This project is about automating the extraction of YouTube videos posted on a specific channel in the previous week using Make.com (formerly Integromat) and the YouTube API. By setting up a Google Cloud Project (GCP) and integrating it with Make.com, we successfully automate this process and store the video details in a Google Sheet. This solution minimizes manual work, especially for content creators, marketers, and researchers looking to keep track of channel uploads.
Tracking new content on YouTube channels can be tedious, especially if done manually. For content creators, marketing professionals, and data analysts, staying updated with newly posted videos across multiple channels is critical for curating content, monitoring trends, or benchmarking competition. Unfortunately, YouTube does not provide a built-in feature for summarizing channel activity over custom periods, leaving us with the task of sifting through uploads manually.
This blog will demonstrate how we can automate the extraction of videos posted on a YouTube channel during the last week. Using Make.com and the YouTube API, the video details (title, URL, published date) are directly pushed into Google Sheets for easy access and management. The goal is to create an automated system that extracts this information without human intervention and keeps you updated on new content consistently.
The primary problem was finding an efficient method to extract videos published on a YouTube channel over the past week without doing it manually. YouTube channels often post multiple videos weekly, and sifting through the channel to extract details like titles and URLs can be time-consuming. Relying on YouTube’s notification system is not reliable enough, and scraping the channel’s webpage isn’t a scalable solution.
We needed a system that:
• Automatically extracts the list of new videos each week.
• Filters only those videos posted within the past seven days.
• Exports the video details into a structured format like Google Sheets for easy tracking and analysis.
Since Make.com provides powerful automation features and integrates seamlessly with Google Sheets, we opted for it along with YouTube’s API, which provides granular access to a channel’s content. This solution would reduce manual labor and ensure the data is extracted consistently every week.
• We started by creating a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) project. GCP allows access to YouTube Data API v3, which provides the ability to fetch a variety of data from YouTube.
• Inside GCP, we enabled the YouTube Data API v3 and created API credentials. This provides us with an API key to interact with the YouTube API.
• The API key is essential for authenticating requests made via Make.com to fetch data from the channel.
• After the GCP setup, we moved on to Make.com (formerly Integromat) to create an automation scenario.
• Trigger: We started with a recurring weekly schedule that triggers the automation to run every Sunday. This ensures that the system fetches the data for the past week.
• YouTube API Module: Using Make.com’s HTTP module, we integrated the YouTube API with the necessary parameters to fetch videos from the desired channel. The key API request used was the search.list endpoint, where we filtered the results by the channel ID and limited the data to videos published in the past 7 days.
Here’s a breakdown of the API query:
• Channel ID: We specified the channel to track.
• Published After/Before: Parameters set to ensure only videos from the past 7 days are returned.
• Type: We ensured that the returned results are videos.
• Part: We requested key details such as the video title, URL, and publish date.
• Once the API returned the video data, we used the filtering feature in Make.com to ensure that only valid video results (non-empty fields and correct data types) are passed along.
• We also filtered videos posted within the previous week using date comparisons.
• We connected a Google Sheets module to our scenario to store the video details. Each time new videos were found, Make.com automatically appended the video titles, URLs, and published dates into a designated Google Sheet.
• The sheet was structured to have clear columns for the Video Title, Video URL, and Published Date. This allowed for easy review and tracking of content.
• Once the automation was set up, we scheduled the process to run weekly, ensuring the latest video data is pulled consistently. We also added an optional notification step to receive an email whenever new videos are added to the sheet.
The final setup successfully automates the extraction of videos posted on a YouTube channel in the past week. Here’s what we achieved:
• Automated Weekly Data Extraction: Without manual intervention, the system retrieves video details from the specified YouTube channel every week.
• Structured Storage: Video details are automatically appended to Google Sheets, creating a running log of all new content with timestamps.
• Time Savings: This automation saves hours that would otherwise be spent manually checking the channel for new uploads.
• Scalability: The same process can be replicated across multiple YouTube channels or adjusted to meet custom date ranges or video criteria.
This automation process is highly beneficial for marketers, researchers, or anyone monitoring YouTube content regularly. It keeps your data structured and current, without any manual effort.
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