YouTube Metadata Viewer
Free YouTube metadata viewer. Paste any YouTube URL, see title, channel, thumbnail at every resolution, video ID, and embed URLs. Browser-only.
- Pull the high-resolution thumbnail of any YouTube video.
- Extract a video ID from a long YouTube URL.
- Inspect oEmbed metadata before embedding a video on your site.
- Find the canonical channel URL from a video link.
- Debug a broken YouTube embed by checking the raw oEmbed response.
Any youtube.com, youtu.be, embed, or shorts URL. We call YouTube's public oEmbed endpoint directly from your browser - no proxy, no logging.
Metadata comes from YouTube's public oEmbed endpoint - the same one Twitter, Reddit, and Slack use to render YouTube preview cards. No API key, no scraping, no auth. Private and age-restricted videos return a fetch error.
What this tool actually returns
A YouTube metadata viewer pulls public metadata for any YouTube video URL using YouTube's oEmbed endpoint - the same endpoint Twitter, Reddit, and Slack use to render preview cards. This page returns the title, channel name, channel URL, five thumbnail resolutions, the video ID, and three canonical share-URL forms (watch, short, embed) - plus the raw oEmbed JSON for developers who want to inspect the response. No API key, no auth, no scraping. The fetch goes from your browser directly to youtube.com.
How YouTube's oEmbed endpoint works
oEmbed is an open standard (oembed.com) that lets a third-party site request a preview card for a URL. YouTube's implementation lives at https://www.youtube.com/oembed and accepts a video URL via the url query parameter.
- CORS-friendly - directly callable from a browser without a proxy.
- No API key required - this is the public preview-card surface, not the YouTube Data API.
- Public videos only - private, age-restricted, member-only, and removed videos return a 401/404.
- Returns title, author, thumbnail, embed HTML - but not view count, likes, duration, or tags (those need the Data API).
Working the viewer
- Paste a YouTube URL. Any of the five common URL forms work: youtube.com/watch?v=, youtu.be/, youtube.com/embed/, youtube.com/shorts/, youtube.com/v/. The video ID is parsed automatically.
- Wait for the oEmbed fetch. We call YouTube's public oEmbed endpoint directly from your browser - no proxy, no API key. Response usually arrives in under a second.
- Inspect title, channel, thumbnails, IDs. Title and channel pull from oEmbed. Thumbnails (5 resolutions) come from YouTube's predictable thumbnail-URL paths. Video ID, watch URL, short URL, embed URL all derived from the parsed input.
- Copy what you need. Each field has its own copy button. Click any thumbnail to open it full-size in a new tab (then right-click to save).
Frequently asked questions
Where does the metadata come from?
YouTube's public oEmbed endpoint (https://www.youtube.com/oembed). The same endpoint Twitter, Reddit, Slack, and every other tool that previews YouTube cards uses. No API key required, no auth, no scraping.
Why is it called the metadata viewer and not a thumbnail downloader?
Thumbnail download is one feature among several - the tool also extracts video ID, gives you canonical share URLs, the channel link, and the raw oEmbed JSON. Most YouTube thumbnail tools online are thumbnail-only and miss the rest.
Why does some thumbnail resolutions return a 404?
YouTube doesn't generate maxresdefault or sddefault for every video - older videos and some Shorts only have hqdefault and lower. The thumbnail grid shows all five YouTube paths; the ones the video doesn't have will show as broken images.
Can I view metadata for private or age-restricted videos?
No. The oEmbed endpoint requires the video to be publicly viewable without login. Private, age-restricted, member-only, and removed videos all return a 401/404 from oEmbed and we surface it as a fetch error.
Why doesn't this show view count, like count, or duration?
oEmbed doesn't return those - they're behind YouTube's Data API which requires an API key and quota. We deliberately don't call that API to keep the tool key-less and compliant. For view counts you'd need a separate tool that maintains a YouTube API key.
Is the page tracking me?
No. The fetch goes from your browser directly to youtube.com - the URL never touches our server. We don't log, store, or process the URLs you paste. Inspect the network tab to verify.