  and the second is to pass in the playlistItem ID (which can only be gotten from the API). A very specific query might also work.*/
  const item = await youtube.playlists.item("PL1BC175_2xP8ifSS9CM92G5eIOPRG1g7t", "tenpi - moonlight (chill)")
  /*Yes, youtube ID's are incredibly ugly.*/
  const itemByID = await youtube.playlists.itemByID("UEwxQkMxNzVfMnhQOGlmU1M5Q005Mkc1ZUlPUFJHMWc3dC41MzJCQjBCNDIyRkJDN0VD")

  /*Finally, searching for playlists is the same as before.*/
  const playlistSearch = await youtube.playlists.search({q: "cool playlist"})
}

Downloading Videos and Audio Tracks

While downloading videos is not apart of the API, it's possible to download your own videos through youtube studio. You are going to need a key and your browser cookie in order for this to work.

• Visit Youtube studio and go to any video page.
• Open up dev tools (right click -> inspect) and open the network tab.
• Download your video (hamburger menu -> download) and observe the network tab.
• Look for an entry named download_my_video?v=${video_id}&t={key}
• You want to grab the t parameter (this is your key). Also grab your browser cookie under Request Headers, this is required to authenticate the request.

The other method, which works for any video, is to download it using yt-dlp. You will have to install this separately and make it available from invoking yt-dlp in the terminal.

async function useAPI() {
  const key = "your key"
  const cookie = "your long browser cookie"
  /*Download one video through youtube studio. The key changes somewhat frequently, make sure you update it if it fails.*/
  await youtube.util.downloadMyVideo("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BW7kUAPZiA", key, cookie, "./videos")

  /*Download all of your videos from youtube studio. If there is an error, the video will be skipped. The final param is an optional limit.*/
  await youtube.util.downloadMyVideos("https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8qU4aFe81jzG1attsyQ5wQ", key, cookie, "./videos", 100)

  /*Download any video on the website with yt-dlp.*/
  await youtube.util.downloadVideo("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLJQ0HO5Alc", "./videos", {format: "mp4", quality: "720p60"})

  /*Download just the MP3 track with yt-dlp.*/
  await youtube.util.downloadMP3("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLJQ0HO5Alc", "./videos/mp3")

  /*Mass download videos and/or mp3 files by passing in a YoutubeVideo[] array.*/
  const videos = await youtube.videos.search({q: "cool vid"})
  await youtube.util.downloadVideos(videos, "./videos")
  await youtube.util.downloadMP3s(videos, "./videos/mp3")

  /*There are also utilities for downloading all videos on a channel.*/
  await youtube.util.downloadChannelVideos("tenpi", "./videos")
  await youtube.util.downloadChannelMP3s("tenpi", "./videos/mp3")

  /*This method will just return an MP3 stream. Useful for discord bots, for instance.*/
  const readableStream = await youtube.util.streamMP3("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLJQ0HO5Alc")
}

Common Types

YoutubeChannel

export interface YoutubeChannel {
    kind: string
    etag: string
    id: string
    snippet: YoutubeChannelSnippet
    contentDetails: YoutubeChannelContentDetails
    statistics: YoutubeChannelStatistics
    brandingSettings: YoutubeBrandingSettings
    country: string
}

YoutubeVideo

export interface YoutubeVideo {
    kind: string
    etag: string
    id: string
    snippet: YoutubeVideoSnippet
    contentDetails: YoutubeVideoContentDetails
    status: YoutubeVideoStatus
    statistics: YoutubeVideoStatistics
    player: {
      embedHtml: string
  }
}

YoutubePlaylist

export interface YoutubePlaylist {
    kind: string
    etag: string
    id: string
    snippet: YoutubePlaylistSnippet
    status: {
      privacyStatus: string
    },
    contentDetails: {
      itemCount: number
    },
    player: {
      embedHtml: string
  }
}

YoutubeComment

export interface YoutubeComment {
    kind: string
    etag: string
    id: string
    snippet: {
        authorDisplayName: string
        authorProfileImageUrl: string
        authorChannelUrl: string
        authorChannelId: {
            value: string
        },
        channelId?: string
        videoId: string
        textDisplay: string
        textOriginal: string
        canRate: boolean
        viewerRating: string
        likeCount: number
        publishedAt: string
        updatedAt: string
    }
}