Youtube API in NodeJs, Usage with Example

March 04, 2018

Introduction

This post is about the usage of nodejs module: youtube-api, which is to query youtube for videos. There are options to search youtube videos, list all videos from a playlist, list all videos from a channel. Also, you can fetch descriptive details about a video.

This library is ES6, promise compatible.

How to Download

From npmjs.com, look for youtube-api-es6: NpmJs Youtube API ES6

Or, in your package.json file, include: youtube-api-es6 by running commmand:

npm install youtube-api-es6

Quick Examples

To fetch details of a single Video

const youtubeService = require('youtube-api-es6').youtubeService;
const youtubeConfig = {
    key: 'Your key'
};
return youtubeService.init(youtubeConfig)
    .then(function() {
        return youtubeService.getVideoDetail('a7hGVtz8syM');
    })
    .then(function(res) {
        console.log(JSON.stringify(res, null, 3));
    });

Output

For sample output response: See Youtube API Response

Usage of library

Initialization

First, you need to initialize the library

const youtubeService = require('youtube-api-es6').youtubeService;
const youtubeConfig = {
    key: 'your key'
};
youtubeService.init(youtubeConfig);

APIs available

fetchAllVideosFromChannel(channelId)

Returns snippet level details of all the videos in this channel. You can then use another API: getVideoDetail to fetch details about that video, and getAllCommentsForVideo to get all comments for that video.

search(params)

Search for videos. Example: ```js var opts = { maxResults: 10, //channelId: 'UCNNxPxH_zIPxvWy5QMFkruA', part: 'snippet',

// playlistId: 'xxx',
type: 'video'

};

<h3>getVideoDetail(videoId, detailOptions)</h3>
Get video details. Second parameter is optional: detailOptions, and by default it returns details for levels: snippet,contentDetails,topicDetails,statistics.

You can also pass which level of details you want in this parameter. Each level should be passed comma separated.

Example:
```js
getVideoDetail(1234, 'snippet,statistics');

listPlaylist(playlistId)

List all the videos from a playlist. Details of video will be snippet level.

getAllCommentsForVideo(videoId)

Get all comments recursively for a video. Comments includes all parent level and child level comments.

Need Support or Report an Issue

Goto: https://github.com/GyanBlog/youtube-api-nodejs/issues

Youtube API reference

For youtube api reference, please visit: Youtube Official Rest APIs page

Some Examples

To get thumbnail of a video

Use api:

getVideoDetail(videoId, 'snippet')

const youtubeService = require('youtube-api-es6').youtubeService;
const youtubeConfig = {
    key: 'Your key'
};
return youtubeService.init(youtubeConfig)
    .then(function() {
        return youtubeService.getVideoDetail('a7hGVtz8syM', 'snippet');
    })
    .then(function(res) {
        console.log(JSON.stringify(res, null, 3));
    });