What is a YouTube video ID and how do you find it?
A YouTube video ID is the 11-character code that identifies a single video. It is the part of a link that tells YouTube exactly which video to open, and it is also what you need to find a video’s thumbnail.
What an ID looks like
An ID is always 11 characters long and can contain uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens and underscores. An example is dQw4w9WgXcQ. IDs are case-sensitive, so changing a capital letter to a small one gives you a different (or invalid) address.
Where to find it in different links
- Watch link: in youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ the ID is the text after
v=. - Short link: in youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ it is the text after the slash.
- Shorts link: in youtube.com/shorts/dQw4w9WgXcQ it follows
/shorts/. - Embed link: in youtube.com/embed/dQw4w9WgXcQ it follows
/embed/. - Live link: in youtube.com/live/dQw4w9WgXcQ it follows
/live/.
The mobile site, m.youtube.com, uses the same formats.
Finding it in the YouTube app
The app doesn’t show the ID on screen. Tap Share, then Copy link, and paste the link somewhere you can read it, such as a notes app. The ID is the 11 characters described above.
What people use video IDs for
- Thumbnails: every thumbnail address contains the ID.
- Embedding: the embed address uses the ID to show a video on your page.
- Linking and tracking: spreadsheets and tools often store IDs instead of long links.
Common mistakes
- Copying extra text. Parts such as
&t=30s(a start time) or&list=(a playlist) are not part of the ID. - Confusing a playlist ID with a video ID. Playlist IDs are longer and usually start with letters like PL.
- Missing a character. If you have fewer than 11 characters, a letter or symbol was cut off.
- Channel links. Links that contain an @name or /channel/ point to a channel, not to a video, so they have no video ID.
Skip the manual work
You don’t need to extract the ID yourself. ThumbGrab reads it from any of the formats above, ignores timestamps and playlist parts, and also accepts a bare ID. Paste your link and the thumbnails appear. To learn what each file is, read our guide to thumbnail sizes.