This guide provides and explains a Python script that uploads a YouTube video using the YouTube Data API. The code uses the Google APIs Client Library for Python. (Client libraries for other popular programming languages are also available.)
Note:The sample script does not do error handling.
Requirements
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Python 2.5 or higher
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Install the Google APIs Client Library for Python (
google-api-python-client) -
Register your application with Google so that it can use the OAuth 2.0 protocol to authorize access to user data.
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To use OAuth 2.0 steps with this script, you'll need to create a
client_secrets.jsonfile that contains information from the API Console . The file should be in the same directory as the script.{ "web" : { "client_id" : " [[INSERT CLIENT ID HERE]] " , "client_secret" : " [[INSERT CLIENT SECRET HERE]] " , "redirect_uris" : [], "auth_uri" : "https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth" , "token_uri" : "https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token" } }
Sample request
This request uploads a video and sets various metadata fields for the video, including its title, description, keywords, and category. The command-line arguments are all defined in detail in the following section.
python upload_video.py --file="/tmp/test_video_file.flv"
--title="Summer vacation in California"
--description="Had fun surfing in Santa Cruz"
--keywords="surfing,Santa Cruz"
--category="22"
--privacyStatus="private"
In this example, the script would build and insert the following video
resource for the video:
{
"snippet": {
"title": "Summer vacation in California",
"description": "Had fun surfing in Santa Cruz",
"tags": ["surfing", "Santa Cruz"],
"categoryId": "22"
},
"status": {
"privacyStatus": "private"
}
}
Call the script
The list below defines the script's command-line arguments:
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file: This argument identifies the location of the video file that you are uploading.Example: --file="/home/path/to/file.mov"
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title: The title of the video that you are uploading. The default value isTest title.Example: --title="Summer vacation in California"
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description: The description of the video that you're uploading. The default value isTest description.Example: --description="Had fun surfing in Santa Cruz"
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category: The category ID for the YouTube video category associated with the video. The default value is22, which refers to thePeople & Blogscategory.Example: --category="22"
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keywords: A comma-separated list of keywords associated with the video. The default value is an empty string.Example: --keywords="surfing"
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privacyStatus: The privacy status of the video. The default behavior is for an uploaded video to be publicly visible (public). When uploading test videos, you may want to specify a--privacyStatusargument value to ensure that those videos are private or unlisted. Valid values arepublic,private, andunlisted.Example: --privacyStatus="private"
Sample code
The complete working sample for the upload_video.py
script is listed below:
#!/usr/bin/python import httplib import httplib2 import os import random import sys import time from apiclient.discovery import build from apiclient.errors import HttpError from apiclient.http import MediaFileUpload from oauth2client.client import flow_from_clientsecrets from oauth2client.file import Storage from oauth2client.tools import argparser , run_flow # Explicitly tell the underlying HTTP transport library not to retry, since # we are handling retry logic ourselves. httplib2 . RETRIES = 1 # Maximum number of times to retry before giving up. MAX_RETRIES = 10 # Always retry when these exceptions are raised. RETRIABLE_EXCEPTIONS = ( httplib2 . HttpLib2Error , IOError , httplib . NotConnected , httplib . IncompleteRead , httplib . ImproperConnectionState , httplib . CannotSendRequest , httplib . CannotSendHeader , httplib . ResponseNotReady , httplib . BadStatusLine ) # Always retry when an apiclient.errors.HttpError with one of these status # codes is raised. RETRIABLE_STATUS_CODES = [ 500 , 502 , 503 , 504 ] # The CLIENT_SECRETS_FILE variable specifies the name of a file that contains # the OAuth 2.0 information for this application, including its client_id and # client_secret. You can acquire an OAuth 2.0 client ID and client secret from # the Google API Console at # https://console.cloud.google.com/. # Please ensure that you have enabled the YouTube Data API for your project. # For more information about using OAuth2 to access the YouTube Data API, see: # https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/guides/authentication # For more information about the client_secrets.json file format, see: # https://developers.google.com/api-client-library/python/guide/aaa_client_secrets CLIENT_SECRETS_FILE = "client_secrets.json" # This OAuth 2.0 access scope allows an application to upload files to the # authenticated user's YouTube channel, but doesn't allow other types of access. YOUTUBE_UPLOAD_SCOPE = "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/youtube.upload" YOUTUBE_API_SERVICE_NAME = "youtube" YOUTUBE_API_VERSION = "v3" # This variable defines a message to display if the CLIENT_SECRETS_FILE is # missing. MISSING_CLIENT_SECRETS_MESSAGE = """ WARNING: Please configure OAuth 2.0 To make this sample run you will need to populate the client_secrets.json file found at: %s with information from the API Console https://console.cloud.google.com/ For more information about the client_secrets.json file format, please visit: https://developers.google.com/api-client-library/python/guide/aaa_client_secrets """ % os . path . abspath ( os . path . join ( os . path . dirname ( __file__ ), CLIENT_SECRETS_FILE )) VALID_PRIVACY_STATUSES = ( "public" , "private" , "unlisted" ) def get_authenticated_service ( args ): flow = flow_from_clientsecrets ( CLIENT_SECRETS_FILE , scope = YOUTUBE_UPLOAD_SCOPE , message = MISSING_CLIENT_SECRETS_MESSAGE ) storage = Storage ( " %s -oauth2.json" % sys . argv [ 0 ]) credentials = storage . get () if credentials is None or credentials . invalid : credentials = run_flow ( flow , storage , args ) return build ( YOUTUBE_API_SERVICE_NAME , YOUTUBE_API_VERSION , http = credentials . authorize ( httplib2 . Http ())) def initialize_upload ( youtube , options ): tags = None if options . keywords : tags = options . keywords . split ( "," ) body = dict ( snippet = dict ( title = options . title , description = options . description , tags = tags , categoryId = options . category ), status = dict ( privacyStatus = options . privacyStatus ) ) # Call the API's videos.insert method to create and upload the video. insert_request = youtube . videos () . insert ( part = "," . join ( body . keys ()), body = body , # The chunksize parameter specifies the size of each chunk of data, in # bytes, that will be uploaded at a time. Set a higher value for # reliable connections as fewer chunks lead to faster uploads. Set a lower # value for better recovery on less reliable connections. # # Setting "chunksize" equal to -1 in the code below means that the entire # file will be uploaded in a single HTTP request. (If the upload fails, # it will still be retried where it left off.) This is usually a best # practice, but if you're using Python older than 2.6 or if you're # running on App Engine, you should set the chunksize to something like # 1024 * 1024 (1 megabyte). media_body = MediaFileUpload ( options . file , chunksize =- 1 , resumable = True ) ) resumable_upload ( insert_request ) # This method implements an exponential backoff strategy to resume a # failed upload. def resumable_upload ( insert_request ): response = None error = None retry = 0 while response is None : try : print "Uploading file..." status , response = insert_request . next_chunk () if response is not None : if 'id' in response : print "Video id ' %s ' was successfully uploaded." % response [ 'id' ] else : exit ( "The upload failed with an unexpected response: %s " % response ) except HttpError , e : if e . resp . status in RETRIABLE_STATUS_CODES : error = "A retriable HTTP error %d occurred: \n %s " % ( e . resp . status , e . content ) else : raise except RETRIABLE_EXCEPTIONS , e : error = "A retriable error occurred: %s " % e if error is not None : print error retry += 1 if retry > MAX_RETRIES : exit ( "No longer attempting to retry." ) max_sleep = 2 ** retry sleep_seconds = random . random () * max_sleep print "Sleeping %f seconds and then retrying..." % sleep_seconds time . sleep ( sleep_seconds ) if __name__ == '__main__' : argparser . add_argument ( "--file" , required = True , help = "Video file to upload" ) argparser . add_argument ( "--title" , help = "Video title" , default = "Test Title" ) argparser . add_argument ( "--description" , help = "Video description" , default = "Test Description" ) argparser . add_argument ( "--category" , default = "22" , help = "Numeric video category. " + "See https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/docs/videoCategories/list" ) argparser . add_argument ( "--keywords" , help = "Video keywords, comma separated" , default = "" ) argparser . add_argument ( "--privacyStatus" , choices = VALID_PRIVACY_STATUSES , default = VALID_PRIVACY_STATUSES [ 0 ], help = "Video privacy status." ) args = argparser . parse_args () if not os . path . exists ( args . file ): exit ( "Please specify a valid file using the --file= parameter." ) youtube = get_authenticated_service ( args ) try : initialize_upload ( youtube , args ) except HttpError , e : print "An HTTP error %d occurred: \n %s " % ( e . resp . status , e . content )
Additional resources
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The Authentication guide provides complete details for implementing OAuth 2.0 .
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The reference documentation explains the fields in a video resource.
