youtube-drive is totally inspired by YouTubeDrive, a Wolfram Language (aka Mathematica) package. I read the source code of YouTubeDrive and write a Python version with a little change for fun.
youtube-drive is a Python library encodes/decodes arbitrary data to/from simple RGB videos which are automatically uploaded to/downloaded from YouTube. Since YouTube imposes no limits on the total number or length of videos users can upload, this provides an effectively infinite but extremely slow form of file storage.
youtube-drive is a silly proof-of-concept, and I do not endorse its high-volume use either.
Upload: Encode a file to video and upload to YouTube:
python -m youtube_drive upload examples/BesselJ.png
YouTube Video ID: EzqstWlMXyk
YouTube: https://youtu.be/EzqstWlMXyk
Retrieve: Download the video from YouTube and decode to a file:
python -m youtube_drive retrieve --video-id=EzqstWlMXyk -o BesselJ-retrieved.png
/var/folders/md/dnr_ryfs2_x128p26xx2pnnc0000gn/T/tmp6qfm_msc.mp4
[youtube] EzqstWlMXyk: Downloading webpage
[youtube] EzqstWlMXyk: Downloading MPD manifest
[download] Destination: /var/folders/md/dnr_ryfs2_x128p26xx2pnnc0000gn/T/tmp6qfm_msc.f136.mp4
[download] 100% of 1.74MiB in 00:25
[download] Destination: /var/folders/md/dnr_ryfs2_x128p26xx2pnnc0000gn/T/tmp6qfm_msc.mp4.f140
[download] 100% of 58.70KiB in 00:03
[ffmpeg] Merging formats into "/var/folders/md/dnr_ryfs2_x128p26xx2pnnc0000gn/T/tmp6qfm_msc.mp4"
Deleting original file /var/folders/md/dnr_ryfs2_x128p26xx2pnnc0000gn/T/tmp6qfm_msc.f136.mp4 (pass -k to keep)
Deleting original file /var/folders/md/dnr_ryfs2_x128p26xx2pnnc0000gn/T/tmp6qfm_msc.mp4.f140 (pass -k to keep)The video, video ID is EzqstWlMXyk, youtube-drive produces in this example can be viewed at https://youtu.be/EzqstWlMXyk. The video is encoded from the image BesselJ.png. A 62KB image file will produce a video of size 10+MB.
Another file I uploaded to YouTube is painting.jpg, it produces a video of size 127.5MB, and the original size is 476KB. The video can be viewed at https://youtu.be/gKhXk3IGW2s.
I use opencv to produce mp4 video, if use ffmpeg with optimizing directly, the video maybe compress to a more smaller size.
AGAIN: It is a silly idea, just for fun.
Notice:
- I only test with Python 3.8 & 3.9 & 3.10 on MacOS with ffmpeg installed.
- If it works on your system, please feel free to let me know. Thanks.
For development:
git clone https://github.com/lewangdev/youtube-drive.git
cd youtube-drive
python -m venv .venv
. .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txtOr run directly from sources:
git clone https://github.com/lewangdev/youtube-drive.git
cd youtube-drive
python -m venv .venv
. .venv/bin/activate
python setup.py installThe first time you try to upload a video to YouTube, you will be asked to follow a URL in your browser to get an authentication token. If you have multiple channels for the logged in user, you will also be asked to pick which one you want to upload the videos to.
You now need to create and use your own OAuth 2.0 file, it's a free service. Steps:
Go to the Google Cloud Console.
- Create project.
- Side menu: APIs & Services -> OAuth consent screen: Create app and add the test user you will updoad videos to.
- Side menu: APIs & Services -> Enabled API & services -> ENABLED API AND SERVICES -> Search
youtube-> ChooseYouTube Data API v3and enable it. - Side menu: APIs & Services -> Credentials -> Create Credentials -> OAuth client ID: Application type choose
Desktop app. - Download JSON: Under the section "OAuth 2.0 client IDs". Save the file to your local system. Use this JSON as your credentials file: copy it to ~/.client_secrets.json. Note: client_secrets.json is a file you can download from the developer console, the credentials file is something auto generated after the first time the script is run and the google account sign in is followed, the file is stored at ~/.youtube-upload-credentials.json.
If you feel any difficulty to create OAuth 2.0 file, here is the video I made for you: https://youtu.be/kL2oFZt2xHM
Commands:
python -m youtube_drive -h
usage: youtube-drive [-h] {encode,en,decode,de,upload,up,retrieve,r} ...
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
commands:
{encode,en,decode,de,upload,up,retrieve,r}
encode (en) encode a file to mp4 video
decode (de) decode a video to a file
upload (up) upload a file to YouTube
retrieve (r) retrieve a video from YouTube save as <filename>
If you install from source, you can run the script directly:
youtube-drive -h
usage: youtube-drive [-h] {encode,en,decode,de,upload,up,retrieve,r} ...
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
commands:
{encode,en,decode,de,upload,up,retrieve,r}
encode (en) encode a file to mp4 video
decode (de) decode a video to a file
upload (up) upload a file to YouTube
retrieve (r) retrieve a video from YouTube save as <filename>
Upload:
python -m youtube_drive up -h
usage: youtube-drive upload [-h] filename
positional arguments:
filename encode file <filename> to a video and upload to YouTube
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
Retrieve:
python -m youtube_drive r -h
usage: youtube-drive retrieve [-h] [--video-id video_id] [-o filename]
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--video-id video_id download YouTube video with <video_id>
-o filename save file to <filename>
Local Encode:
python -m youtube_drive en -h
usage: youtube-drive encode [-h] [-i input_filename] [--video-fps video_fps] video_filename
positional arguments:
video_filename save the video to this filename
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-i input_filename encode file <input_filename> to a video
--video-fps video_fps
set video fps, default value is 20
Local Decode:
python -m youtube_drive de -h
usage: youtube-drive decode [-h] [-i input_video_filename] filename
positional arguments:
filename Save the output file to this filename
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-i input_video_filename
decode the video <input_video_filename> to a file
I add 4 bytes for representing data length at the beginning for the file for easily padding to video frames