How do I get the YouTube video ID from a URL?

Question

I want to get the v=id from YouTube’s URL with JavaScript (no jQuery, pure JavaScript).

Example YouTube URL formats

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8nQa1cJyX8&a=GxdCwVVULXctT2lYDEPllDR0LRTutYfW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8nQa1cJyX8

Or any other YouTube format that contains a video ID in the URL.

Result from these formats

u8nQa1cJyX8

Solution 1

You don't need to use a regular expression for this.

var video_id = window.location.search.split('v=')[1];
var ampersandPosition = video_id.indexOf('&');
if(ampersandPosition != -1) {
  video_id = video_id.substring(0, ampersandPosition);
}

Solution 2

I made an enhancement to Regex provided by "jeffreypriebe" because he needed a kind of YouTube URL is the URL of the videos when they are looking through a channel.

Well no but this is the function that I have armed.

<script type="text/javascript">
function youtube_parser(url){
    var regExp = /^.*((youtu.be\/)|(v\/)|(\/u\/\w\/)|(embed\/)|(watch\?))\??v?=?([^#&?]*).*/;
    var match = url.match(regExp);
    return (match&&match[7].length==11)? match[7] : false;
}
</script>

These are the types of URLs supported

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zM3nApSvMg&feature=feedrec_grec_index
http://www.youtube.com/user/IngridMichaelsonVEVO#p/a/u/1/QdK8U-VIH_o
http://www.youtube.com/v/0zM3nApSvMg?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zM3nApSvMg#t=0m10s
http://www.youtube.com/embed/0zM3nApSvMg?rel=0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zM3nApSvMg
http://youtu.be/0zM3nApSvMg

Can be found in [http://] http://lasnv.net/foro/839/Javascript_parsear_URL_de_YouTube

Solution 3

I simplified Lasnv's answer a bit.

It also fixes the bug that WebDeb describes.

Here it is:

var regExp = /^.*(youtu\.be\/|v\/|u\/\w\/|embed\/|watch\?v=|\&v=)([^#\&\?]*).*/;
var match = url.match(regExp);
if (match && match[2].length == 11) {
  return match[2];
} else {
  //error
}

Here is a regexer link to play with: http://regexr.com/3dnqv

Solution 4

None of these worked on the kitchen sink as of 1/1/2015, notably URLs without protocal http/s and with youtube-nocookie domain. So here's a modified version that works on all these various Youtube versions:

    // Just the regex. Output is in [1].
    /^.*(?:(?:youtu\.be\/|v\/|vi\/|u\/\w\/|embed\/)|(?:(?:watch)?\?v(?:i)?=|\&v(?:i)?=))([^#\&\?]*).*/
    // For testing.
    var urls = [
        '//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/up_lNV-yoK4?rel=0',
        'http://www.youtube.com/user/Scobleizer#p/u/1/1p3vcRhsYGo',
        'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKZDdG9FTKY&feature=channel',
        'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ-K7nCVnBI&playnext_from=TL&videos=osPknwzXEas&feature=sub',
        'http://www.youtube.com/ytscreeningroom?v=NRHVzbJVx8I',
        'http://www.youtube.com/user/SilkRoadTheatre#p/a/u/2/6dwqZw0j_jY',
        'http://youtu.be/6dwqZw0j_jY',
        'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dwqZw0j_jY&feature=youtu.be',
        'http://youtu.be/afa-5HQHiAs',
        'http://www.youtube.com/user/Scobleizer#p/u/1/1p3vcRhsYGo?rel=0',
        'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKZDdG9FTKY&feature=channel',
        'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ-K7nCVnBI&playnext_from=TL&videos=osPknwzXEas&feature=sub',
        'http://www.youtube.com/ytscreeningroom?v=NRHVzbJVx8I',
        'http://www.youtube.com/embed/nas1rJpm7wY?rel=0',
        'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peFZbP64dsU',
        'http://youtube.com/v/dQw4w9WgXcQ?feature=youtube_gdata_player',
        'http://youtube.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ?feature=youtube_gdata_player',
        'http://youtube.com/?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player',
        'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player',
        'http://youtube.com/?vi=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player',
        'http://youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player',
        'http://youtube.com/watch?vi=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player',
        'http://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?feature=youtube_gdata_player'
    ];
    var i, r, rx = /^.*(?:(?:youtu\.be\/|v\/|vi\/|u\/\w\/|embed\/)|(?:(?:watch)?\?v(?:i)?=|\&v(?:i)?=))([^#\&\?]*).*/;
    for (i = 0; i < urls.length; ++i) {
        r = urls[i].match(rx);
        console.log(r[1]);
    }

Solution 5

/^.*(youtu.be\/|v\/|e\/|u\/\w+\/|embed\/|v=)([^#\&\?]*).*/

Tested on:

• http://www.youtube.com/v/0zM3nApSvMg?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0
• http://www.youtube.com/embed/0zM3nApSvMg?rel=0
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zM3nApSvMg&feature=feedrec_grec_index
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zM3nApSvMg
• http://youtu.be/0zM3nApSvMg
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zM3nApSvMg#t=0m10s
• http://www.youtube.com/user/IngridMichaelsonVEVO#p/a/u/1/KdwsulMb8EQ
• http://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ
• http://www.youtube.com/embed/dQw4w9WgXcQ
• http://www.youtube.com/v/dQw4w9WgXcQ
• http://www.youtube.com/e/dQw4w9WgXcQ
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
• http://www.youtube.com/?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
• http://www.youtube.com/?feature=player_embedded&v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
• http://www.youtube.com/user/IngridMichaelsonVEVO#p/u/11/KdwsulMb8EQ
• http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/6L3ZvIMwZFM?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0

Inspired by this other answer.

View more solutions

Comments

[Lenar Hoyt]

As of 2015: skip to this answer. The other answers are out of date.

[Mark Byers]

possible duplicate of Extract parameter value from url using regular expressions

[Adam Halasz]

And what if the URL doesn't contains &?

[karlphillip]

Then you must find what's the equivalent delimiter. For instance, the first URL you gave us its the & sign. On the second URL, the end of the string is the delimiter.

[Gino]

this is a usefull function to make it work where you want based on this code. var video_url = 'youtube.com/watch?v=eOrNdBpGMv8&feature=youtube_gdata'; ytid(video_url); function ytid(video_url) { var video_id = video_url.split('v=')[1]; var ampersandPosition = video_id.indexOf('&'); if (ampersandPosition != -1) { video_id = video_id.substring(0, ampersandPosition); } alert(video_id); return video_id; }​

[Marc]

^.*(?:youtu.be\/|v\/|e\/|u\/\w+\/|embed\/|v=)([^#\&\?]*).* will give you the result in group 1

[fabi]

just a heads up: this should only be used when you know that you are dealing with a youtube url. I (wrongfully) used it to verify urls as youtube, which caused false positives, e.g. this passes: 'v/2059-9080-5437'

[mantish]

I'm using now a different Regex that also checks for a youtube domain. I'm not sure if I should update the answer as it's a big change: /^.*(youtu.be\/|youtube(-nocookie)?.com\/(v\/|.*u\/\w\/|embe‌​d\/|.*v=))([\w-]{11}‌​).*/

[Lenar Hoyt]

When will YouTube switch to 12 characters for the video ID?

[Alex from Jitbit]

shouldn't the dot in "youtu.be" be escaped?

[mantish]

you're right @jitbit Thank you. Although it usually works as well without escaping it.

[alecellis1985]

not right, fails vs youtube.com/e/dQw4w9WgXcQ so please take out the efficient part :)

[serge]

does not handle embedded URLs

[blented]

Worth noting that many of the above solutions don't cover this wide batch of valid urls, the test script is very helpful, +1!

[HopAlongPolly]

Remove the double quotes from around the Regex pattern in the JavaScript code and it should work.

[binaryfunt]

Note that this will be fooled by something like "www.engadget.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ", not that it's likely to be a problem though

[Ashish]

It works, but couldnt fixed the issue arising a text with multiple youtube url's See this regex101.com/r/qK5qJ5/1. It should not replace the second url.

[Gino]

I just find out that this regex will find a url with "tv" in it, even if it's not Youtube like: podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp4/cdn.twit.tv/video/tnt/tnt1634/…

[Gino]

I changed this part |v\/| to |\?v\/|

[podperson]

I'm not a fan of the overly permissive [^#\&\?]* — can't we use a slightly stricter \w or [a-zA-Z0-9_]{11,12} (to allow for 12-character ids some time in the future).

[NickG]

@podperson Why would they switch to 12 char IDs? Its several billion years off before they run out of possible 11 char IDs.

[NickG]

Nice idea, but it doesn't work on the vast majority of URL formats. Including not matching on any https sites.

[podperson]

This solves the problems with the urls listed below by JW: /^.*(youtu\.be\/|vi?\/|u\/\w\/|embed\/|\?vi?=|\&vi?=)([^#\&\‌​?]*).*/

[podperson]

@NickG I don't know what their schema for generating ids is. If it were merely based on unique numbers in base 62 or whatever they wouldn't need 11 character ids, would they? The larger point was that if you're expecting 11 characters of a particular type, put that in the search.

[hamncheez]

also doesn't handle 'share' generated urls- https://youtu.be/{{video_id}}

[zurfyx]

If you don't want that an empty ID matches: ^.*(?:(?:youtu\.be\/|v\/|vi\/|u\/\w\/|embed\/)|(?:(?:watch)?‌​\?v(?:i)?=|\&v(?:i)?‌​=))([^#\&\?]+).* (i.e. youtube.com/watch?v= will not match)

[Brad]

There's no guarantee on the 11 character length.

[brasofilo]

This one is literally a duplicate of the accepted answer

[Kerry Davis]

with respect to when (if ever) youtube will go to 12 character VID's. I SUSPECT they may have chosen 11 because 11x5bits = 55 bits is the closest thing to the maximum JS integer size of 53 bits and the high order character will never use - or _. I could be totally wrong on this but if I'm not then they will stay at 11 until they want to jump to 22 or 24 (which could be the 12th of never). JUST AN OBSERVATION.

[Chud37]

No one asked for python

[Toto]

Link only answer is useless, especially when it will be broken. Can you elaborate on this a little more?

[Dipten]

This regex works well with youtube share and watch url. url='https://youtu.be/{{video_id}}'; url.match(/(?:https?:\/{2})?(?:w{3}\.)?youtu(?:be)?\.(?:com|‌​be)(?:\/watch\?v=|\/‌​)([^\s&]+)/);

[Maarten]

I had issues with all other regex examples but this one effectively works on the 3 share options people on desktops use. an url from the address bar, an url from the share button and an url from the inline share button. Thanks!!!

[Kamlesh]

did not work for me. youtube.com/watch?v=a-XQJHpp5vI

[garrettmaring]

This was very useful, thank you 🙏 The python regex from the pytube source is r"(?:v=|\/)([0-9A-Za-z_-]{11}).*"

[MrMartiniMo]

Thank you. I changed it a bit at the end: regex101.com/r/bTrei2/1

[Dipo]

@MrMartiniMo Thanks for the heads up but the regex in your link still doesn’t match YouTube IDs that contain hyphen (-). Example: youtube.com/watch?v=06w3-l1AzFk. I have updated my answer to match YouTube ID containing any character except the url delimiters.

[tsdorsey]

Good idea. I just updated the regex to remove the ^ entirely, it's not needed. I've also updated the regexr example as well. Thanks @AlexanderD'Attore

[Jason]

@rmutalik "everything but the kitchen sink" is an expression in English meaning "everything imaginable." In this case the author is making a reference to "all of the possible URLs."