How to get number of video views with YouTube API?

Question

The question is very simple. How to get number of video views with YouTube API?

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The task is simple but I would like to use that query on large number of videos very often. Is there any way to call their Youtube API and get it? (something like facebook http://api.facebook.com/restserver.php?method=links.getStats&urls=developers.facebook.com)

anything that works vary well. as I said, i must query on large number of videos very often. — Ante, Aug 15 '10 at 12:52
Unrelated: LOL @ facebook. If you have a `restserver.php` you're clearly missing the point. — Rudie, Oct 11 '15 at 13:24
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18953499/youtube-api-to-fetch-all-videos-on-a-channel — Naresh, Jul 01 '19 at 06:34

Victor · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-02T07:08:15.180

78

I think, the easiest way, is to get video info in JSON format. If you want to use JavaScript, try jQuery.getJSON()... But I prefer PHP:

<?php
$video_ID = 'your-video-ID';
$JSON = file_get_contents("https://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/{$video_ID}?v=2&alt=json");
$JSON_Data = json_decode($JSON);
$views = $JSON_Data->{'entry'}->{'yt$statistics'}->{'viewCount'};
echo $views;
?>

Ref: Youtube API - Retrieving information about a single video

edited Apr 02 '12 at 07:08

answered Jul 25 '10 at 22:59

Victor

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Thanks, you saved me 30 mins of digging around :) – Martin Oct 10 '10 at 12:21
this apeares to be out of date tho?? all my videos view counts through this method are a good 100 or so behind what is showed on the video watch page – mdskinner Sep 27 '11 at 01:28
Youtube delays views for popular videos, there's not really much you can do about it. – Dylan Cross Feb 16 '12 at 00:37
3

FYI this broke around April 20th, 2015 and only returns view information for https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKY3scPIMd8 which points to https://youtube.com/devicesupport. Basically, use the v3 API. – Ryan DuVal May 18 '15 at 23:25
1

ERR_INVALID_RESPONSE – Alexey Sh. Oct 19 '17 at 16:14

score 73 · Answer 2 · answered May 30 '13 at 01:04

You can use the new YouTube Data API v3

if you retrieve the video, the statistics part contains the viewCount:

from the doc:

https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/docs/videos#resource

statistics.viewCount / The number of times the video has been viewed.

You can retrieve this info in the client side, or in the server side using some of the client libraries:

https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/libraries

And you can test the API call from the doc:

https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/docs/videos/list

Sample:

Request:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/videos?part=statistics&id=Q5mHPo2yDG8&key={YOUR_API_KEY}

Authorization:  Bearer ya29.AHES6ZSCT9BmIXJmjHlRlKMmVCU22UQzBPRuxzD7Zg_09hsG
X-JavaScript-User-Agent:  Google APIs Explorer

Response:

200 OK

- Show headers -

{
 "kind": "youtube#videoListResponse",
 "etag": "\"g-RLCMLrfPIk8n3AxYYPPliWWoo/dZ8K81pnD1mOCFyHQkjZNynHpYo\"",
 "pageInfo": {
  "totalResults": 1,
  "resultsPerPage": 1
 },
 "items": [
  {

   "id": "Q5mHPo2yDG8",
   "kind": "youtube#video",
   "etag": "\"g-RLCMLrfPIk8n3AxYYPPliWWoo/4NA7C24hM5mprqQ3sBwI5Lo9vZE\"",
   "statistics": {
    "viewCount": "36575966",
    "likeCount": "127569",
    "dislikeCount": "5715",
    "favoriteCount": "0",
    "commentCount": "20317"
   }
  }
 ]
}

This is the way to go now, the V2 Google API is deprecated since March 2014. Additional tip: one can retrieve multiple parts of the API like this: `part=statistics,contentDetails`. Moreover even the V2 API seems to work in most cases, it doesn't on some videos. — COil, May 21 '15 at 14:24

score 11 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 01:35

Version 2 of the API has been deprecated since March 2014, which some of these other answers are using.

Here is a very simple code snippet to get the views count from a video, using JQuery in the YouTube API v3.

You will need to create an API key via Google Developer Console first.

<script>
  $.getJSON('https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/videos?part=statistics&id=Qq7mpb-hCBY&key={{YOUR-KEY}}', function(data) {
    alert("viewCount: " + data.items[0].statistics.viewCount);
  });
</script>

score 8 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 19 '13 at 08:04

Here is a small code snippet to get Youtube video views from URL using Javascript

Demo of below code

    function videoViews() {
var rex = /[a-zA-Z0-9\-\_]{11}/,
    videoUrl = $('input').val() === '' ? alert('Enter a valid Url'):$('input').val(),
    videoId = videoUrl.match(rex),
    jsonUrl = 'http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/' + videoId + '?v=2&alt=json',
   embedUrl = '//www.youtube.com/embed/' + videoId,
   embedCode = '<iframe width="350" height="197" src="' + embedUrl + '" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>'


//Get Views from JSON
$.getJSON(jsonUrl, function (videoData) {
    var videoJson = JSON.stringify(videoData),
        vidJson = JSON.parse(videoJson),
        views = vidJson.entry.yt$statistics.viewCount;
    $('.views').text(views);
});

//Embed Video
$('.videoembed').html(embedCode);}

NVRM · Answer 5 · 2019-03-01T18:04:02.943

6

Why using any api key to retrieve a portion of public html!

Simplest unix command line demonstrative example, using curl, grep and cut.

curl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-y7jzGxKNo | grep watch7-views-info | cut -d">" -f8 | cut -d"<" -f1

Yes, it get the full html page, this loss has no meaning against the countless advantages.

edited Mar 01 '19 at 18:04

answered Mar 01 '19 at 17:51

NVRM

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score 4 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 04 '14 at 10:36

4

You can use this too:

<?php
    $youtube_view_count = json_decode(file_get_contents('http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/wGG543FeHOE?v=2&alt=json'))->entry->{'yt$statistics'}->viewCount;
    echo $youtube_view_count;
    ?>

answered Feb 04 '14 at 10:36

dragos

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You can explain more and what language you used. – Rahil Wazir Feb 04 '14 at 10:56
This looks to be using the old v2 of the API which is now deprecated. – Simon East Apr 13 '17 at 01:38

score 3 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 06 '19 at 00:38

3

Using youtube-dl and jq:

views() {
    id=$1
    youtube-dl -j https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=$id |
        jq -r '.["view_count"]'
}

views fOX1EyHkQwc

answered Dec 06 '19 at 00:38

Ole Tange

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score 2 · Answer 8 · answered May 06 '16 at 19:12

Use the Google PHP API Client: https://github.com/google/google-api-php-client

Here's a little mini class just to get YouTube statistics for a single video id. It can obviously be extended a ton using the remainder of the api: https://api.kdyby.org/class-Google_Service_YouTube_Video.html

class YouTubeVideo
{
    // video id
    public $id;

    // generate at https://console.developers.google.com/apis
    private $apiKey = 'REPLACE_ME';

    // google youtube service
    private $youtube;

    public function __construct($id)
    {
        $client = new Google_Client();
        $client->setDeveloperKey($this->apiKey);

        $this->youtube = new Google_Service_YouTube($client);

        $this->id = $id;
    }

    /*
     * @return Google_Service_YouTube_VideoStatistics
     * Google_Service_YouTube_VideoStatistics Object ( [commentCount] => 0 [dislikeCount] => 0 [favoriteCount] => 0 [likeCount] => 0 [viewCount] => 5 )  
     */
    public function getStatistics()
    {
        try{
            // Call the API's videos.list method to retrieve the video resource.
            $response = $this->youtube->videos->listVideos("statistics",
                array('id' => $this->id));

            $googleService = current($response->items);
            if($googleService instanceof Google_Service_YouTube_Video) {
                return $googleService->getStatistics();
            }
        } catch (Google_Service_Exception $e) {
            return sprintf('<p>A service error occurred: <code>%s</code></p>',
                htmlspecialchars($e->getMessage()));
        } catch (Google_Exception $e) {
            return sprintf('<p>An client error occurred: <code>%s</code></p>',
                htmlspecialchars($e->getMessage()));
        }
    }
}

score 2 · Answer 9 · answered Feb 02 '17 at 15:29

Here is a simple function in PHP that returns the number of views a YouTube video has. You will need the YouTube Data API Key (v3) in order for this to work. If you don't have the key, get one for free at: YouTube Data API

//Define a constant so that the API KEY can be used globally across the application    
define("YOUTUBE_DATA_API_KEY", 'YOUR_YOUTUBE_DATA_API_KEY');

function youtube_video_statistics($video_id) {
    $json = file_get_contents("https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/videos?part=statistics&id=" . $video_id . "&key=". YOUTUBE_DATA_API_KEY );
    $jsonData = json_decode($json);
    $views = $jsonData->items[0]->statistics->viewCount;
    return $views;
}

//Replace YOUTUBE_VIDEO_ID with your actual YouTube video Id
echo youtube_video_statistics('YOUTUBE_VIDEO_ID');

I am using this solution in my application and it is working as of today. So get the API Key and YouTube video ID and replace them in the above code (Second Line and Last Line) and you should be good to go.

score 2 · Answer 10 · answered Dec 29 '18 at 16:32

2

YouTube Data API v3 URL Sample

Source Link

https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/videos?key=[YOUR_API_KEY_HERE]&fields=items(snippet(title,tags,channelTitle,publishedAt),statistics(viewCount))&part=snippet,statistics&id=[VIDEOID]

answered Dec 29 '18 at 16:32

Code Spy

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score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Apr 08 '13 at 09:39

Here an example that I used in my TubeCount app.

I also use the fields parameter to filter the JSON result, so only the fields that I need are returned.

var fields = "fields=openSearch:totalResults,entry(title,media:group(yt:videoid),media:group(yt:duration),media:group(media:description),media:group(media:thumbnail[@yt:name='default'](@url)),yt:statistics,yt:rating,published,gd:comments(gd:feedLink(@countHint)))";

var channel = "wiibart";

$.ajax({
    url: "http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/users/"+channel+"/uploads?"+fields+"&v=2&alt=json",
    success: function(data){

        var len = data.feed.entry.length;

        for(var k =0; k<len; k++){
            var yt = data.feed.entry[k];
            v.count = Number(yt.yt$statistics != undefined && yt.yt$statistics.viewCount != undefined ? yt.yt$statistics.viewCount : 0);
        }
    }
});

Thanks for adding the alt=json query param. Default response is atom — Jonathan Morales Vélez, Mar 04 '15 at 02:19

RegarBoy · Answer 12 · 2019-01-09T21:53:57.390

1

You can use JQuery, don't forget to replace Your-Api-Key string from the code below, follow the link to find your own Api key google developers console

<script>
    $.getJSON('https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/videospart=statistics&id=Qq7mpb-hCBY&key=Your-Api-Key', function(data) {
        console.log("viewCount: ", data.items[ 0 ].statistics.viewCount);
    });
</script>

edited Jan 09 '19 at 21:53

answered Feb 11 '16 at 13:47

RegarBoy

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score 1 · Answer 13 · answered Sep 21 '10 at 18:22

1

look at yt:statistics tag. It provides viewCount, videoWatchCount, favoriteCount etc.

answered Sep 21 '10 at 18:22

Rajani Karuturi

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score 1 · Answer 14 · answered Mar 25 '18 at 17:51

PHP JSON

$jsonURL = file_get_contents("https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/videos?id=$Videoid&key={YOUR-API-KEY}&part=statistics");
$json = json_decode($jsonURL);

First go through this one by uncommenting

//var_dump(json);

and get views count as:

$vcounts = $json->{'items'}[0]->{'statistics'}->{'viewCount'};

score -7 · Answer 15 · answered Jul 25 '10 at 22:44

-7

This probably is not what you want but you could scrap the page for the information using the following:

document.getElementsByClassName('watch-view-count')[0].innerHTML

answered Jul 25 '10 at 22:44

Ryan Alberts

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Youtube warns when the API is about to change. But it hasn't any contract with developers on the website. So this is not a good idea – FRAGA Nov 23 '11 at 18:50

How to get number of video views with YouTube API?

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