Post to YouTube

Reelspan uploads to YouTube with the YouTube Data API. You send the video once with a title; Reelspan uploads it to the channel with your metadata, sets the thumbnail and playlists, and returns the video's link. A vertical video up to 3 minutes gets a youtube.com/shorts/… link, anything else a watch?v= link.

What you can post

YouTube takes videos only: no photos, text or Community posts through the API. Reelspan handles for you:

• Resumable upload of the file to YouTube, so large videos go up in one session.
• Clean metadata. YouTube refuses < and > in descriptions; Reelspan removes them. Titles over 100 characters and descriptions over 5,000 are cut.
• Extras that never fail the post. The thumbnail and playlists are added after the upload. If YouTube refuses one, the video stays up and the result says what didn't work.

Connect the account

YouTube connects with a Google sign-in: in the dashboard go to Accounts → YouTube, or send a white-label connect link. Sign in with the Google account that owns or manages the channel. The account must already have a YouTube channel; create one at youtube.com first if it doesn't.

Example

A public Short with tags, in a playlist, with a custom thumbnail:

curl -X POST https://api.reelspan.com/v1/posts/video \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $REELSPAN_API_KEY" \
  -F "user=my-brand" \
  -F "platform[]=youtube" \
  -F "youtube_title=How we ship a release in 60 seconds" \
  -F "youtube_description=Our release checklist, start to finish." \
  -F "tags[]=devops" -F "tags[]=release" \
  -F "privacyStatus=public" \
  -F "categoryId=28" \
  -F "youtube_playlist_id=PLxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" \
  -F "[email protected]" \
  -F "[email protected]"

import { Reelspan } from 'reelspan';
import { readFile } from 'node:fs/promises';

const reelspan = new Reelspan();
const post = await reelspan.posts.video({
  user: 'my-brand',
  platforms: ['youtube'],
  title: 'How we ship a release in 60 seconds',
  description: 'Our release checklist, start to finish.',
  video: { data: await readFile('launch.mp4'), name: 'launch.mp4', type: 'video/mp4' },
  thumbnail: { data: await readFile('thumbnail.jpg'), name: 'thumbnail.jpg', type: 'image/jpeg' },
  extra: {
    tags: ['devops', 'release'],
    privacyStatus: 'public',
    categoryId: '28',
    youtube_playlist_id: 'PLxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx',
  },
});

from reelspan import Reelspan

reelspan = Reelspan()
post = reelspan.posts.video(
    "my-brand", ["youtube"], "launch.mp4", "How we ship a release in 60 seconds",
    description="Our release checklist, start to finish.",
    thumbnail="thumbnail.jpg",
    extra={
        "tags": ["devops", "release"],
        "privacyStatus": "public",
        "categoryId": "28",
        "youtube_playlist_id": "PLxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
    },
)

Fields

YouTube needs a title: youtube_title or title. A request with YouTube and neither is refused with 400 before anything is uploaded.

Limits

• Title: 100 characters. Description: 5,000 characters.
• Shorts: vertical (9:16) and up to 3 minutes. Longer or horizontal videos are regular videos.
• Thumbnail: JPG or PNG, 16:9, up to 2 MB. Custom thumbnails need a verified channel, and YouTube doesn't show them on Shorts.
• Video size: your plan's upload limit (see Plans and limits).

Good to know

• Daily limits. YouTube caps uploads twice: a daily API quota for the app, and a daily upload limit per channel. Either one fails the post with a code that says which (youtube_quotaExceeded, youtube_uploadLimitExceeded); both reset the next day.
• Scheduled release vs scheduled post. youtube_publish_at uploads now and YouTube releases the video later. Reelspan's scheduled_date waits and uploads at that time. Use one or the other.
• Result extras: video_id, privacy_status, and playlists with one entry per playlist (success, playlist_id, and an error when it failed).
• Thumbnail warnings. If YouTube refuses the thumbnail, the video stays up with a warning.
• First comment: Reelspan posts it as a top-level comment. If YouTube refuses it, the video stays up and the result carries first_comment: "failed" and a warning.
• Analytics: channel subscribers, views and video count; per video, views, likes, comments and favorites.

After posting

• Change the thumbnail of a published video with YouTube thumbnail, by its video id or the request_id that published it.
• Videos can't be edited or deleted through Reelspan: that needs a wider YouTube permission than the upload access Reelspan asks for. Change or remove them in YouTube Studio.

Errors