Channel utilities

Find a smaller playlist to collect or size a channel before creating a transcript job. Both endpoints require an API key, cost zero credits, and use the usual request limit.

Channel input

Name	Type	Description
`url`required	`query string`	A channel URL, @handle, or UC... channel ID. Video and playlist inputs are rejected.

List channel playlists

GET/api/v1/channel/playlists

bash

curl --get -H "Authorization: Bearer yvt_live_..." \
  --data-urlencode "url=@mkbhd" \
  "https://api.youtubevideotranscript.io/api/v1/channel/playlists"

Returns channel_id and a playlists array. This endpoint has no continuation parameter. Each row contains:

Name	Type	Description
`playlist_id`	`string`	Pass to GET /resolve to list its videos, or POST /jobs to collect its transcripts.
`title`	`string`	Playlist title.
`item_count`	`string \| null`	YouTube's item-count display text, not a guaranteed numeric total.
`kind`	`string`	playlist or show.
`thumbnail`	`string \| null`	Thumbnail URL when available.

Unsupported automatic lists such as Watch Later, Liked, and Favorites are omitted. An empty array means no supported playlists were returned.

Get an exact long-form count

GET/api/v1/channel/count

bash

curl --get -H "Authorization: Bearer yvt_live_..." \
  --data-urlencode "url=@mkbhd" \
  "https://api.youtubevideotranscript.io/api/v1/channel/count"

Returns channel_id and total_videos: a number, or null when YouTube supplies no count. Zero is a valid count. Shorts are excluded.

This is a separate lookup. For a rough preview, the first channel page from GET /resolve already includes approx_video_count. That display count can include Shorts, so it need not match the long-form total.

Compare the count with your remaining credits and per-job cap before submitting. A count is not a promise that every video has captions; failed transcript items are refunded. For a topic within a channel, use channel search instead.

Errors

Missing or non-channel inputs return 400 bad_request. An unresolvable channel may return 404 not_found. Authentication, rate limits, and upstream failures use the standard error envelope.