Upload a Video

  • This guide demonstrates a Python script for uploading videos to YouTube using the YouTube Data API, which utilizes the Google APIs Client Library for Python.

  • The script requires Python 2.5 or higher, the Google APIs Client Library for Python, and registration of your application with Google to use OAuth 2.0 for authorized access.

  • A client_secrets.json file is necessary, containing OAuth 2.0 credentials obtained from the Google API Console, to enable the script's authentication.

  • The script allows setting video metadata like title, description, keywords, category, and privacy status via command-line arguments.

  • The provided Python script includes an exponential backoff strategy for retrying uploads in case of network interruptions or errors.

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

  • Python 2.5 or higher

  • 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.

  • To use OAuth 2.0 steps with this script, you'll need to create a client_secrets.json file 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:

  • file: This argument identifies the location of the video file that you are uploading.

    Example: --file="/home/path/to/file.mov"

  • title: The title of the video that you are uploading. The default value is Test title.

    Example: --title="Summer vacation in California"

  • description: The description of the video that you're uploading. The default value is Test description.

    Example: --description="Had fun surfing in Santa Cruz"

  • category: The category ID for the YouTube video category associated with the video. The default value is 22, which refers to the People & Blogs category.

    Example: --category="22"

  • keywords: A comma-separated list of keywords associated with the video. The default value is an empty string.

    Example: --keywords="surfing"

  • 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 --privacyStatus argument value to ensure that those videos are private or unlisted. Valid values are public, private, and unlisted.

    Example: --privacyStatus="private"

Sample code

The complete working sample for the upload_video.py script is listed below:

#!/usr/bin/python
importhttplib
importhttplib2
importos
importrandom
importsys
importtime
fromapiclient.discoveryimport build
fromapiclient.errorsimport HttpError
fromapiclient.httpimport MediaFileUpload
fromoauth2client.clientimport flow_from_clientsecrets
fromoauth2client.fileimport Storage
fromoauth2client.toolsimport 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")
defget_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()))
definitialize_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.
defresumable_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

  • The Authentication guide provides complete details for implementing OAuth 2.0.

  • The reference documentation explains the fields in a video resource.

Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Last updated 2025年08月28日 UTC.