YouTube Metadata

What oEmbed returns and omits

oEmbed is a small public standard that sites use to describe a link so another site can embed it. For a YouTube video it gives the title, the channel name and its URL, a ready-made player <iframe>, and one thumbnail, the 480 × 360 hqdefault image. That is enough to build a link card or check which channel a link belongs to.

It does not include the view count, upload date, duration, tags, or description. Those come from the YouTube Data API, which needs an API key; for the description alone, the description extractor reads it from the public watch page.

When a lookup fails

A private, deleted, or mistyped video returns nothing, and so does a video whose owner has turned off embedding, because oEmbed only describes videos that may be embedded elsewhere. Unlisted videos usually work, since anyone with the link may watch them. If a link that plays fine in YouTube fails here, embedding restrictions are the likely reason; the embed generator will then produce a player that shows an error on other sites too.

How to use it

1. Paste a public YouTube URL or video ID.
2. Choose “Read metadata.”
3. Review the title, channel, thumbnail, video ID, and links.

Privacy & limitations

The URL is sent to TOEA’s API and YouTube’s public metadata endpoint. TOEA does not store it, sign in to YouTube, or expose private video information.