YouTube Channel Details API

What is the YouTube Channel Details API?

Pass a channel URL, @handle, or UC… id and get clean JSON. Canonical profile core: platform, id, username, url, displayName, bio, avatar, banner, followers, postCount, verified, createdAt. Identical-value aliases (handle/name/description/thumbnailUrl/bannerUrl/subscriberCount/videoCount/joinedAt/joinedDate) are not emitted. Also: canonicalUrl (@handle when known), followersIsApproximate (true when followers came from a K/M/B shelf label — 2.15M → 2150000), viewCount (exact when About exposes it; YouTube rounds subscribers, not views), country (ISO-3166 alpha-2) + countryName, links[{text,url}] with absolute https URLs, email when published in About/description (not the CAPTCHA reveal), and tags[] from channel SEO keywords (quote-aware — multi-word tags stay one entry). Identity-card convention: banner, country, countryName, and email stay on the key set and are null when unknown — we never substitute the avatar for a missing banner. Resolver/search rows (instagram/profile-search) omit-when-absent; that is a different class. following is omitted — YouTube does not publish a following count on the channel About card. createdAt is date-only (YYYY-MM-DD); YouTube only exposes the join day. Flat 1 credit. Cache is off by default.

Coming from Social Blade? Here is how these counts and stored history compare. Social Blade alternative

Moving this call from ScrapeCreators? Here is the endpoint-by-endpoint map. ScrapeCreators alternative

What you get

• Display name, handle or URL, bio, and avatar when available
• Follower / subscriber and content counts
• Verification status and external links when exposed
• Structured JSON ready for enrichment and dashboards

Fill in the parameters below and copy a ready-to-run request, or open the live Playground to run it against your account (no API key paste).

curl "https://api.captapi.com/v1/youtube/channel-details?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fchannel%2FUCLA_DiR1FfKNvjuUpBHmylQ" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer capt_live_..."
# or: -H "x-api-key: capt_live_..."

Example response

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "platform": "youtube",
    "id": "UCLA_DiR1FfKNvjuUpBHmylQ",
    "username": "NASA",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLA_DiR1FfKNvjuUpBHmylQ",
    "canonicalUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@NASA",
    "displayName": "NASA",
    "bio": "NASA's mission is to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research.\r\n\r\nTo do that, we have worked around the world—and off it—for more than 60 years, searching for answers to fundamental questions about our place in the universe. We're exploring space and discovering Earth. Join us on this exciting and important journey.",
    "avatar": "https://yt3.googleusercontent.com/eIf5fNPcIcj9ig-wZBeq4stFy1lgjWTW1nLT5dYlFkHZprZ03QBiMcbpwNMB6XSBjrSFGtAGQg=s900-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj",
    "banner": "https://yt3.googleusercontent.com/y8Srh-oCcilLvBO8jAPI546m1bn0puA5DIvQiBZ1cSxc_rZfKxKSFlTCtoCQCtB6viUf1NGsaQ=w2560-fcrop64=1,00005a57ffffa5a8-k-c0xffffffff-no-nd-rj",
    "followers": 15100000,
    "followersIsApproximate": true,
    "postCount": 6100,
    "viewCount": 1130025466,
    "country": null,
    "countryName": null,
    "createdAt": "2008-06-03",
    "verified": true,
    "links": [
      {
        "text": "nasa.gov",
        "url": "https://nasa.gov"
      },
      {
        "text": "X",
        "url": "https://x.com/nasa"
      }
    ],
    "email": null,
    "tags": [
      "nasa",
      "space"
    ]
  }
}

Billing metadata is returned in response headers: X-Captapi-Credits (credits charged), X-Captapi-Cache (hit or miss), and X-Captapi-Request-Id (include it when contacting support). Where the response has a source field, it names the path that served the data: native, extended, cache or asr. Failed requests (4xx/5xx) are never charged. See the full list of error codes in the error reference.

Response structure

A successful call returns success and a data object with the following fields:

Parameters

Authentication: send your key as Authorization: Bearer capt_live_.... A typical call costs 1 credit. Pass cache=true for a free 24h cache hit; default is always fresh.

How it works

1. 1. Sign up — get 100 free credits, no card required.
2. 2. Create a key from your dashboard.
3. 3. Send one request to /v1/youtube/channel-details and parse the JSON response.

Use cases

Frequently asked questions

More YouTube APIs