YouTube Channel to Playlist

Keeping track of which YouTube videos you have watched can be tricky, especially because the "WATCHED" indicator seems to be ephemeral. This script allows you to add all videos from a YouTube channel to a playlist that you control so you can order them as you please and remove them once they've been watched.

Installation

Requirements: Python 3.12 or later.

1. Install this application with pip:

   python3 -m pip install git+https://github.com/RobbieClarken/youtube-channel-to-playlist

2. Create a project through the Google Cloud Console.

3. Enable your project to use the YouTube Data API v3 via the APIs & Services Dashboard.

4. Configure an OAuth consent screen:

   • On the Scopes page of the app registration, add the https://www.googleapis.com/auth/youtube scope.
   • On the Test users page add your email.

5. Create an OAuth Client ID through the Credentials page under APIs & Services, selecting:

   • Application type: Desktop app

6. Download the OAuth client secrets JSON file from the Credentials page and rename it to client_secrets.json.

Usage

channel_to_playlist --secrets client_secrets.json source-channel-id target-playlist-id

where source-channel-id and target-playlist-id can be found from the URLs of the YouTube channel and playlist. To find the channel id of a YouTube account like https://www.youtube.com/@AntsCanada:

1. Click on the channel description text.
2. Scroll down to Channel Details.
3. Click Share Channel > Copy channel ID.

For example, to copy videos from the PyCon 2015 Channel to this playlist you would run:

channel_to_playlist --secrets client_secrets.json UCgxzjK6GuOHVKR_08TT4hJQ PLlgnub_DBR_CszAWpJypwst0OFDxW6jOJ

If you only want to add videos published after or before a certain date, you can use the --after and --before options:

channel_to_playlist --after 2018-05-21 --before 2018-06-30 UCgxzjK6GuOHVKR_08TT4hJQ PLlgnub_DBR_CszAWpJypwst0OFDxW6jOJ

The script will store the video IDs that are added to the playlist in a file and skip these videos if it is run again. This allows you to re-run the script when new videos are uploaded to the channel.

To add videos which already exist in the playlist, use the --allow-duplicates switch, as shown in the following example:

channel_to_playlist --secrets client_secrets.json UCgxzjK6GuOHVKR_08TT4hJQ PLlgnub_DBR_CszAWpJypwst0OFDxW6jOJ --allow-duplicates