Get the view count of YouTube Video (without api key) and title and anything else

Update: this only works in your browser in developers console if you're on the youtube page (otherwise you'll get a cors error). This is super useful for chrome extensions in which you execute content-script.js on the youtube page!

You can get the view count of a YouTube video without an api key. Here is the secret formula and quick solution:

async function getViews(videoId) {
  const response = await fetch(`https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=${videoId}`);
  const html = await response.text();
  const viewCount = html?.split('viewCount":"')?.[1]?.split('"')?.[0];
  return viewCount ? parseInt(viewCount) : null;
}

]

Get more data from the video

Every Youtube page has a very useful ytInitialPlayerResponse variable. In this you can find subtitles, view counts, etc.

• Go to any YouTube video
• Open developer console
• Refresh the page (important)
• past ytInitialPlayerResponse in the developer console
• you'll have lots of info at your disposal now!

The view count is under videoDetails. In my solution i'm just searching (with split) on viewCount: " and I'm taking the first result.

It would be better to be able to work with this ytInitialPlayerResponse variable. I found out that it's this part up to var meta = document.createElement('meta')

JSON.parse(html.split('ytInitialPlayerResponse = ')[1].split(`;var meta = document.createElement('meta')`)[0])

You could get the complete video data with this:

async function getYouTubeVideoData(videoId) {
  const response = await fetch(`https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=${videoId}`);
  const html = await response.text();
  const ytInitialPlayerResponse = JSON.parse(html.split('ytInitialPlayerResponse = ')[1].split(`;var meta = document.createElement('meta')`)[0]);
  return ytInitialPlayerResponse;
}

Get video Title

async function getYouTubeVideoTitle(videoId) {
  const response = await fetch(`https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=${videoId}`);
  const html = await response.text();
  const ytInitialPlayerResponse = JSON.parse(html.split('ytInitialPlayerResponse = ')[1].split(`;var meta = document.createElement('meta')`)[0]);
  return ytInitialPlayerResponse.videoDetails.title;
}

await getYouTubeVideoTitle('dQw4w9WgXcQ');
// will return 'Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Music Video)'

You can return any parameter from the ytInitialPlayerResponse object:

You could even retrieve the subtitles in two steps

// if no languageCode is given, then return first subtitle from the list
async function getYouTubeSubtitle(videoId, languageCode) {
  const response = await fetch(`https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=${videoId}`);
  const html = await response.text();
  const ytInitialPlayerResponse = JSON.parse(html.split('ytInitialPlayerResponse = ')[1].split(`;var meta = document.createElement('meta')`)[0]);
  const captionTracks = ytInitialPlayerResponse.captions. playerCaptionsTracklistRenderer.captionTracks;
  const captionTrack = languageCode ? captionTracks.find(c => c.languageCode === languageCode) : captionTracks[0];
  return await fetch(captionTrack.baseUrl);
}

await getYouTubeSubtitle('dQw4w9WgXcQ');
// will return 'Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Music Video)'