YouTube Video Uploader

Uploads a video from a URL to your own YouTube channel using the official YouTube Data API. It sets the title, description, tags, hashtags, privacy, schedule, and an optional custom thumbnail in one run. Built to be the publish step of an automated video pipeline (render somewhere, drop the file on a CDN, point this actor at the URL), but it works fine for one-off scheduled uploads too.

How it works

You give it a public URL to the video file and your Google OAuth credentials. The actor downloads the file to its temp disk, authenticates with your refresh token, and calls youtube.videos.insert (followed by thumbnails.set if you passed a thumbnail). Nothing about your channel is stored beyond the run.

Try it free (sample mode)

Run it without any credentials to get one clearly-labeled _demo sample row showing the exact output shape — a free preview, no upload performed and nothing charged. As soon as you supply real OAuth credentials (or YouTube cookies for the browser method) it performs a real upload. You can also force the preview with the demoMode checkbox.

Input

Field	Required	Notes
videoUrl	yes	Public direct URL to the video file (.mp4/.mov). You host it (S3, a CDN, Apify key-value store). It must be reachable without auth.
title	yes	YouTube title. Trimmed to 100 characters.
description	no	Video description. Hashtags are appended to the end.
tags	no	Up to 30 tags. Anything past 30 is dropped.
hashtags	no	Appended to the description as #tag. Non-alphanumeric characters are stripped.
privacyStatus	no	public, unlisted, or private. Defaults to private.
publishAt	no	ISO datetime to auto-publish. Only applies when privacyStatus is private (YouTube schedules a private video to go public).
thumbnailUrl	no	Public URL to a thumbnail image. Custom thumbnails require a verified channel; if the API rejects it the upload still succeeds.
categoryId	no	YouTube category ID. Defaults to 22 (People & Blogs). 24 = Entertainment, 23 = Comedy, 27 = Education.
madeForKids	no	Declares the video as made for kids (COPPA). Defaults to false.
clientId / clientSecret / refreshToken	yes (for the API method)	Your own Google OAuth credentials from Google Cloud Console. The refresh token must carry the youtube.upload scope. Marked secret.

The actor also has a browser method that drives YouTube Studio with exported login cookies. It works locally but tends to hit Google's session anti-fraud on cloud runs, so the API method is the default and the one to use for anything unattended. If you do use it, a residential proxy matching your usual country is strongly recommended.

Output

One dataset record per run. The useful fields are videoId, watchUrl (the youtu.be link), privacyStatus, scheduledFor (null unless you set publishAt), thumbnailSet, and uploadSeconds. ok: true means the insert returned a video ID.

Example

{
  "videoUrl": "https://cdn.example.com/clips/episode-12.mp4",
  "title": "How the Roman aqueducts actually worked",
  "description": "A short breakdown of gravity-fed water systems.",
  "tags": ["history", "engineering", "rome"],
  "hashtags": ["shorts", "history"],
  "privacyStatus": "private",
  "publishAt": "2026-06-15T14:00:00Z",
  "categoryId": "27",
  "clientId": "YOUR_CLIENT_ID.apps.googleusercontent.com",
  "clientSecret": "YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET",
  "refreshToken": "YOUR_REFRESH_TOKEN"
}

Pricing

$0.05 per successful upload. Pay per result, no subscription. Where an AI model is involved you bring your own OpenAI key.

Notes

You need your own Google OAuth credentials. There is no shared app. Create an OAuth client in Google Cloud Console with the YouTube Data API enabled, then generate a refresh token with the youtube.upload scope. New API projects also start in testing mode, which can cap or expire tokens until you publish the OAuth consent screen, so set that up before relying on it in a pipeline.