Watch the step-by-step walkthrough below, then follow along to grab the unique video ID of any YouTube video straight from its URL.
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Follow these steps alongside the video to locate any YouTube video's unique ID.
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Common questions about finding a YouTube video ID.
A YouTube video ID is the unique 11-character code that identifies a specific video. It appears after v= in a standard YouTube URL, for example the K7JSenLDgQ0 in youtube.com/watch?v=K7JSenLDgQ0.
Open the video and look at your browser's address bar. The ID is the string immediately after v= and before any & symbol. If there are extra parameters like &t=1s, the ID is only the part before that ampersand.
On a shortened youtu.be link, the ID comes right after the slash — for example, in youtu.be/K7JSenLDgQ0 the ID is K7JSenLDgQ0. Again, ignore anything after a ? such as a timestamp.
Tap Share under the video and choose Copy link. Paste it anywhere and you'll get a youtu.be link — the characters after the slash are the video ID.
The ID is used to embed videos on websites, pull a video's thumbnail (e.g. img.youtube.com/vi/ID/maxresdefault.jpg), reference videos in the YouTube API, and build clean links. It's the most reliable way to point to one exact video.
No. The video ID identifies a single video, while a channel ID identifies the creator's whole channel. They're different codes found in different parts of the URL — the video ID after v=, and the channel ID after /channel/.