What you can fetch
Use the YouTube API to retrieve:- video metadata, comments, and comment replies
- channel profiles, videos, shorts, streams (live and past broadcasts), playlists, and posts
- search results, tag feeds, and search-box suggestions
- playlists and their items
- video transcripts as WebVTT
- direct stream URLs for every rendition YouTube publishes
Stream URLs
The download endpoint returns every rendition, not a single file. YouTube serves video and audio as separate streams, so most renditions carry only one of the two: one combined 360p rendition, plus video-only and audio-only tracks at higher qualities. Each carries its dimensions, frame rate, bitrate, codec and size so you can pick or combine them yourself. As with every other platform, we return URLs and never proxy the file. Stream URLs are time-limited. Each response includesexpiresAt.
How to use it
Start with these pages:- Quickstart for your first request
- Authentication for Bearer token setup
- Response format for the shared ActivityStreams 2.0 schema
- API overview for the full API reference