YouTube Mass Uploader (YMU)

Introduction

YMU is a YouTube API V3 wrapper created in C#. It allows to upload video with title, description, category, tags and thumbnail to the YouTube channel specified by its ID. It has simple LINQ like syntax based on extension methods and it's asynchronous by its nature. You can use it to upload single or several videos at once. 

Limitations

To use this library, you will have to create your own Upload Application in Google Cloud. I created video tutorial with the full description of the whole process. Amount of videos which you can upload (or try to upload) during day is limited, so, you must request additional quotas to unleash the full potential of YMU.  Right now, size of thumbnail is also limited via YouTube to 2 MB. Size of title, description and tags also has limitations. YMU doesn't perform checks of those limitations, so, you have to deal with them by yourself.

Console Application

Console application is available by the following link YMU v1.0. If you want to use it in your project - download it and unpack in a suitable folder. This application could be used to upload videos with thumbnails to different YouTube channels. It uses only one argument - path to the XML configuration. Here is a template XML document which you can use to create of your own:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16" ?>
<upload application="APP_NAME" secret="SECRET_PATH">
    <video file="VIDEO_PATH" privacy="PRIVACY" category="CATEGORY">
        <channel id="CHANNEL_ID"/>
        <title>TITLE</title>
        <description>
DESCRIPTION
        </description>
        <thumbnail file="THUMBNAIL_PATH"/>         
        <tags>TAGS</tags>
    </video>
</upload>

Explanation:

• APP_NAME - name of the application registered in Google Cloud and permission to upload videos on YouTube;
• SECRET_PATH - path to the secret JSON file which could be downloaded from your Application Page on Google Cloud;
• VIDEO_PATH - full path to the video file;
• PRIVACY - one of the following supported privacy modes:
  • Public - video will be visible to everyone;
  • Unlisted - video will be accessible via URL;
  • Private - video will be accessible only by you;
• CATEGORY - one of the following supported categories: FilmAndAnimation, AutoAndVehicles, Music, PetsAndAnimals, Sports, ShortMovies, TravelAndEvents, Gaming, VideoBlogging, PeopleAndBlogs, Comedy, Entertainment, NewsAndPolitics, HowtoAndStyle, Education, ScienceAndTechnology, NonprofitsAndActivism, Movies, Anime, ActionAndAdventure, Classics, Documentary, Drama, Family, Foreign, Horror, SciFiAndFantasy, Thriller, Shorts, Shows, Trailers.
• CHANNEL_ID - channel ID, which could be easily obtained from the channel URL. Here is how it looks: UCy6Py3BjosZP7LjpZJO4gqA.
• TITLE - title of the video. It could contain only 100 symbols;
• DESCRIPTION - description of the video. It could contain only 5000 symbols;
• THUMBNAIL_PATH - full path to the thumbnail image file. It must not be larger then 2 MB;
• TAGS - comma separated tags. It could contain only 500 symbols, including commas;

Here is an example of XML configuration:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16" ?>
<upload application="Test Video Uploader" secret="/Users/Tester/YouTube/Secret/secret.json">
    <video file="/Users/Tester/YouTube/Videos/My_Video_1.mp4" privacy="Public" category="Entertainment">
        <channel id="UChK-iHYx4-4O5ynuzVkUd0g"/>
        <title>Excellent video #1!</title>
        <description>
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Fusce convallis eros nunc, vel molestie tortor blandit sed. Vestibulum eget aliquet odio. Integer eu volutpat lacus, vel finibus leo. Mauris non vehicula purus.  
        </description>
        <thumbnail file="/Users/Tester/YouTube/Images/My_Thumbnail_1.png"/>         
        <tags>lorem,ipsum,dolor,sit,amet consectetur,adipiscing elit,fusce convallis eros,nunc vel molestie tortor, blandit sed vestibulum</tags>
    </video>
    <video file="/Users/Tester/YouTube/Videos/My_Video_2.mp4" privacy="Public" category="Entertainment">
        <channel id="UChK-iHYx4-4O5ynuzVkUd0g"/>
        <title>Excellent video #2!</title>
        <description>
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Fusce convallis eros nunc, vel molestie tortor blandit sed. Vestibulum eget aliquet odio. Integer eu volutpat lacus, vel finibus leo. Mauris non vehicula purus.  
        </description>
        <thumbnail file="/Users/Tester/YouTube/Images/My_Thumbnail_2.png"/>         
        <tags>lorem,ipsum,dolor,sit,amet consectetur,adipiscing elit,fusce convallis eros,nunc vel molestie tortor, blandit sed vestibulum</tags>
    </video>  
</upload>

This configuration used to upload two videos My_Video_1.mp4 and My_Video_2.mp4 with thumbnails My_Thumbnail_1.png and My_Thumbnail_2.png on YouTube channel with following ID: 'UChK-iHYx4-4O5ynuzVkUd0g'.

Upload video

To upload video (or videos) you must execute console application in the Terminal and specify path to the configuration file as first parameter. Here is an example:

dotnet /Users/Tester/YMU/YMU.Console.dll /User/Tester/YouTube/My_YMU_Configuration.xml 

When the upload started, YMU could open web browser and ask you to authorize to your channels. This procedure initiated by YouTube API and couldn't be skipped.

Code Structure

Solution consists of three projects:

• YMU.Core - contains simple XML deserializer implemented by me;
• YMU.Console - contains console application logic;
• YMU.API - the API itself. It contains only one file 'YMUAPI.cs' which you can download and integrate into your project. Please, also make sure to add following Nuget Package to your project: 'Google.Apis.YouTube.v3' and all of its dependencies.

Code Examples

Here is an example how you can upload single video and its thumbnail via code:

async void VideoUploadExample() {
    var video = new Video() {
        VideoPath = "/Users/Tester/YouTube/Videos/My_Video_1.mp4",
        Title = "Short title",
        Description = "Long description string",
        Tags = new string[] { "tag1", "tag2", "tag3" },
        Category = Categories.Music,
        Privacy = Privacies.Public,
    };

    var thumbnail = new Thumbnail() {
        ThumbnailPath = "/Users/Tester/YouTube/Images/My_Thumbnail_1.png",
    };

    var jsonSecret = "/Users/Tester/YouTube/Secret/secret.json";
    var appName = "Test Video Uploader";
    var channelID = "UChK-iHYx4-4O5ynuzVkUd0g";

    var result = await Credentials.FromSecret(jsonSecret, appName, channelID).Authorize().Upload(video).Upload(thumbnail);
    if(result.Status == Statuses.Failed)
        System.Console.WriteLine($"Upload of video '{video.VideoPath}' is  failed due to error: {result.Error}!");
}

Nuget Package

You can include YMU.API as a Nuget Package - here is link to it.

Sponsorship

I will be very happy if this project helped you in solving your challenges and saved you the time that you could spend with your loved ones. I would be grateful if you support me on Patreon! All raised money I will use to improve this project as well as create new useful open-source tools and APIs.

Conclusion

In any case, I hope that YMU will make your life easier. Please, ping me if you have questions, or you decided to use it in your project: yulian.titov@gmail.com. I will be really glad to know that. 😊