YouTube handles

[tehniemer]

I got this email from YouTube, is it going to cause any problems to existing or future subscription when the switch is made?

We're writing to let you know that over the coming weeks YouTube will be introducing handles to make it easier for members of the community to find and connect with each other. Your handle will be unique to your channel and will be how people mention you in comments, community posts, and more.

Here’s what you need to know:

We're gradually rolling out the ability to choose a handle for all channels over the coming weeks, and you will receive another email and a notification in YouTube Studio when you’re able to choose yours. In most cases, if you already have a personalized URL for your channel, we’ve reserved this for you as your handle. If you want a different handle from the one we’ve reserved, you can change it. If you don’t already have a personalized URL today, you’ll also be able to choose a handle for your channel.

Starting on November 14, 2022, if you haven’t yet selected a handle for your channel, YouTube will automatically assign you a handle, which you can change in YouTube Studio if you'd like.

In the meantime, learn more about handles and all the things you’ll be able to do with them:

[meeb]

I doubt YouTube will break any existing channel or playlist URLs so I would expect disruption to any third party services like TubeSync to be zero or minimal. I might need to add support for the new URL format once it's public though. Thanks for the info I'll look out for some URLs to test with mid November.

[IngwiePhoenix]

Is there a known way to convert from @ handles to channel IDs?

Thing is, I just set this up with Docker Compose and wanted to import from https://www.youtube.com/@koyokoyo but got 404'd. My guess is that - at least the current :latest image - has a slightly older yt-dlp that might not be able to handle the new @ handles.

By the way: Very nice interface! 👍

[meeb]

You can probably use the same tricks discussed in this issue: https://github.com/meeb/tubesync/issues/243

There is a longer term plan to make this slightly less awful to use for the "handles" channels via an automatic web interface. I've not made it work successfully 100% of the time yet though.

Edit: for some context, it seems the @handles are the same as the previous "problem" channels where the channel wasn't a channel but just a name that could represent anything, a channel or a playlist or a user page etc. Where the @handle name is actually a channel the channel ID is available in the metadata as the uploader_url but this isn't always the case. For your particular channel:

$ docker exec -ti tubesync python3 /app/manage.py youtube-dl-info https://www.youtube.com/@koyokoyo | grep uploader_url                                                                                                                                       (12-12 00:00)
"uploader_url": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0PEyRpmqGprh_6Z4BwlFvA",

So the channel ID for @koyokoyo is actually UC0PEyRpmqGprh_6Z4BwlFvA.

[IngwiePhoenix]

I only just now saw the edit afterr seing a version update.

Would love to see this as a tool in the UI! :)

[meeb]

It's planned, it's just complicated so might be a while.