Would like to pull youtube data to spreadsheet

#1

Well, while waiting for TB update, I’ve started looking at another project.

I simply want to automatically get the info from YouTube for the number of views a specific video has gotten. The exact number, not those abbreviated numbers like “2M”. Not my videos. This needs to work with anyone’s videos I chose.

I’m assuming this won’t work with Apple’s Numbers so I figure I’d do it with Google Sheets and then copy from there periodically to Numbers.

I found all sorts of descriptions, which I generally don’t understand. At least I have not been able to get a single one to work.

The most straight forward ones seemed to just need the link (or ID) of the video and then a formula in the next column. But none worked for me even with copying and pasting them. I don’t know if YouTube change something, or Google Sheets did, or if there is something else I need to do that isn’t made clear.

Sooo, if anyone has any insight into this - or has a working spreadsheet!!! - I’d be very interested.

Because manually going to a couple dozen videos, copying the views, and pasting them into my spreadsheet takes a lot of time!

#2

I wrote a script for my wife’s discussion board classes that uses the unix underpinnings of the Mac to pull out class participation information and export it to Numbers. There were some manual steps, that I never got around to trying to automate, because the step only took a few seconds to perform, but I was also only going to a few webpages, once a week, and not potentially hundreds, daily. I am afraid that unix and pearl scripts are a bit difficult to pickup, so I am thinking this is a dead end for you. Sorry I am no help here.

#3

I know there is a way, but there is always someting missing. Some use AppleScript. Some a formula. I got one that partially worked. When I entered the ID for a couple videos, it did automatically fill in the cell which shows the default picture from the video. It also filled in the cell that contains the link and the link worked. But none of the other things, which are what I really need (well, just the views) got filled in. And if I entered the ID on top of one the guy already had filled in, it changed those two cells, but left the stuff in the other ones alone.

I’m just getting into an area I have no experience with and the descriptions I’m reading are either not clear to me or they are leaving out important detaill!