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Measured tool

YouTube Channel ID Finder

Turn any @handle, /c/ URL or video link into the permanent UC channel ID.

Accepts /channel/UC…, @handles, /c/ vanity URLs, /user/ URLs, and any video URL from the channel. One per line, up to 20.

Worked example ·

MR RAJA PLAYZONE has 3 videos trending in India this week. Its channel ID is:

What this tool does

This tool resolves any form of YouTube channel reference to the canonical UC… channel ID that APIs and feed readers need. It accepts @handles, /c/ vanity URLs, old /user/ URLs, /channel/ URLs and even a link to one of the channel's videos, and returns the ID alongside the channel's real subscriber, video and view counts.

How to use it

  1. Paste one reference per line. Anything that identifies the channel works, including a single video URL from it.
  2. Press "Find channel ID".
  3. Copy the UC… ID, or the ready-made RSS feed URL underneath it.

Limits you should know about

  • Subscriber counts are rounded by YouTube itself above 1,000, and are hidden entirely when the owner has chosen to hide them.
  • Vanity /c/ URLs are not resolvable through the API, so those fall back to reading the public channel page. That is slower and can fail if YouTube rate-limits us.
  • Twenty references per request and sixty requests an hour per IP.
  • Results are cached for 24 hours per channel, so the counts can be up to a day old.

Questions people ask

What is a YouTube channel ID?

A 24-character string beginning with UC that never changes, unlike a handle or a vanity URL. It is what the API, RSS feeds and most third-party tools actually want.

How do I find a channel ID from a handle?

Paste the @handle or the full youtube.com/@handle URL above. Handles can be changed by their owner; the UC… ID cannot, which is why it is the safer thing to store.

What is the RSS feed for?

It lists a channel's most recent uploads as XML with no API key and no rate limit. It is the cheapest way to watch a channel for new videos.

Why does the subscriber count not match what I see on YouTube?

YouTube rounds public subscriber counts — to the nearest thousand above 1,000, and more coarsely above a million. The API returns the same rounded figure the site shows.

Can I look up several channels at once?

Yes, up to twenty per request, and there is a CSV download of the results.

Everything here reads live data from the YouTube Data API or from the Trending Tags Index. No account is needed for anything on this site.
Last changed — see the changelog.