Youtube Data API Subscription | Set-1

In this article, we will be discussing about the Youtube Subscriptions. How API can be used to retrieve and manipulate these subscriptions.

There are three operations that we will be discussing:

  1. List all the subscriptions associated with a Youtube channel
  2. Insert a new subscription
  3. Delete a subscription.

All these methods will be requiring user’s authorization, so we will be first discussing how to get a OAuth Credential.
Follow the steps below to generate a Client Id and a Secret Key.

  1. Go to Google Google Developers Console and Click on Sign In in the upper rightmost corner of the page. Sign In using the credentials of the valid Google Account. If you don’t have a google account, setup a account first and then use the details to Sign In on the Google Developers Homepage.
  2. Now navigate to the Developer Dashboard and create a new Project.
  3. Click on Enable API option.
  4. In the search field, search for Youtube Data API and select the Youtube Data API option that comes in the drop down list.
  5. You will be redirected to a screen that says information about the Youtube Data API, along with two options : ENABLE and TRY API.
  6. Click on ENABLE option to get started with the API.
  7. In the sidebar under APIs & Services, select Credentials.
  9. In the Credentials tab, select the Create credentials drop-down list, and choose OAuth Client Id. OAuth is generally used where authorization is required like in the case of retrieving liked videos of a user.
  10. Select the application type Other, enter the name “YouTube Data API Myvideos”, and click the Create button.
  11. Click OK.
  12. Click on Download button to the right of the client Id to download the JSON file.
  13. Save and rename the file as client_secret.json and move it to the working directory.

Install additional libraries using the pip command:

pip install –upgrade google-auth google-auth-oauthlib google-auth-httplib2

Note: Let’s discuss how to find the channel Id to use it as a parameter in the first code – to lists all subscriptions associated with a Youtube Channel Id.

Follow the steps below to find the channel Id:

  1. Sign in to your Youtube Account.
  2. In the top left corner, CLick on three lines icon and go to Settings.
  3. Now in the same menu in the left hand side it will show option of Advance Settings.
  4. You will see your Channel Id under Account Information.

Code to list subscriptions: Here are three ways to accomplish this task. We will be discussing these in detail.

  1. List Subscriptions associated with a channel Id
  2. List subscriptions of one’s own account
  3. Check whether a desired subscription exist or not

Code to list all subscriptions associated with a Channel Id: This example shows how channel Id can be used as a parameter to retrieve all subscriptions for that particular Youtube Channel.





import os
import google.oauth2.credentials
import google_auth_oauthlib.flow
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from googleapiclient.errors import HttpError
from google_auth_oauthlib.flow import InstalledAppFlow
# The CLIENT_SECRETS_FILE variable specifies 
# the name of a file that contains
# client_id and client_secret.
CLIENT_SECRETS_FILE = "client_secret.json"
# This scope allows for full read/write access 
# to the authenticated user's account and 
# requires requests to use an SSL connection.
API_SERVICE_NAME = 'youtube'
def get_authenticated_service():
  flow = InstalledAppFlow.from_client_secrets_file(CLIENT_SECRETS_FILE, SCOPES)
  credentials = flow.run_console()
  return build(API_SERVICE_NAME, API_VERSION, credentials = credentials)
def print_response(response):
# Build a resource based on a list of properties
# given as key-value pairs. Leave properties with
# empty values out of the inserted resource.
def build_resource(properties):
  resource = {}
  for p in properties:
    # Given a key like "snippet.title", split into
    # "snippet" and "title", where "snippet" will be
    # an object and "title" will be a property in that object.
    prop_array = p.split('.')
    ref = resource
    for pa in range(0, len(prop_array)):
      is_array = False
      key = prop_array[pa]
      # For properties that have array values, convert a name like
      # "snippet.tags[]" to snippet.tags, and set a flag to handle
      # the value as an array.
      if key[-2:] == '[]':
        key = key[0:len(key)-2:]
        is_array = True
      if pa == (len(prop_array) - 1):
        # Leave properties without values
        # out of inserted resource.
        if properties[p]:
          if is_array:
            ref[key] = properties[p].split(', ')
            ref[key] = properties[p]
      elif key not in ref:
        # For example, the property is "snippet.title", 
        # but the resource does not yet have a "snippet" object.
        # Create the snippet object here.
        # Setting "ref = ref[key]" means that in the next time
        # through the "for pa in range ..." loop, we will be 
        # setting a property in the resource's "snippet" object.
        ref[key] = {}
        ref = ref[key]
        # For example, the property is "snippet.description",
        # and the resource already has a "snippet" object.
        ref = ref[key]
  return resource
# Remove keyword arguments that are not set
def remove_empty_kwargs(**kwargs):
  good_kwargs = {}
  if kwargs is not None:
    for key, value in kwargs.items():
      if value:
        good_kwargs[key] = value
  return good_kwargs
def subscriptions_list_by_channel_id(client, **kwargs):
  kwargs = remove_empty_kwargs(**kwargs)
  response = client.subscriptions().list(**kwargs).execute()
  return print_response(response)
if __name__ == '__main__':
  # When running locally, disable OAuthlib's HTTPs verification. 
  # When running in production * do not * leave this option enabled.
  client = get_authenticated_service()
    part ='snippet, contentDetails',
    channelId ='UCqoMU8lNdUq63ZmTJFd620w',
    maxResults = 3)



While executing the code you will be asked for the authorization code. For getting the code you need to follow the link mentioned in the command prompt screen above the line: Enter the Authorization code.

Now follow the link and copy paste the authorization code that you will get by granting the permission.

We have set the maxResults parameter to 3 i.e. why the output shows only top three subscriptions name. But you can see from the totalResulst value which is 38, which means there are in total 38 subscriptions in the associated channel.


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