Practical guides for making and sharing YouTube videos.
A free YouTube Data API key gives you 10,000 quota units a day. Most requests cost 1 unit, but every search costs 100, so 100 searches use up the whole day. Here's how to get a key, what each call costs, and how to avoid quotaExceeded errors.
YouTube's Test & Compare runs up to 3 thumbnails on the same video and picks the winner by watch time, not clicks. Here's how it works, why a clickbait thumbnail can lose, and how to check your options before you test.
YouTube only shows chapters when your description's timestamps follow four rules: the first starts at 0:00, there are at least 3, they're in time order, and each chapter is at least 10 seconds long. Here's how to fix each one.
Embed a YouTube video with an iframe sized by aspect-ratio: 16 / 9 so it fits every screen. Autoplay only works muted, loop needs a playlist parameter, and youtube-nocookie.com avoids cookies until play. Copy-paste code included.
Every YouTube thumbnail lives at i.ytimg.com/vi/VIDEO_ID/maxresdefault.jpg, in five sizes up to 1280×720. Here's how to grab the full-resolution version, why some videos don't have one, and what you're allowed to do with it.
Every YouTube image size in one place: thumbnails are 1280×720 (16:9, under 2 MB), channel banners 2560×1440 with a 1546×423 safe area, and Shorts 1080×1920. Plus where YouTube's buttons cover your designs.