Skip to content

Getting Youtube Channel ID Using Their API

This is for people wanting to programmatically get the Channel ID of a Youtube Channel using Youtube's API and a Youtube Channel name.

Supposedly there are ways to look through the web UI to find the appropriate ID, but I want to get this information using code.

API Endpoint

https://youtube.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/search?part=snippet&q={CHANNEL_NAME}&type=channel&key={YOUTUBE_API_KEY}

Be sure you:

  • Replace the {CHANNEL_NAME} variable with the name of the Youtube channel you want to get the Channel Id of.
  • Replace the {YOUTUBE_API_KEY} with the api key provided by Google. Follow the docs to get this.

Example cURL Request

bash
curl --location --request GET 'https://youtube.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/search?part=snippet&q={CHANNEL_NAME}&type=channel&key={YOUTUBE_API_KEY}' \

--header 'Accept: application/json'