Extract YouTube channel videos to Google Sheets with metadata tracking

This N8N template demonstrates how to use our tool to collect a list of videos from any YouTube channel - including video URLs, titles, descriptions, thumbnail links, publish dates, and more - all saved cleanly into a connected Google Sheet.

Use cases are many: Whether you're a YouTube content strategist tracking competitors, a marketing team building dashboards from video metadata, or an automation pro connecting YouTube to downstream workflows, researchers and analysts collecting structured video data at scale, this tool gives you what you need!

How It Works

• The workflow begins when you click Execute Workflow or Test Workflow manually in N8N.
• It reads the list of full channel URLs, custom channel URLs or channel IDs from the Channel URLs tab in the connected Google Sheet. Only the channels with the Ready status will be processed.
• A Switch node detects whether the input is a full/custom channel URL, or a raw channel ID, and routes it accordingly.
  • If the input is already a channel ID, the tool prepares the data structure before sending it to the YouTube API call in the next step.
  • If the input is a full channel URL or a custom channel URL, the workflow extracts the username, then sends a HTTP Request to the YouTube API to retrieve the corresponding Channel ID, and prepares the data structure before continuing.
• Once the valid Channel ID is set, the tool sends a request to YouTube API endpoint to retrieve a list of public videos. By default, the number of videos extracted per channel is limited to 10.
• The API response is checked for success:
  • If successful, the video data is split into individual entries, cleaned, and added to the Videos tab in the connected Google Sheet. The original rows' status in the Channel URLs tab is marked as Finished.
  • If an error occurs, the rows' status in the Channel URLs tab is marked as Error for later review.

How To Use

• Download the workflow package.
• Import the workflow package into your N8N interface.
• Duplicate the YouTube - Get Channel Videos Google Sheet template into your Google Sheets account.
• Set up Google Cloud Console credentials in the following nodes in N8N, ensuring enabled access and suitable rights to Google Sheets and YouTube services:
  • For Google Sheets access, ensure each node is properly connected to the correct tab in your connected Google Sheet: Node Google Sheets - Get Channel URLs → connected to the Channel URLs tab; Node Google Sheets - Update Data → connected to the Videos tab; Node Google Sheets - Update Data - Success → connected to the Channel URLs tab; Node Google Sheets - Update Data - Error → connected to the Channel URLs tab.
  • For YouTube access, set up a GET method to connect to YouTube API in the following nodes: Node HTTP Request - Get Channel ID; Node HTTP Request - Get Channel Videos.
• In your connected Google Sheet, enter the full channel URLs, custom channel URLs or channel IDs that you want to crawl and set the rows' status to Ready.
• Run the workflow by clicking Execute Workflow or Test Workflow in N8N.
• View the results in your connected Google Sheet: Successful fetches will update the original rows' status to Finished and the videos' information show up in the Videos tab. If any URL or ID fails, the rows' status will be marked as Error.

Requirements

• Basic setup in Google Cloud Console (OAuth or API Key method enabled) with enabled access to YouTube and Google Sheets.

How To Customize

• By default, the workflow is manually triggered in N8N. However, you can automate the process by adding a Google Sheets trigger that monitors new entries automatically.
• If you want to fetch more video metadata like durations, or view counts, you can expand the HTTP Request and post-processing nodes to include those.
• The workflow, by default, collects up to 10 videos per channel. If you’d like to fetch more, in the connected Google Sheet, simply enter your desired video number limit in Column C in the Channel URLs tab. The tool will use that value when calling the YouTube API.

Need Help?

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