Fetch Video Metadata with YouTube.video() in ytscrape¶

Retrieve rich metadata for any YouTube video — title, description, view count, duration, keywords, and more — using a video id or URL.

YouTube.video() fetches detailed metadata for a single video and returns a VideoDetails dataclass. It accepts either a bare 11-character video id or any standard YouTube URL — no extra parsing needed on your side.

Calling `yt.video()`¶

Pass a video id or any URL that embeds one. The method extracts the id automatically from all common URL formats.

from ytscrape import YouTube

with YouTube() as yt:
    # Plain video id
    details = yt.video("dQw4w9WgXcQ")

    # Or any YouTube URL — all formats work
    details = yt.video("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ")

Supported URL formats¶

Format	Example
`watch?v=`	`https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ`
`youtu.be/`	`https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ`
`/shorts/`	`https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dQw4w9WgXcQ`
`/embed/`	`https://www.youtube.com/embed/dQw4w9WgXcQ`

Full example¶

The snippet below mirrors the official examples/03_video_details.py example and shows every commonly used field:

from ytscrape import YouTube

with YouTube() as yt:
    # A plain id or any YouTube URL both work.
    details = yt.video("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ")

    print(f"Title:     {details.title}")
    print(f"Channel:   {details.channel}")
    print(f"Views:     {details.views}")
    print(f"Length:    {details.length_seconds}s")
    print(f"Published: {details.published}")
    print(f"Category:  {details.category}")
    print(f"Live:      {details.is_live}")
    print(f"Keywords:  {', '.join(details.keywords[:5])}")
    print(f"URL:       {details.url}")

You can also access the full description and the channel id for further lookups:

with YouTube() as yt:
    details = yt.video("dQw4w9WgXcQ")

    print(details.description)
    print(details.channel_id)  # UC…
    print(details.thumbnail)  # URL of the highest-resolution thumbnail

Field reference¶

VideoDetails is a frozen dataclass. All fields are listed below.

Field	Type	Description
`video_id`	`str`	Unique 11-character YouTube video id
`title`	`str \\| None`	Video title
`description`	`str \\| None`	Full video description
`channel`	`str \\| None`	Display name of the uploading channel
`channel_id`	`str \\| None`	`UC…` id of the uploading channel
`length_seconds`	`int \\| None`	Duration of the video in seconds
`views`	`int \\| None`	Total view count as an integer
`keywords`	`tuple[str, ...]`	Tags / keywords associated with the video
`is_live`	`bool`	`True` if the video is a live stream or live content
`thumbnail`	`str \\| None`	URL of the highest-resolution available thumbnail
`published`	`str \\| None`	ISO publish date from player microformat (e.g. `2009-10-25`)
`upload_date`	`str \\| None`	ISO upload date
`category`	`str \\| None`	YouTube category (e.g. `Music`)
`owner_profile_url`	`str \\| None`	Channel profile / vanity URL
`embed_url`	`str \\| None`	Embed iframe URL
`is_private`	`bool`	`True` if the player reports the video as private
`is_upcoming`	`bool`	`True` for scheduled premieres
`allow_ratings`	`bool \\| None`	Whether likes/ratings are enabled
`is_family_safe`	`bool \\| None`	Family-safe flag from microformat
`available_countries`	`tuple[str, ...]`	ISO country codes where the video is available
`url`	`str`	Canonical `https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=…` URL (computed property)

Note

length_seconds is an int (e.g. 212), not a formatted string like "3:32". To display a human-readable duration, convert it yourself: f"{details.length_seconds // 60}:{details.length_seconds % 60:02d}".