This is a Python client for the YouTube Data API. The youtube-data-api package is a wrapper to simplify GET requests and JSON response parsing from the API. This package was written for version 3 of the API, with some minor future proofing.

We recommend you install this module using pip:

pip install youtube-data-api

If you want to use it from source, you'll have to install the dependencies manually:

pip install -r requirements.txt

In order to access the API, you'll need to get a service key from the Google Cloud Console.

Once you have it you can use the API key to initiate the YouTubeDataAPI class.

from youtube_api import YouTubeDataAPI

api_key = 'AKAIXXXXXXXX'
yt = YouTubeDataAPI(api_key)

yt.search('alexandria ocasio-cortez')

The yt object calls functions that automate the collection of data fields that are both visable and not-visable to everyday users.

Please refer to the documentation for details.

Static json files used for test are stored in ./tests/data. To test, command line input make test. For further information, please refer to ./tests/readme.md.

Written by Leon Yin and Megan Brown. Michael Liu helped write and document tests.

If you use this software in your research please cite it as:

@misc{leon_yin_2018_1414418,
  author       = {Leon Yin and
                  Megan Brown},
  title        = {SMAPPNYU/youtube-data-api},
  month        = sep,
  year         = 2018,
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.1414418},
  url          = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1414418}
}

We are actively seeking core maintainers and contributors! We will be documenting best practices and procedures for contributing code If you see a typo or documentation that is not clear, please make a pull request!