No platform login
Search public YouTube videos without connecting your own YouTube account.
YouTube · free lookup
Search public YouTube videos
Type a word or phrase and see public YouTube videos that match, with the counts each one is carrying. Free with a Sourcevine account.
Public posts only 1 credit a run Read time shown
1 credit per run, from your own balance. Sourcevine account required, no YouTube login. No account? Get 100 free credits, once →
How it works
From URL to result
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Type a word or phrase
Enter what you would type into YouTube's own search. No link and no YouTube login.
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Read the matching videos
One page of public videos for that phrase, each with the counts YouTube publishes for it.
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Check freshness
Every successful search includes the time Sourcevine read the results.
Recorded example
What a real one looked like
recorded “latte art”
- Results
- 20
A real response from /v1/youtube/search, kept so this page can
show something true without spending anyone’s credits. Run the tool
above for a live read of your own link.
Why Sourcevine
What to know about this lookup
View counts, and only view counts
A YouTube search page returns twenty videos with a view count each. Likes and comments are published on the video itself, not in search results, so they are absent here rather than zero.
Timestamped answer
The result includes when the results were read, so what you saw is easier to reconcile later.
Use cases
Where this lookup fits
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Content and research teams
Size what already exists on a topic before making more of it.
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Content planners
See what is already published on a topic, and how it is doing, before briefing more of it.
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Analysts
Collect the public videos for a phrase into a dataset, page by page through the API.
Boundaries
What this tool will not return
- Public data only
Private accounts and restricted content are not accessed. Deleted resources return an availability status.
- No contact fields
Bios, emails, phone numbers, addresses and messenger handles are outside this product boundary.
- Titles and descriptions, not transcripts
YouTube matches a phrase against titles, descriptions and tags. To search what was said in a video, pull its transcript and search that.
Questions
Before you run it
How many results do I get?
One page, the same page the API returns. The API also hands back a cursor so you can walk to the next one; this page shows the first.
Is this everything YouTube has?
No. It is what YouTube returns publicly for that phrase, in the order it returns it. Nobody outside the platform can see the whole index.
What does this not show me?
Private or restricted content, bios and contact details are not returned. A platform may show a sign-in prompt for public content; the scope is public data, not whether the platform presents a login screen. If an account is private, the tool says so.
Do I need an account?
Yes, a free Sourcevine account; you never log in to the platform itself. Signing up gives you 100 credits once, no card, and they do not renew. A lookup spends one or two of them, and you can see every run in your dashboard. When they are gone, a prepaid pack tops the balance up and never expires.
API
Searching YouTube regularly?
Run the same search from your own code, and follow the cursor past the first page of videos.
/v1/youtube/search
- Matching videos for a phrase
- A cursor for the next page
- No platform login required