MetadataViewerYouTube Metadata Viewer
Paste any YouTube URL and instantly see the video's metadata — title, channel, canonical link and every thumbnail size. No API key, no login.
This YouTube metadata viewer pulls a video's public metadata through YouTube's oEmbed endpoint: the exact title, the channel that published it, the canonical watch URL and the complete ladder of thumbnail images. It's the quickest way to grab a clean video title for citations, verify which channel actually posted a clip, or test the standard thumbnail-size candidates without screenshotting.
Because it uses public endpoints, there's nothing to install and no API key to manage. If you need deeper metadata — view counts, tags, upload dates, chapters — that requires the YouTube Data API or yt-dlp; we wrote a complete, copy-paste Python guide to YouTube metadata extraction covering all three methods.
Checking your own local video files instead? The video metadata viewer reads MP4/MOV files on your device — including hidden GPS tags — without uploading them.
Fields returned by this tool
| Field | Source | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| Video ID and canonical watch URL | Parsed from the URL | Public and private IDs can be parsed, but private metadata cannot be fetched |
| Title and channel | YouTube public oEmbed | Unavailable for deleted, private or embedding-disabled videos |
| Player dimensions | YouTube public oEmbed | Describes the embed response, not the uploaded source resolution |
| Thumbnail candidates | Public YouTube image paths | maxresdefault does not exist for every video |
What it does not claim to show
This page does not expose private metadata, hidden tags, watch history, uploader email, precise source-file EXIF, view counts or upload timestamps. Those fields are outside oEmbed. A failed lookup is shown as an error rather than an empty title, so “unavailable” is not confused with “no metadata.”
Frequently asked questions
How do I view the metadata of a YouTube video?
Paste the video URL (watch, shorts or youtu.be link) into the box above and press “View metadata”. The tool fetches the video’s public metadata — title, channel, canonical URL and thumbnails — instantly, with no API key or login.
What YouTube metadata can I see?
The public oEmbed metadata: video title, channel name and link, player dimensions and the full set of thumbnail images (default → maxresdefault). For deeper fields like view counts and tags, see our Python extraction guide.
Can I download the video thumbnail?
Yes — every thumbnail size is linked (default, mqdefault, hqdefault, sddefault, maxresdefault). Open one and save it; maxresdefault.jpg is the highest resolution when available.
Does this work with Shorts and youtu.be links?
Yes — watch URLs, Shorts, embeds, live links and youtu.be short links are all recognised, or you can paste the bare 11-character video ID.