IssueTracker

➡️ Description: We are developing an educational platform called Smart OKR, where students complete tasks and submit videos for evaluation. Currently, students upload their videos to YouTube, and we need to automate the process of retrieving their videos and audio for AI-based feedback.

We are looking for an official API or legal method to access and download videos that students have uploaded with their consent. We want to ensure we comply with YouTube’s Terms of Service while reducing manual work.

Could you please guide us on how to proceed legally?

➡️ API request with parameters used: We have explored the YouTube Data API v3 but could not find an endpoint that allows downloading videos. The closest approach was retrieving video metadata using:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/videos ?part=snippet,contentDetails &id=VIDEO_ID &key=YOUR_API_KEY

However, this does not allow us to download the video/audio. Is there an official API that permits authorized downloads?

➡️ Result: Here is a sample response we received:

{ "kind": "youtube#videoListResponse", "etag": "xyz123", "items": [ { "kind": "youtube#video", "etag": "abc456", "id": "VIDEO_ID", "snippet": { "publishedAt": "2025-02-21T12:34:56Z", "channelId": "CHANNEL_ID", "title": "Student Submission Video", "description": "This is a student-uploaded video for evaluation.", "thumbnails": { "default": { "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VIDEO_ID/default.jpg" } } } } ] } This only provides metadata, not the actual video file.

➡️ Expected result: We expect an official API method that allows: ✔️ Downloading videos/audio that students have uploaded and authorized via OAuth. ✔️ Compliance with YouTube’s Terms of Service. ✔️ A solution that avoids workarounds like yt-dlp.

➡️ Is it 100% reproducible? Yes, every request only returns metadata, not a downloadable video file.

➡️ Reproducible API Explorer link: We tested using YouTube API Explorer: 🔗 https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/docs/videos/list

The API does not provide a video download option.