Is there a way to backup the annotations from a YouTube video?

Question

So apparently, YouTube will be removing all existing video annotations:

Annotations are basically text boxes that can be overlaid on YouTube videos. Some videos use annotations to make corrections to the content or convey easter eggs. An example of an annotation on a video:

So that prompted me to ask: Is there a way to download the annotation data for a video? For example, either using the YouTube API or youtube-dl.

It would be nice if there were a way to get the annotations in a format where they could be displayed as they were originally on the video, with the original positioning and timing, but I'd be fine with just getting the annotation text in XML or some other plain text format. I mainly just want to save a copy of the annotation text from some video game guide videos where there is a lot of text contained in the annotations.

Is this possible?

Answer 1

You can use https://www.youtube.com/annotations_invideo?features=1&legacy=1&video_id=[VIDEO-ID-HERE] to retrieve the annotations in an XML format. Source: https://stefansundin.github.io/youtube-copy-annotations/. Legacy annotations were removed from this API on January 15, 2019 between 15:00 and 15:10 UTC.

An archive was created containing the annotations from 1.4 billion videos and is accessible via an API endpoint available from any Invidious instance: https://docs.invidious.io/api/#get-apiv1videosid. (Also, this archive is still accepting data contributions if you have saved annotation data, see u/omarroth for details.)

A browser extension to redisplay the annotations on the videos after YouTube removed them is now available at https://github.com/isaackd/AnnotationsRestored. In addition, a web player with annotation support built in is also now available at any Invidious instance: https://invidio.us.

Answer 2

As of now, there's no existing Youtube API that will backup any Youtube Annotations. It is clear from the documentation that annotations will be removed permanently. Annotations didn't work with mobile and in response to creators' call for annotations that would, YouTube created Cards instead. YouTube cards are a great way to engage audience and been mobile-friendly makes it a must more all the video creator.

For more info, you can visit this blogpost.