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
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)