YouTube Channel ID Finder

About YouTube Channel ID Finder

Finding a YouTube channel ID

Every YouTube channel has a unique 24-character identifier starting with "UC" (e.g. UCxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx). This ID is what the YouTube Data API, RSS feeds, and third-party analytics tools use to reference the channel.

Finding the channel ID used to require digging through page source. Our YouTube Channel ID Finder resolves it automatically from any YouTube URL — video, channel link, or @handle — using the public oEmbed API. No API key required.

Three ways to find a channel ID

1. From a video URL (most reliable): paste any video URL from the channel. We use oEmbed to get the author URL, which contains the channel ID.
2. From a /channel/ URL: paste a URL like youtube.com/channel/UCxxxx and we extract the ID directly.
3. From a @handle URL: paste youtube.com/@name and we fetch the channel page via a CORS proxy to extract the ID from meta tags.

What channel IDs are used for

• YouTube Data API v3: every API request requires the channel ID
• RSS feeds: https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCxxxx gives you the channel's latest videos as RSS
• Analytics tools: SocialBlade, Noxinfluencer, and similar tools use the channel ID
• Embedding: some embed widgets require the channel ID rather than the URL

Why video URLs are most reliable

YouTube's @handle system is relatively new (2022), and the mapping from handle to channel ID isn't always exposed cleanly. Video URLs, on the other hand, always include the channel ID via the oEmbed API — which has been stable for over a decade.

Once you have the channel ID, estimate the channel's earnings with our YouTube Money Calculator.