YouTube

YouTube is a video-only platform -- no text-only or image-only posts. Send Octopost a video URL with your title and description, and Octopost handles the resumable upload protocol, video fetching, processing status, and hashtag-to-tag extraction automatically -- you just send us your content.

Content Limits

Good to Know

• Your first line of content becomes the video title. If you do not set a title explicitly in platform_options, Octopost uses the first line of your content field, truncated to 100 characters. The remaining lines become the description.
• Hashtags in your content become YouTube tags. Octopost extracts #hashtags and converts them into YouTube's tag field automatically.
• Videos are not immediately live after upload. YouTube needs processing time for transcoding and thumbnail generation. This can take anywhere from seconds to hours depending on length and resolution. Octopost reports upload success and notes that processing is ongoing.
• YouTube Shorts are detected automatically. If your video is vertical (9:16 aspect ratio) and 60 seconds or shorter, YouTube classifies it as a Short. There is no separate upload path -- you just upload a short vertical video. Adding #Shorts to your title or description can help ensure classification.
• Community Posts are not available via the API. YouTube has text-based Community Posts on the platform, but these cannot be created through the Data API.
• Thumbnails must be set separately in YouTube Studio. Custom thumbnails cannot be uploaded through Octopost at this time.
• Monetization and age restrictions must be configured directly in YouTube Studio -- they are not available via the API.

Platform-Specific Features

Privacy Settings

Control visibility by setting privacy in platform_options:

Title and Description

You can set the title explicitly, or let Octopost parse it from your content:

{
  "platform_options": {
    "youtube": {
      "title": "Building APIs with Bun - Complete Guide",
      "privacy": "public",
      "category": "Science & Technology"
    }
  }
}

If no title is provided, Octopost uses the first line of content (truncated to 100 characters). The rest of content becomes the description.

Tags

Octopost extracts hashtags from your content and converts them to YouTube tags. You can also provide tags explicitly:

{
  "platform_options": {
    "youtube": {
      "tags": ["bun", "api", "tutorial", "javascript"]
    }
  }
}

Category

YouTube uses numeric category IDs internally. Octopost lets you use human-readable names:

Rate Limits

Octopost tracks YouTube's quota system for you. YouTube uses a unit-based quota rather than simple request counts:

The default daily quota is 10,000 units, which allows roughly 6 video uploads per day. The quota resets at midnight Pacific time. If you hit the limit, Octopost reports it clearly so you know to wait or request a higher quota through Google Cloud Console.

Things Octopost Handles for You

You do not need to worry about any of this, but in case you are curious:

• Google OAuth 2.0 authentication. Octopost manages the full Google OAuth flow, including the youtube.upload and youtube scopes. Token refresh is automatic.
• Resumable upload protocol. YouTube requires a multi-step resumable upload protocol for all video uploads. Octopost initializes the upload, fetches your video from the URL you provide, and streams it to YouTube with chunked transfer and retry capability if the connection drops.
• Video fetching from URL. You provide a video URL, Octopost fetches it and handles the upload to YouTube on your behalf.
• Processing status polling. After upload, YouTube needs time to process the video. Octopost polls for processing completion with a 3-minute timeout, then reports the final status.
• Hashtag-to-tag extraction. Octopost automatically parses hashtags from your content and converts them to YouTube's tag format, saving you from managing tags separately.
• Category ID mapping. YouTube uses numeric category IDs internally (e.g., 22 = People & Blogs, 28 = Science & Technology). Octopost maps human-readable category names to the correct IDs.
• Error reporting. If YouTube rejects the upload (quota exceeded, corrupt file, unsupported codec), Octopost translates the error into a clear message. Quota errors include a note that the quota resets at midnight Pacific.

Example

{
  "content": "New tutorial on building APIs with Bun\n\nIn this video we walk through setting up a REST API from scratch using Bun's built-in HTTP server. #bun #api #tutorial",
  "platforms": ["youtube"],
  "media": {
    "video": "https://example.com/tutorial.mp4"
  },
  "platform_options": {
    "youtube": {
      "privacy": "public",
      "category": "Science & Technology"
    }
  }
}

That's it. Octopost takes care of the rest.