Python script to search content using YouTube Data API | Daily Python #8

This article is a tutorial on how to utilize YouTube Data API using Python.

This article is a part of Daily Python challenge that I have taken up for myself.
I will be writing short python articles daily.

As seen in Daily Python #7, to access Google API we need to create a project on console.developers.google.com

Creating a project on the Google Developers Console

After enabling the YouTube Data API for your project, let’s create an API key to access the API from our Python script.

Creating API key

After the API Key is generated, copy the key and store it in a variable to access it for authorization.

api_key = "YOUR_API_KEY"

Install the required libraries

pip install google-api-python-client

Now, let’s import the required libraries and create a resource to access YouTube Data API

from apiclient.discovery import build
youtube = build('youtube','v3',developerKey = api_key)
print(type(youtube))

Snip of the Output of the above code snippet

Let’s visit the YouTube Data API’s documentation to read more about searching content using the API

Snip of the YouTube Data API Docs

The API provides a list() function to list the content as per our search query.

Let’s write a code to fetch videos for given keywords, just like how we usually search on the YouTube platform.

request = youtube.search().list(q='Countless Storeys',part='snippet',type='video')
print(type(request))
res = request.execute()
from pprint import PrettyPrinter
pp = PrettyPrinter()
pp.pprint(res)

Output of the above code snippet

The output shows a JSON response of the search result for the query ‘Countless Storeys’. The JSON has multiple fields, the main content is in the ‘items’ filed which is a list of the search result documents.

The type parameter in the list() function is used to modify the search result.

Snip of the YouTube Data API Docs

The ‘part’ parameter set to snippet is a required parameter by the list function.

Snip of the YouTube Data API Docs

The default number of items returned by the API is 5, which can be changed up to a maximum of 50.

#Print the total number of results
request = youtube.search().list(q='Countless Storeys',part='snippet',type='video',maxResults=50)
res = request.execute()
print('Total items : ',len(res['items']))

Snip of the output of the above code snippet

Let’s print the title of the fetched results

#Print the title
request = youtube.search().list(q='Countless Storeys',part='snippet',type='video')
res = request.execute()
for item in res['items']:
    print(item['snippet']['title'])

Snip of the output of the above code snippet

Let’s search for a channel by changing the type parameter

#Search for channel
request = youtube.search().list(q='Countless Storeys',part='snippet',type='channel')
res = request.execute()
for item in res['items']:
    pp.pprint(item['snippet'])

Snip of the output of the above code snippet

Let’s search for content published by a particular channel

Snip of the YouTube Data API Docs

From the previous query, we were able to fetch the ‘channelId’, which can be used for searching the content published by the channel

# Search content by channel
channelId = 'UCoEAf0U-QUWl9TeMZSC8D3w'
request = youtube.search().list(q='Countless Storeys',part='snippet',type='video',channelId=channelId)
res = request.execute()
for item in res['items']:
    pp.pprint(item['snippet'])

Snip of the Output of the above code snippet

I hope this article was helpful and that it will help you use the YouTube Data API for your own purposes. This article can be combined with Daily Python #6 to download the content of a particular channel or to collect data of all the content produced by the channel.

Leave some claps if you liked this article. Stay tuned for more and follow the Daily Python challenge here:

Ajinkya-Sonawane/Daily-Python

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