---
title: "YouTube"
description: "Long-form videos and Shorts: channels, every video stat but shares, keyword and hashtag search, comments, transcripts, media, Shorts trends and footage matching."
url: https://docs.sonderlabs.co.uk/platforms/youtube
---

# YouTube

Long-form videos and Shorts: channels, every video stat but shares, keyword and hashtag search, comments, transcripts, media, Shorts trends and footage matching.

## What you can get

| Data | Status | Notes |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Profiles | Live | A public account's name, followers and, where the platform shows them, bio and verified status. |
| Posts and stats | Live | Views, likes, comments, length and date. YouTube does not publish share counts. |
| Keyword search | Live | Public posts that match a word or phrase, in a date window. |
| Hashtag search | Live | Public posts under a hashtag. |
| Sound search | Limited | Shorts sounds, inside trend data only. |
| Comments | Live | The public comments under a post, with likes and replies. |
| Transcripts | Live | Captions first, then speech-to-text; the first 90 seconds of videos up to 10 minutes. |
| On-screen text | Live | Text written on the video or its cover: titles, captions burned in, show names. |
| Media files | Live | The video or audio file of a public post, for your own analysis. |
| Audience (estimated) | Live | Commenters' estimated age, gender and country. |
| Trends | Live | Shorts. |
| Footage matching | Live | Your long-form YouTube videos are the source footage clips are matched to. |

## Post fields

Every platform returns the same post shape ([all fields](https://docs.sonderlabs.co.uk/concepts#the-post)). On YouTube:

- `shares` is always 0: YouTube does not publish it.
- Shorts and long-form videos share one shape; `durationSec` tells them apart.
- A channel's profile adds video count, total views and country.

Search kinds: `keyword`, `hashtag`, `account`.

## Example post

A real public post found by Sonder's Red Bull Rampage 2026 demo campaign (illustration, not a client result). Numbers as of 2026-11-03.

A YouTube post:

```json
{
  "id": "3b70da3b8927c24a1bc153cfe6bc2c89",
  "platform": "youtube",
  "externalId": "gRhWXJHej74",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gRhWXJHej74",
  "creator": {
    "handle": "OutOfCollective",
    "name": "Out of Collective",
    "followers": 60600
  },
  "caption": "Szymon Godziek absolutely launching that gap #rampage #redbull #mtb",
  "hashtags": [
    "rampage",
    "redbull",
    "mtb"
  ],
  "postedAt": "2026-10-10T16:21:58Z",
  "durationSec": 24,
  "views": 4140448,
  "viewsEstimated": false,
  "likes": 23730,
  "comments": 88,
  "shares": 0,
  "transcriptExcerpt": null,
  "onscreenText": "RAMPAGE",
  "asOf": "2026-11-03T00:06:37Z"
}
```

## Planned endpoints

> **Early access:** The REST API below is in early access: its endpoints are the planned shape and are not open for self-serve use yet. [Request access](https://docs.sonderlabs.co.uk/access). Live today: the [MCP server](https://docs.sonderlabs.co.uk/mcp) and the [free datasets](https://docs.sonderlabs.co.uk/datasets).

Planned shape:

```http
GET /v1/posts/search?platforms=youtube&q=red+bull+rampage&kind=keyword&since=2026-10-01 HTTP/1.1
Host: api.sonderlabs.co.uk
Authorization: Bearer <your API key>
```