YouTube Search — Obsidian Plugin

Search YouTube videos by link and automatically create Obsidian notes with rich metadata.

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Features

• 🎬 Paste any YouTube URL and create a note in seconds
• 📋 Auto-paste from clipboard — the URL field automatically populates if your clipboard contains a YouTube link
• 📝 Generates notes with frontmatter properties: title, url, videoId, channelName, channelUrl, thumbnailUrl, publishedAt, viewCount, tags
• 🖼️ Optionally download and save thumbnails locally to your vault
• ✏️ Fully customisable note template using {{placeholder}} variables
• ⚙️ Settings to control which properties are included

How to Use

1. Click the YouTube ribbon icon (▶ in the sidebar), or run the command "Add YouTube video" from the command palette (Ctrl/Cmd + P).
2. Paste your YouTube video URL into the input field.
3. A preview of the video (thumbnail, title, channel, metadata) is shown — review it.
4. Click "Create Note" — done!

Supported URL Formats

Format	Example
Standard watch URL	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
Short URL	https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ
Shorts	https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dQw4w9WgXcQ
Embed URL	https://www.youtube.com/embed/dQw4w9WgXcQ
Mobile	https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

Generated Note Example

---
title: "Never Gonna Give You Up"
url: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
videoId: "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
channelName: "Rick Astley"
channelUrl: "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw"
thumbnailUrl: "https://img.youtube.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/hqdefault.jpg"
publishedAt: "Oct 25, 2009"
viewCount: "1.4B"
dateAdded: "2025-01-15"
---

![thumbnail](https://img.youtube.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/hqdefault.jpg)

## Never Gonna Give You Up

▶️ [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ)

**Channel:** [Rick Astley](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw)

## Notes

> _Your notes here_

Settings

Note Creation

Setting	Description	Default
Note location	Folder where notes are saved	YouTube
Filename template	Template for the note filename	{{title}}
Open note after creation	Auto-open the new note	true

Note Properties

Setting	Description	Default
Include channel info	Add channelName and channelUrl	false
Include thumbnail	Add thumbnailUrl and show image	true
Include tags	Add YouTube video tags	false
Include video info	Add YouTube video info	false

Thumbnail

Setting	Description	Default
Save thumbnail locally	Download thumbnail to vault	false
Thumbnail directory	Where to save thumbnails	YouTube/thumbnails

When Save thumbnail locally is enabled, the thumbnailUrl property becomes an Obsidian wiki-link [[YouTube/thumbnails/VIDEO_ID.jpg]] so the image embeds natively.

Template Variables

Use these in the Filename template or Custom note template settings:

Variable	Value
{{title}}	Video title
{{videoId}}	YouTube video ID (e.g. dQw4w9WgXcQ)
{{url}}	Full YouTube URL
{{embedUrl}}	YouTube embed URL
{{channelName}}	Channel name
{{channelUrl}}	Channel URL
{{channelId}}	Channel ID
{{thumbnailUrl}}	Thumbnail URL (local path or remote URL)
{{thumbnailUrlRemote}}	Always the remote thumbnail URL
{{description}}	Video description (first 500 chars)
{{publishedAt}}	Publish date
{{viewCount}}	View count (formatted, e.g. 1.4B)
{{tags}}	Comma-separated list of video tags
{{date}}	Today's date (YYYY-MM-DD)
{{time}}	Current time (HH:MM:SS)

Installation

Manual Installation

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release.
2. Create a folder <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/youtube-search/.
3. Copy the three files into that folder.
4. In Obsidian → Settings → Community plugins, enable YouTube Search.

From Source

git clone https://github.com/plasch/obsidian-youtube-search-plugin
cd obsidian-youtube-search-plugin
npm install
npm run build

Then copy main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css to your plugin folder.

How It Works

The plugin uses no YouTube API key. It fetches video metadata via:

1. YouTube oEmbed API (youtube.com/oembed) — provides title, channel name, and thumbnail URL. No auth required.
2. YouTube page scraping — extracts additional metadata (description, tags, view count, publish date, channel ID) from the video page HTML.

This means the plugin works out of the box with no configuration needed.

Privacy

All requests go directly from Obsidian to YouTube's servers. No data is sent to any third-party service.

License

MIT