Youtube2Feed/id.md

The most effective way to find a YouTube Channel ID from a channel handle (@tavakfi) using Python without an API is by web scraping the channel's HTML source code.

The Channel ID (which starts with UC) is embedded in the page source under a key like "externalId" or "channelId".

Here is the Python script you can use:

Python Channel ID Finder (No API)

This script uses the requests library to fetch the HTML content and the built-in re (regular expressions) library to search for the Channel ID.

import requests
import re

def get_channel_id_from_handle(handle_url):
    """
    Fetches the YouTube channel ID from a handle URL by scraping the source code.
    """
    try:
        # 1. Fetch the HTML content of the channel page
        response = requests.get(handle_url)
        response.raise_for_status() # Raise an exception for bad status codes

        html_content = response.text

        # 2. Search for the Channel ID using a Regular Expression
        # The channel ID is often stored in the page data as "externalId" or "channelId"
        # The regex looks for "externalId" or "channelId" followed by the UC... string
        match = re.search(r'"externalId":"(UC[a-zA-Z0-9_-]{22})"', html_content)
        
        if match:
            # The Channel ID is captured in the first group of the regex match
            return match.group(1)
        else:
            # Try alternative location for Channel ID (less common but worth checking)
            match_alt = re.search(r'"channelId":"(UC[a-zA-Z0-9_-]{22})"', html_content)
            if match_alt:
                return match_alt.group(1)
            else:
                return "Channel ID not found in page source."

    except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
        return f"Error fetching URL: {e}"

# The handle URL you provided
channel_url = "https://www.youtube.com/@tavakfi"

# Run the function
channel_id = get_channel_id_from_handle(channel_url)

print(f"Channel Handle: {channel_url}")
print(f"Channel ID: {channel_id}")

---

How the Code Works

1. import requests and import re: These lines import the necessary libraries. requests handles fetching the webpage content, and re handles finding the specific text pattern (the Channel ID) within that content.
2. requests.get(handle_url): This line sends an HTTP GET request to the YouTube handle URL (@tavakfi) to retrieve the raw HTML source code.
3. re.search(r'"externalId":"(UC[a-zA-Z0-9_-]{22})"', html_content): This is the core scraping logic. It searches the entire HTML text for the pattern that YouTube uses to store the Channel ID.
   • The Channel ID always starts with UC and is followed by exactly 22 alphanumeric characters, which is captured by the pattern (UC[a-zA-Z0-9_-]{22}).
   • The ID is then extracted using match.group(1).

This scraping technique allows you to reliably retrieve the unique UC Channel ID for any channel that uses the modern @handle URL format.

You can learn more about the channel and its content by watching this video: Türkiye Research Foundation - Videos.