---
id: python-youtube
version: "0.9.9"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# python-youtube — A Python wrapper around for YouTube Data API.

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 492.0K/mo

## What it is and what it does

python-youtube is a Python wrapper around the YouTube Data API V3 that abstracts the HTTP complexity of interacting with YouTube's REST endpoints. It provides two interfaces: a modern Client class and a legacy Api class for backward compatibility. Both support initialization via API key, access token, or OAuth flow, and expose methods to query and manipulate YouTube resources.

The library depends on requests for HTTP calls, requests-oauthlib for OAuth handling, dataclasses-json for response serialization, and isodate for timestamp parsing. It targets Python 3.9 and later and supports both CPython and PyPy. The package is actively maintained with no known security vulnerabilities.

Use it for:

- Fetch channel metadata and statistics for analytics or monitoring purposes.
- Build a YouTube search or discovery tool that queries videos by keyword or channel.
- Automate YouTube content management tasks like uploading, updating, or deleting videos.
- Implement OAuth-based YouTube login or authorization flows in a web application.
- Extract video comments and engagement data for sentiment analysis or research.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

A Python wrapper for the YouTube Data API V3 that lets you query and manage YouTube resources through OAuth or API key authentication.

Yes. The package is actively maintained, has low install friction, carries no known vulnerabilities, and provides a clean interface to the YouTube Data API V3. Install it if you need programmatic access to YouTube data or want to automate YouTube operations.

## Install

pip install python-youtube
uv add python-youtube
poetry add python-youtube

## Installing python-youtube

Before you install: Low install friction with four straightforward runtime dependencies. Actively maintained as of 2026-04-17 with recent commits and no known vulnerabilities.

License in practice: Licensed under MIT, a permissive open-source license that allows commercial and private use with minimal restrictions.

Quickstart:

pip install python-youtube

from python_youtube import Client
client = Client(api_key="your api key")
channel = client.channels.list(channel_id="UC_x5XG1OV2P6uZZ5FSM9Ttw")

Requires a YouTube Data API key or OAuth credentials from Google Cloud Console.

Verify before relying:

- Rate limits and quota behavior under heavy usage patterns.
- Whether all YouTube Data API V3 resource methods are fully covered by the wrapper.
- Specific performance characteristics when handling large result sets.

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 492.0K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

youtube api python wrapper, youtube data api v3 client, fetch youtube channel info, youtube video metadata, youtube oauth authentication, youtube sdk python, youtube-api, oauth, rest-client

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/python-youtube) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/python-youtube/)