Channels

  • The YouTube API's Channel resource provides comprehensive information about a YouTube channel, including metadata, content details, statistics, and branding settings.

  • Channels and videos can be designated as "made for kids" through specific properties, and the API supports methods to list and update channel resources, primarily modifying branding and in-video promotion data.

  • The snippet section within the channel resource includes essential details like the channel's title, description, custom URL, and thumbnails, while contentDetails covers playlists associated with the channel, such as likes, favorites, and uploads.

  • The status object contains important information regarding the channel's privacy status, linking, long video eligibility, and "made for kids" designations, whereas the topicDetails section helps categorize channels by topic IDs and topic categories.

  • The brandingSettings, auditDetails, contentOwnerDetails, and localizations objects are used for setting channel branding, channel standing information, ownership details, and localized metadata, respectively.
The API now supports the ability to mark your channel or videos as "made for kids." In addition, channel and video resources also now contain a property that identifies the "made for kids" status of that channel or video. The YouTube API Services Terms of Service and Developer Policies were also updated on 10 January 2020. For more information, see the revision histories for the YouTube Data API Service and the YouTube API Services Terms of Service.

A channel resource contains information about a YouTube channel.

Methods

The API supports the following methods for channels resources:

list
Returns a collection of zero or more channel resources that match the request criteria. Try it now.
update
Updates a channel's metadata. Note that this method currently only supports updates to the channel resource's brandingSettings and invideoPromotion objects and their child properties. Try it now.

Resource representation

The following JSON structure shows the format of a channels resource:

{
  "kind": "youtube#channel",
  "etag": etag,
  "id": string,
  "snippet": {
    "title": string,
    "description": string,
    "customUrl": string,
    "publishedAt": datetime,
    "thumbnails": {
      (key): {
        "url": string,
        "width": unsigned integer,
        "height": unsigned integer
      }
    },
    "defaultLanguage": string,
    "localized": {
      "title": string,
      "description": string
    },
    "country": string
  },
  "contentDetails": {
    "relatedPlaylists": {
      "likes": string,
      "favorites": string,
      "uploads": string
    }
  },
  "statistics": {
    "viewCount": unsigned long,
    "subscriberCount": unsigned long,  // this value is rounded to three significant figures
    "hiddenSubscriberCount": boolean,
    "videoCount": unsigned long
  },
  "topicDetails": {
    "topicIds": [
      string
    ],
    "topicCategories": [
      string
    ]
  },
  "status": {
    "privacyStatus": string,
    "isLinked": boolean,
    "longUploadsStatus": string,
    "madeForKids": boolean,
    "selfDeclaredMadeForKids": boolean
  },
  "brandingSettings": {
    "channel": {
      "title": string,
      "description": string,
      "keywords": string,
      "trackingAnalyticsAccountId": string,
      "unsubscribedTrailer": string,
      "defaultLanguage": string,
      "country": string
    },
    "watch": {
      "textColor": string,
      "backgroundColor": string,
      "featuredPlaylistId": string
    }
  },
  "auditDetails": {
    "overallGoodStanding": boolean,
    "communityGuidelinesGoodStanding": boolean,
    "copyrightStrikesGoodStanding": boolean,
    "contentIdClaimsGoodStanding": boolean
  },
  "contentOwnerDetails": {
    "contentOwner": string,
    "timeLinked": datetime
  },
  "localizations": {
    (key): {
      "title": string,
      "description": string
    }
  }
}

Properties

The following table defines the properties that appear in this resource: