Difference between revisions of "YouTube/Technical details"
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| <code><nowiki>SP([0-9A-F]{16}|[A-Za-z0-9_-]{32})</nowiki></code> || || Fully functional || || Behaves exactly as the same ID with <code>PL</code> | | <code><nowiki>SP([0-9A-F]{16}|[A-Za-z0-9_-]{32})</nowiki></code> || || Fully functional || || Behaves exactly as the same ID with <code>PL</code> | ||
|- | |- | ||
| <code>TLGG[A-Za-z0-9_-]{22} || Temporary list || || || Produced by <code><nowiki>https://www.youtube.com/watch_videos?video_ids=<videoID>,<videoID>,...</nowiki></code> | | <code>TLGG[A-Za-z0-9_-]{22} || Temporary list || || || Produced by <code><nowiki>https://www.youtube.com/watch_videos?video_ids=<videoID>,<videoID>,...</nowiki></code> and <code><nowiki>https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/<videoID>?playlist=<videoID>,<videoID>,...</nowiki></code> | ||
|- | |- | ||
| <code>TLPQ[A-Za-z0-9_-]{22} || || || || | | <code>TLPQ[A-Za-z0-9_-]{22} || || || || | ||
Revision as of 10:41, 28 November 2021
This page documents some of the publicly known technical details of YouTube.
ID formats
In most places, IDs are expressed as base64 using the modified character set A-Za-z0-9-_.
Videos
Videos have a 64-bit ID. Because an 11-character base64 string is equivalent to 66 bit, the last character of a video ID can only take one of 16 values.
Video ID regex pattern: [A-Za-z0-9_-]{10}[048AEIMQUYcgkosw]
Channels
Channels have a 128-bit ID. In base64, this turns into a 22-character string where the last character can take 4 values.
Channel ID regex pattern: [A-Za-z0-9_-]{21}[AQgw]
(Note that this does not include the UC prefix used e.g. in /channel/ URLs. The channel ID appears without that prefix in several places, most notably some playlist IDs.)
Playlists
Over the years, there has been a large number of playlist types, many of which have since gone the way of the dodo. This section attempts to document them all.
In the table below, pattern is a regex with the additional syntax of <videoID> to indicate that the ID contains a video ID (and likewise for channel and playlist IDs).
| Pattern | Purpose | Status | Examples | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
AL[A-Za-z0-9_-]+ |
Broken | |||
AV[A-Za-z0-9_-]{32} |
Broken | IDs do not appear to be PL ones
| ||
CL<videoID> |
||||
EC([0-9A-F]{16}|[A-Za-z0-9_-]{32}) |
Courses | Unviewable, playnext and watch functional | IDs are also fully functional with PL
| |
EL<videoID> |
||||
FL<channelID> |
Favourites | Fully functional | ||
HL[0-9]{10} |
Unviewable, playnext broken | |||
LE[A-Za-z0-9_-]{23} |
||||
LL<channelID> |
Likes | Dead | Made private in December 2019 | |
LP<videoID> |
Broken | |||
MC[0-9]{8} |
Values appear to be dates | |||
MCUS |
||||
ML[A-Za-z0-9_-]{32} |
Broken | IDs do not appear to be PL ones
| ||
OLAK5uy_[klmn][A-Za-z0-9_-]{32} |
||||
PL[0-9A-F]{16} |
Normal playlist (old) | Fully functional | ||
PL[A-Za-z0-9_-]{32} |
Normal playlist | Fully functional | ||
PU<channelID> |
Popular uploads | Unviewable, playnext and watch functional | ||
RD<videoID> |
Mix aka radio | Unviewable, playnext and watch functional | ||
RD[0-4][0-9]<videoID> |
||||
RDAMVM[A-Za-z0-9_-]{22} |
Artist mix? | |||
RDAO[A-Za-z0-9_-]{22} |
Artist mix | |||
RDAMPL<playlistID> |
||||
RDCLAK5uy_[klmn][A-Za-z0-9_-]{32} |
||||
RDCMUC<channelID> |
Channel mix | |||
RDEM[A-Za-z0-9_-]{22} |
Artist mix? | |||
RDGMEM[A-Za-z0-9_-]{22} |
Genre mix? | |||
RDGMEM[A-Za-z0-9_-]{22}VM<videoID> |
Genre mix? | |||
RDHC<videoID> |
||||
RDKM[A-Za-z0-9_-]{22} |
||||
RDLV<videoID> |
||||
RDMM |
My Mix | Tied to the account accessing YouTube | ||
RDMM<videoID> |
||||
RDQM<videoID> |
||||
RDTMAK5uy_[klmn][A-Za-z0-9_-]{32} |
||||
SL |
||||
SL<videoID> |
Broken | |||
SP([0-9A-F]{16}|[A-Za-z0-9_-]{32}) |
Fully functional | Behaves exactly as the same ID with PL
| ||
TLGG[A-Za-z0-9_-]{22} |
Temporary list | Produced by https://www.youtube.com/watch_videos?video_ids=<videoID>,<videoID>,... and https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/<videoID>?playlist=<videoID>,<videoID>,...
| ||
TLPQ[A-Za-z0-9_-]{22} |
||||
UL<videoID> |
User uploads | Watch functional | Only valid on watch pages. Triggers display of uploads by the same user as the watched video. The ID in the list parameter must be a valid video ID from any channel; in the past, any 11 characters were accepted, and even further in the past, a sole UL worked as well.
| |
UU<channelID> |
User/channel uploads | Fully functional | ||
UUSH<channelID> |
User shorts | Fully functional | ||
WL |
Watch Later | Tied to the account accessing YouTube |
Further prefixes that are known or suspected to have existed but whose exact format isn't known yet: BP, MLCA, MQ, TT
URL formats
A large number of URL formats have been in use over the years, too many to be listed here. User:JustAnotherArchivist's youtube-extract script contain regex patterns for most of the ones that were at least somewhat common.
Domains
Domains actively serving content as of 2021:
- www.youtube.com (main site)
- m.youtube.com (mobile site)
- youtu.be (short URLs)
- www.youtube-nocookie.com (embeds only)
- music.youtube.com (YouTube Music)
- www.youtubekids.com (YouTube Kids)
- tv.youtube.com (YouTube TV)
- i.ytimg.com (static images like thumbnails; avatars are on subdomains of ggpht.com as they are shared between Google services)
- subdomains of googlevideo.com (video content)
A long time ago, there were YouTube domains under a number of ccTLDs. Nowadays, these all redirect to the main site: youtube.at, by, ca, co.uk, cz, de, dk, ee, es, fi, fr, gr, hr, hu, it, lt, lv, no, pl, pt, ro, rs, ru, se, si, sk.
In addition, there are some subdomains under youtube.com which redirect to the main site but add the gl parameter to the query string, which changes the interface language: br.youtube.com and likewise for es, it, jp, pl, ru, uk.