YouTube Video ID Extractor

YouTube Video ID Extractor

Paste one YouTube link per line and extract the 11-character video ID from every valid link.

A YouTube Video ID Extractor pulls the unique eleven-character code out of any YouTube link. Every video on the platform has one, and it is the part developers, researchers, and creators actually need: APIs ask for IDs, embed tools ask for IDs, spreadsheets of channel content are organised by ID, and the same video can be reached through many different-looking addresses, including watch links with extra tracking parameters, shortened youtu.be links, Shorts links, live links, and embed addresses. The ID is the one stable piece that identifies the video across all of them, and extracting it by hand from a long list is slow and error-prone work.

This tool accepts a whole batch at once, one link per line, which is how IDs are usually needed in real projects, for a playlist audit, a migration, or a research list. For each line it shows the ID it found and the clean canonical watch address built from that ID, so you can verify the match yourself. Lines that contain no recognisable ID are marked plainly instead of being silently dropped, and a final count tells you how many of your links were valid.

How to use

  1. Paste your links into the box, keeping one link on each line.
  2. Click Extract IDs and read the result for each line below.
  3. Check any line marked Not recognised, which usually means a channel or playlist link was pasted.
  4. Use the canonical address shown to confirm the ID opens the video you expected.
  5. Click Copy ID list to take the clean list of IDs into your document or tool.

Frequently asked questions

What do a video ID's characters mean?

An ID is eleven characters drawn from letters, digits, hyphens, and underscores. It carries no readable meaning about the video's title or owner; it is simply a unique label assigned when the video is uploaded.

Why does my link contain extra text after the ID?

Watch addresses often carry parameters for playlists, timestamps, and sharing sources, such as a list number or a start time. The extractor ignores everything after the eleven characters that form the ID, which is why a very long shared link and the short canonical address produce exactly the same result in this tool.

Can this extract channel IDs or playlist IDs?

This tool is built for video IDs, which follow the pattern described above. Channel and playlist IDs follow different formats and appear in different parts of their addresses, so those lines are reported as not recognised rather than guessed at.

Is there a limit to how many links I can paste?

There is no set limit in the tool, and hundreds of lines process instantly because the check is a simple pattern match in your browser. Your links are not sent to YouTube or any server for verification, which keeps private or unlisted video addresses confidential while you work with them.