Know if a video Youtube is unavailable with the API

Question

Via the Youtube API, how can I detect if a video Youtube is unavailable (ex : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nRZlcB2jPY) ?

Thanks

Answer 1

This is also partially possible without API. Let's say you want to see if the following video is available:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esDJPiGu5x0

The ID of the video is shown as the GET parameter v. Use this one to request the following thumbnail:

https://img.youtube.com/vi/esDJPiGu5x0/0.jpg

If the content of the response has a length of 0 and/or the http response code by youtube.com is 404, then the video is not available anymore.

Answer 2

You would make an API call for the video status.

https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/videos?id=VIDEOID&part=status&key=APIKEY

Then check the uploadStatus in the json result:

"status": {
"uploadStatus": "processed",
"privacyStatus": "public",
"license": "youtube",
"embeddable": true,
"publicStatsViewable": true
}