PHP Regex to get youtube video ID?

Question

Can someone show me how to get the youtube id out of a url regardless of what other GET variables are in the URL.

Use this video for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4kxS1ksqtw&feature=related
So between v= and before the next &

That might be helpful http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9522868/how-do-i-get-a-youtube-video-id-php — , Apr 13 '12 at 13:04
You should look at my code https://github.com/lingtalfi/video-ids-and-thumbnails/blob/master/testvideo.php, I provide functions that extract id from youtube, vimeo and dailymotion. — ling, Sep 28 '15 at 20:25
@ling in function getVideoThumbnailByUrl() you were using the deprecated file_get_contents() for Vimeo. This replacement will work everywhere: `$ch=curl_init(); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://vimeo.com/api/v2/video/$id.php"); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 5); $hash =unserialize(curl_exec($ch)); curl_close($ch);` — jerrygarciuh, Nov 20 '15 at 21:58
@ling Also in getYoutubeId($url) the final conditional will accept any string and validate it as a YT id. I passed it 'junk' and it returned junk as an id parsed from that string. — jerrygarciuh, Nov 20 '15 at 22:21
@jerrygarciuh: afaik file_get_contents is not deprecated, feel free to report an issue on github if you had problem with this function. Thanks for spotting the error in getYoutubeId (I enhanced it). — ling, Nov 22 '15 at 04:56
@ling - you are correct. The correct phrasing would be that file_get_contents is very commonly disabled by hosts as a security risk. — jerrygarciuh, Nov 22 '15 at 17:04

Peter Ajtai · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-21T04:18:17.783

338

Use parse_url() and parse_str().

(You can use regexes for just about anything, but they are very easy to make an error in, so if there are PHP functions specifically for what you are trying to accomplish, use those.)

parse_url takes a string and cuts it up into an array that has a bunch of info. You can work with this array, or you can specify the one item you want as a second argument. In this case we're interested in the query, which is PHP_URL_QUERY.

Now we have the query, which is v=C4kxS1ksqtw&feature=relate, but we only want the part after v=. For this we turn to parse_str which basically works like GET on a string. It takes a string and creates the variables specified in the string. In this case $v and $feature is created. We're only interested in $v.

To be safe, you don't want to just store all the variables from the parse_url in your namespace (see mellowsoon's comment). Instead store the variables as elements of an array, so that you have control over what variables you are storing, and you cannot accidentally overwrite an existing variable.

Putting everything together, we have:

<?php
$url = "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4kxS1ksqtw&feature=relate";
parse_str( parse_url( $url, PHP_URL_QUERY ), $my_array_of_vars );
echo $my_array_of_vars['v'];    
  // Output: C4kxS1ksqtw
?>

Working example

Edit:

hehe - thanks Charles. That made me laugh, I've never seen the Zawinski quote before:

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think ‘I know, I’ll use regular expressions.’ Now they have two problems. – Jamie Zawinski

edited Sep 21 '11 at 04:18

answered Aug 03 '10 at 01:27

Peter Ajtai

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1

Although it doesn't use regex (at least visibly - I'm not sure how `parse_url()` works under the hood), this is the way to go. – Thomas Owens Aug 03 '10 at 01:35
11

. Though in all seriousness, using language functions to perform a task is frequently going to be better than the hoop jumping that a good regex can require. – Charles Aug 03 '10 at 01:41
1

I'd only suggest using parse_str()'s second parameter to store the query params in an array. Having variables magically appear out of thin air is never a good idea. – mellowsoon Oct 19 '10 at 00:37
2

A quick simple example of why using parse_str()'s "magic variables" isn't a good idea -> http://pastebin.com/AtaaPH4r – mellowsoon Oct 19 '10 at 00:43
1

@Qualcuno - of course not. This is specifically for retrieving "get variables" - per the OP. Your examples are not get variables. – Peter Ajtai Apr 27 '12 at 16:52
@PeterAjtai indeed. Just clarifying :) – ItalyPaleAle Apr 27 '12 at 22:08
I found here a solution that includes more youtube urls forms: https://gist.github.com/ghalusa/6c7f3a00fd2383e5ef33 – Marc May 28 '20 at 09:05
This saved my day : https://gist.github.com/astockwell/11055104 – Mauro Jun 25 '21 at 17:24
This example does works with URL youtu.be – denis Feb 14 '23 at 14:02

score 175 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 05 '12 at 22:50

175

preg_match("#(?<=v=)[a-zA-Z0-9-]+(?=&)|(?<=v\/)[^&\n]+|(?<=v=)[^&\n]+|(?<=youtu.be/)[^&\n]+#", $url, $matches);

This will account for

youtube.com/v/{vidid}
youtube.com/vi/{vidid}
youtube.com/?v={vidid}
youtube.com/?vi={vidid}
youtube.com/watch?v={vidid}
youtube.com/watch?vi={vidid}
youtu.be/{vidid}

I improved it slightly to support: http://www.youtube.com/v/5xADESocujo?feature=autoshare&version=3&autohide=1&autoplay=1

The line I use now is:

preg_match("#(?<=v=)[a-zA-Z0-9-]+(?=&)|(?<=v\/)[^&\n]+(?=\?)|(?<=v=)[^&\n]+|(?<=youtu.be/)[^&\n]+#", $link, $matches);

edited Jan 05 '12 at 22:50

Peter Ajtai

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answered May 25 '11 at 09:05

Anthony Leach

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4

I have updated it to also handle URLs like this: http://www.youtube.com/embed/7zuAOomfiCc `#(?<=v=)[a-zA-Z0-9-]+(?=&)|(?<=v\/)[^&\n]+(?=\?)|(?<=embed/)[^&\n]+|(?<=v=)[^&\n]+|(?<=youtu.be/)[^&\n]+#` – simonbs Feb 07 '12 at 18:26
Arun SS's comment: "@SimonBS, `#(?<=v=)[a-zA-Z0-9-]+(?=&)|(?<=v\/)[^&\n]+(?=\?)|(?<=embed/)[^&\n]+|(?<=v=)[^&\n]+|(?<=youtu.be/)[^&\‌n]+#` is not working perfectly for embed codes. It is appending remaining parts of the URLs. The output is seems like this: `45EFxhTeKwy" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>` How to strip the remaining parts?" – Peter O. Mar 17 '12 at 07:23
12

This works for all urls, inc embed strings `(?<=(?:v|i)=)[a-zA-Z0-9-]+(?=&)|(?<=(?:v|i)\/)[^&\n]+|(?<=embed\/)[^"&\n]+|(?<=(?:v|i)=)[^&\n]+|(?<=youtu.be\/)[^&\n]+` http://rubular.com/r/M9PJYcQxRW – Rob Mar 27 '12 at 09:56
3

how about this /(youtu\.be\/|youtube\.com\/(watch\?(.*&)?v=|(embed|v|user)\/))([^\?&"'>]+)/ – bokor Apr 16 '12 at 17:17
1

@bokor It does't work as expected. It just grabs the whole URL, not just the ID. So far, Rob's solution is the one that works best for all cases. – Dan H Jul 27 '12 at 16:50
2

Actually @bokor's code populates the `$matches` array with more info, including the video ID which was very useful for my project – cronoklee Dec 10 '12 at 16:32
2

Addition to the regex of Rob, &list was captured as well. This is stripped out in the regex below: #(?<=(?:v|i)=)[a-zA-Z0-9-_]+|(?<=(?:v|i)\/)[^&?\n]+|(?<=embed\/)[^"&?\n]+|(?<=‌(?:v|i)=)[^&?\n]+|(?<=youtu.be\/)[^&?\n]+# Now supported: http://youtu.be/RRyG_mtYieI?list=PLnBXpb1YLPttKF7RZX64qI_AEyFjTvgtx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRyG_mtYieI&index=4&list=PLnBXpb1YLPttKF7RZX64qI‌_AEyFjTvgtx //www.youtube.com/embed/RRyG_mtYieI?list=PLnBXpb1YLPttKF7RZX64qI_AEyFjTvgtx http://www.youtube.com/v/RRyG_mtYieI – Rick de Graaf Aug 19 '14 at 07:18

Shawn · Answer 3 · 2023-02-12T01:29:56.067

123

Based on bokor's comment on Anthony's answer:

preg_match("/^(?:http(?:s)?:\/\/)?(?:www\.)?(?:m\.)?(?:youtu\.be\/|youtube\.com\/(?:(?:watch)?\?(?:.*&)?v(?:i)?=|(?:embed|v|vi|user|shorts)\/))([^\?&\"'>]+)/", $url, $matches);

$matches[1] contains the vidid

Matches:

youtube.com/v/vidid
youtube.com/vi/vidid
youtube.com/?v=vidid
youtube.com/?vi=vidid
youtube.com/watch?v=vidid
youtube.com/watch?vi=vidid
youtu.be/vidid
youtube.com/embed/vidid
http://youtube.com/v/vidid
http://www.youtube.com/v/vidid
https://www.youtube.com/v/vidid
youtube.com/watch?v=vidid&wtv=wtv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?dev=inprogress&v=vidid&feature=related
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vidid
youtube.com/shorts/vidid

Does not match:

www.facebook.com?wtv=youtube.com/v/vidid

edited Feb 12 '23 at 01:29

answered Jun 10 '13 at 18:14

Shawn

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Do you have a C/objc/c++ version of this string? i don't know which parts to escape. – João Nunes Jan 14 '15 at 09:34
I tried: "^(?:http(?:s)?://)?(?:www\\.)?(?:youtu\\.be/|youtube\\.com/(?:(?:watch)?\?(?:.*&)?v(?:i)?=|(?:embed|v|vi|user)/))([^\?&\"'>]+)" Not passing all your examples – João Nunes Jan 14 '15 at 11:12
1

I found my problem. here it is the final c string: "^(?:http(?:s)?://)?(?:www\\.)?(?:youtu\\.be/|youtube\\.com/(?:(?:watch)?\\?(?:.*&)?v(?:i)?=|(?:embed|v|vi|user)/))([^\?&\"'>]+)" – João Nunes Jan 14 '15 at 11:24
1

To also take into account urls like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vidid#action=share I have added the `#` to the ending capture group: `preg_match("/^(?:http(?:s)?:\/\/)?(?:www\.)?(?:m\.)?(?:youtu\.be\/|youtube\.com\/(?:(?:watch)?\?(?:.*&)?v(?:i)?=|(?:embed|v|vi|user)\/))([^\?#&\"'>]+)/", $url, $matches);` – joshangell Apr 14 '16 at 08:29
3

It add content with space and grab all the text after a url on a page. This is better /(?:http(?:s)?:\/\/)?(?:www\.)?(?:m\.)?(?:youtu\.be\/|youtube\.com\/(?:(?:watch)?\?(?:.*&)?v(?:i)?=|(?:embed|v|vi|user)\/))([a-zA-Z0-9\-_]*)/ – Gino Nov 04 '16 at 00:11

Kus · Answer 4 · 2015-01-02T03:09:40.533

This can be very easily accomplished using parse_str and parse_url and is more reliable in my opinion.

My function supports the following urls:

Also includes the test below the function.

/**
 * Get Youtube video ID from URL
 *
 * @param string $url
 * @return mixed Youtube video ID or FALSE if not found
 */
function getYoutubeIdFromUrl($url) {
    $parts = parse_url($url);
    if(isset($parts['query'])){
        parse_str($parts['query'], $qs);
        if(isset($qs['v'])){
            return $qs['v'];
        }else if(isset($qs['vi'])){
            return $qs['vi'];
        }
    }
    if(isset($parts['path'])){
        $path = explode('/', trim($parts['path'], '/'));
        return $path[count($path)-1];
    }
    return false;
}
// Test
$urls = array(
    'http://youtube.com/v/dQw4w9WgXcQ?feature=youtube_gdata_player',
    'http://youtube.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ?feature=youtube_gdata_player',
    'http://youtube.com/?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player',
    'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player',
    'http://youtube.com/?vi=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player',
    'http://youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player',
    'http://youtube.com/watch?vi=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player',
    'http://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?feature=youtube_gdata_player'
);
foreach($urls as $url){
    echo $url . ' : ' . getYoutubeIdFromUrl($url) . "\n";
}

This is really great and actually works for vimeo videos as well — Chris James Champeau, Apr 29 '14 at 00:20
This is also my preferred answer. It does cover both YouTube and Vimeo. One note, I did add a super minor tweak with an additional isset() - else if(isset($qs['vi'])). Many thanks for this. — supernifty, Dec 19 '14 at 15:36

T.Todua · Answer 5 · 2017-11-11T10:33:25.723

25

SOLTUION For any link type!!:

<?php
function get_youtube_id_from_url($url)  {
     preg_match('/(http(s|):|)\/\/(www\.|)yout(.*?)\/(embed\/|watch.*?v=|)([a-z_A-Z0-9\-]{11})/i', $url, $results);    return $results[6];
}


echo get_youtube_id_from_url('http://www.youtube.com/watch?var1=blabla#v=GvJehZx3eQ1$var2=bla');
      // or                   http://youtu.be/GvJehZx3eQ1 
      // or                   http://www.youtube.com/embed/GvJehZx3eQ1
      // or                   http://www.youtu.be/GvJehZx3eQ1/blabla?xyz
?>

outputs: GvJehZx3eQ1

edited Nov 11 '17 at 10:33

answered Dec 16 '13 at 15:05

T.Todua

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Beware using this to match any YT URL: for a link in the form `https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E6F57s-V7U&ab_channel=Accent%27sWayEnglishwithHadar` `$results[0]` will not contain the full link, just the part until the video id. [This helped](https://stackoverflow.com/a/27969087/1717535). – Fabien Snauwaert Feb 22 '21 at 16:18

lleitep3 · Answer 6 · 2018-04-11T13:30:12.627

fixed based on How to validate youtube video ids?

<?php

$links = [
    "youtube.com/v/tFad5gHoBjY",
    "youtube.com/vi/tFad5gHoBjY",
    "youtube.com/?v=tFad5gHoBjY",
    "youtube.com/?vi=tFad5gHoBjY",
    "youtube.com/watch?v=tFad5gHoBjY",
    "youtube.com/watch?vi=tFad5gHoBjY",
    "youtu.be/tFad5gHoBjY",
    "http://youtu.be/qokEYBNWA_0?t=30m26s",
    "youtube.com/v/vidid",
    "youtube.com/vi/vidid",
    "youtube.com/?v=vidid",
    "youtube.com/?vi=vidid",
    "youtube.com/watch?v=vidid",
    "youtube.com/watch?vi=vidid",
    "youtu.be/vidid",
    "youtube.com/embed/vidid",
    "http://youtube.com/v/vidid",
    "http://www.youtube.com/v/vidid",
    "https://www.youtube.com/v/vidid",
    "youtube.com/watch?v=vidid&wtv=wtv",
    "http://www.youtube.com/watch?dev=inprogress&v=vidid&feature=related",
    "youtube.com/watch?v=7HCZvhRAk-M"
];

foreach($links as $link){
    preg_match("#([\/|\?|&]vi?[\/|=]|youtu\.be\/|embed\/)([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)#", $link, $matches);
    var_dump(end($matches));
}

John Max · Answer 7 · 2019-07-19T18:14:54.287

The following will work for all youtube links

<?php
    // Here is a sample of the URLs this regex matches: (there can be more content after the given URL that will be ignored)
    // http://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ
    // http://www.youtube.com/embed/dQw4w9WgXcQ
    // http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
    // http://www.youtube.com/?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
    // http://www.youtube.com/v/dQw4w9WgXcQ
    // http://www.youtube.com/e/dQw4w9WgXcQ
    // http://www.youtube.com/user/username#p/u/11/dQw4w9WgXcQ
    // http://www.youtube.com/sandalsResorts#p/c/54B8C800269D7C1B/0/dQw4w9WgXcQ
    // http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
    // http://www.youtube.com/?feature=player_embedded&v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
    // It also works on the youtube-nocookie.com URL with the same above options.
    // It will also pull the ID from the URL in an embed code (both iframe and object tags)

$url = "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2_MLFVdlQM";

    preg_match('%(?:youtube(?:-nocookie)?\.com/(?:[^/]+/.+/|(?:v|e(?:mbed)?)/|.*[?&]v=)|youtu\.be/)([^"&?/ ]{11})%i', $url, $match);

    $youtube_id = $match[1];

echo $youtube_id;
    ?>

Emma · Answer 8 · 2019-11-07T01:36:55.650

For extracting the id in a capturing group, the following expression or some derivative of that might be an option too:

(?im)\b(?:https?:\/\/)?(?:w{3}\.)?youtu(?:be)?\.(?:com|be)\/(?:(?:\??v=?i?=?\/?)|watch\?vi?=|watch\?.*?&v=|embed\/|)([A-Z0-9_-]{11})\S*(?=\s|$)

Demo

Test

$re = '/(?im)\b(?:https?:\/\/)?(?:w{3}\.)?youtu(?:be)?\.(?:com|be)\/(?:(?:\??v=?i?=?\/?)|watch\?vi?=|watch\?.*?&v=|embed\/|)([A-Z0-9_-]{11})\S*(?=\s|$)/';
$str = 'http://youtube.com/v/tFad5gHoBjY
https://youtube.com/vi/tFad5gHoBjY
http://www.youtube.com/?v=tFad5gHoBjY
http://www.youtube.com/?vi=tFad5gHoBjY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFad5gHoBjY
youtube.com/watch?vi=tFad5gHoBjY
youtu.be/tFad5gHoBjY
http://youtu.be/qokEYBNWA_0?t=30m26s
youtube.com/v/7HCZvhRAk-M
youtube.com/vi/7HCZvhRAk-M
youtube.com/?v=7HCZvhRAk-M
youtube.com/?vi=7HCZvhRAk-M
youtube.com/watch?v=7HCZvhRAk-M
youtube.com/watch?vi=7HCZvhRAk-M
youtu.be/7HCZvhRAk-M
youtube.com/embed/7HCZvhRAk-M
http://youtube.com/v/7HCZvhRAk-M
http://www.youtube.com/v/7HCZvhRAk-M
https://www.youtube.com/v/7HCZvhRAk-M
youtube.com/watch?v=7HCZvhRAk-M&wtv=wtv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?dev=inprogress&v=7HCZvhRAk-M&feature=related
youtube.com/watch?v=7HCZvhRAk-M
http://youtube.com/v/dQw4w9WgXcQ?feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://youtube.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ?feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://youtube.com/?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://youtube.com/?vi=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://youtube.com/watch?vi=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?feature=youtube_gdata_player';

preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);

var_dump($matches);

Output

array(30) {
  [0]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(32) "http://youtube.com/v/tFad5gHoBjY"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "tFad5gHoBjY"
  }
  [1]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(34) "https://youtube.com/vi/tFad5gHoBjY"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "tFad5gHoBjY"
  }
  [2]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(37) "http://www.youtube.com/?v=tFad5gHoBjY"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "tFad5gHoBjY"
  }
  [3]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(38) "http://www.youtube.com/?vi=tFad5gHoBjY"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "tFad5gHoBjY"
  }
  [4]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(43) "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFad5gHoBjY"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "tFad5gHoBjY"
  }
  [5]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(32) "youtube.com/watch?vi=tFad5gHoBjY"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "tFad5gHoBjY"
  }
  [6]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(20) "youtu.be/tFad5gHoBjY"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "tFad5gHoBjY"
  }
  [7]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(27) "http://youtu.be/qokEYBNWA_0"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "qokEYBNWA_0"
  }
  [8]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(25) "youtube.com/v/7HCZvhRAk-M"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "7HCZvhRAk-M"
  }
  [9]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(26) "youtube.com/vi/7HCZvhRAk-M"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "7HCZvhRAk-M"
  }
  [10]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(26) "youtube.com/?v=7HCZvhRAk-M"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "7HCZvhRAk-M"
  }
  [11]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(27) "youtube.com/?vi=7HCZvhRAk-M"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "7HCZvhRAk-M"
  }
  [12]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(31) "youtube.com/watch?v=7HCZvhRAk-M"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "7HCZvhRAk-M"
  }
  [13]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(32) "youtube.com/watch?vi=7HCZvhRAk-M"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "7HCZvhRAk-M"
  }
  [14]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(20) "youtu.be/7HCZvhRAk-M"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "7HCZvhRAk-M"
  }
  [15]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(29) "youtube.com/embed/7HCZvhRAk-M"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "7HCZvhRAk-M"
  }
  [16]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(32) "http://youtube.com/v/7HCZvhRAk-M"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "7HCZvhRAk-M"
  }
  [17]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(36) "http://www.youtube.com/v/7HCZvhRAk-M"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "7HCZvhRAk-M"
  }
  [18]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(37) "https://www.youtube.com/v/7HCZvhRAk-M"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "7HCZvhRAk-M"
  }
  [19]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(31) "youtube.com/watch?v=7HCZvhRAk-M"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "7HCZvhRAk-M"
  }
  [20]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(57) "http://www.youtube.com/watch?dev=inprogress&v=7HCZvhRAk-M"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "7HCZvhRAk-M"
  }
  [21]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(31) "youtube.com/watch?v=7HCZvhRAk-M"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "7HCZvhRAk-M"
  }
  [22]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(32) "http://youtube.com/v/dQw4w9WgXcQ"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  }
  [23]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(33) "http://youtube.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  }
  [24]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(33) "http://youtube.com/?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  }
  [25]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(42) "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  }
  [26]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(34) "http://youtube.com/?vi=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  }
  [27]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(38) "http://youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  }
  [28]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(39) "http://youtube.com/watch?vi=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  }
  [29]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(27) "http://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ"
    [1]=>
    string(11) "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  }
}

If you wish to simplify/modify/explore the expression, it's been explained on the top right panel of regex101.com. If you'd like, you can also watch in this link, how it would match against some sample inputs.

RegEx Circuit

jex.im visualizes regular expressions:

score 11 · Answer 9 · answered Aug 13 '14 at 15:19

We know that video ID is 11 chars length and can be preceded by v= or vi= or v/ or vi/ or youtu.be/. So the simplest way to do this:

<?php
$youtube = 'http://youtube.com/v/dQw4w9WgXcQ?feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://youtube.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ?feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://youtube.com/?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://youtube.com/?vi=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://youtube.com/watch?vi=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?feature=youtube_gdata_player';

preg_match_all("#(?<=v=|v\/|vi=|vi\/|youtu.be\/)[a-zA-Z0-9_-]{11}#", $youtube, $matches);

var_dump($matches[0]);

And output:

array(8) {
  [0]=>
  string(11) "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  [1]=>
  string(11) "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  [2]=>
  string(11) "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  [3]=>
  string(11) "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  [4]=>
  string(11) "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  [5]=>
  string(11) "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  [6]=>
  string(11) "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  [7]=>
  string(11) "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
}

score 5 · Answer 10 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:47

I had some post content I had to cipher throughout to get the Youtube ID out of. It happened to be in the form of the <iframe> embed code Youtube provides.

 <iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Zpk8pMz_Kgw?rel=0" frameborder="0" width="620" height="360"></iframe>

The following pattern I got from @rob above. The snippet does a foreach loop once the matches are found, and for a added bonus I linked it to the preview image found on Youtube. It could potentially match more types of Youtube embed types and urls:

$pattern = '#(?<=(?:v|i)=)[a-zA-Z0-9-]+(?=&)|(?<=(?:v|i)\/)[^&\n]+|(?<=embed\/)[^"&\n]+|(?<=‌(?:v|i)=)[^&\n]+|(?<=youtu.be\/)[^&\n]+#';

preg_match_all($pattern, $post_content, $matches);

foreach ($matches as $match) {
    $img = "<img src='http://img.youtube.com/vi/".str_replace('?rel=0','', $match[0])."/0.jpg' />";
    break;
}

Rob's profile: https://stackoverflow.com/users/149615/rob

NullUserException · Answer 11 · 2010-08-03T12:26:26.270

5

if (preg_match('![?&]{1}v=([^&]+)!', $url . '&', $m))
    $video_id = $m[1];

edited Aug 03 '10 at 12:26

answered Aug 03 '10 at 01:27

NullUserException

83,810
28
209
234

Thanks, This worked good for me since i wanted all domains, http and https, and any kind of other crap in the url. – MakuraYami Nov 22 '12 at 10:56

score 5 · Answer 12 · edited Aug 27 '11 at 19:44

5

(?<=\?v=)([a-zA-Z0-9_-]){11}

This should do it as well.

edited Aug 27 '11 at 19:44

Jérôme Verstrynge

57,710
92
283
453

answered Oct 19 '10 at 00:26

kyri

51
1
1

score 3 · Answer 13 · edited Sep 01 '11 at 02:57

3

$vid = preg_replace('/^.*(\?|\&)v\=/', '', $url);  // Strip all meuk before and including '?v=' or '&v='.

$vid = preg_replace('/[^\w\-\_].*$/', '', $vid);  // Strip trailing meuk.

edited Sep 01 '11 at 02:57

CoolBeans

20,654
10
86
101

answered Feb 15 '11 at 12:00

pieter

39
1

DreamLordOneiros · Answer 14 · 2013-04-23T07:10:49.193

I know that the title of the thread refers to the use of a regex, but just as the Zawinski quote says, I really think that avoiding regexes is best here. I'd recommend this function instead:

function get_youtube_id($url)
{
    if (strpos( $url,"v=") !== false)
    {
        return substr($url, strpos($url, "v=") + 2, 11);
    }
    elseif(strpos( $url,"embed/") !== false)
    {
        return substr($url, strpos($url, "embed/") + 6, 11);
    }

}

I recommend this because the ID of YouTube videos is always the same, independent from the style of the URL, e.g.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_uW44Bsezg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=Id3xG4xnOfA&NR=1
`And Other Ulr Form In Which The Word "embed/" Is Placed Before The Id ... !!

and that might be the case for embedded and iframe-ed stuff.

score 2 · Answer 15 · edited Jun 30 '20 at 19:52

2

Use this code :

$url = "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4kxS1ksqtw&feature=related"; 
$parse = parse_url($url, PHP_URL_QUERY); 
parse_str($parse, $output); 
echo $output['watch'];

result : C4kxS1ksqtw

edited Jun 30 '20 at 19:52

David Buck

3,752
35
31
35

answered Jun 30 '20 at 19:01

lookly Dev

325
3
5

score 0 · Answer 16 · answered Jan 19 '18 at 03:51

Just found this online at http://snipplr.com/view/62238/get-youtube-video-id-very-robust/

function getYouTubeId($url) {
// Format all domains to http://domain for easier URL parsing
str_replace('https://', 'http://', $url);
if (!stristr($url, 'http://') && (strlen($url) != 11)) {
    $url = 'http://' . $url;
}
$url = str_replace('http://www.', 'http://', $url);

if (strlen($url) == 11) {
    $code = $url;
} else if (preg_match('/http:\/\/youtu.be/', $url)) {
    $url = parse_url($url, PHP_URL_PATH);
    $code = substr($url, 1, 11);
} else if (preg_match('/watch/', $url)) {
    $arr = parse_url($url);
    parse_str($url);
    $code = isset($v) ? substr($v, 0, 11) : false;
} else if (preg_match('/http:\/\/youtube.com\/v/', $url)) {
    $url = parse_url($url, PHP_URL_PATH);
    $code = substr($url, 3, 11);
} else if (preg_match('/http:\/\/youtube.com\/embed/', $url, $matches)) {
    $url = parse_url($url, PHP_URL_PATH);
    $code = substr($url, 7, 11);
} else if (preg_match("#(?<=v=)[a-zA-Z0-9-]+(?=&)|(?<=[0-9]/)[^&\n]+|(?<=v=)[^&\n]+#", $url, $matches) ) {
    $code = substr($matches[0], 0, 11);
} else {
    $code = false;
}

if ($code && (strlen($code) < 11)) {
    $code = false;
}

return $code;
}

score 0 · Answer 17 · answered May 06 '19 at 21:25

I used the data from Shawn's answer but generalized and shortened the regex a little. The key difference with this one is that it won't test for a valid Youtube URL, it'll just look for a video ID. Meaning it will still return a video ID for www.facebook.com?wtv=youtube.com/v/vidid. Works for all the test cases, but is a bit more lax. Consequently, it will output a false positive for something like https://www.twitter.com/watch?v=vidid. Use this method if the data is super inconsistent, otherwise use a more specific regex or parse_url() and parse_str().

preg_match("/([\?&\/]vi?|embed|\.be)[\/=]([\w-]+)/",$url,$matches);
print($matches[2]);

score 0 · Answer 18 · answered Jun 05 '19 at 04:04

I think you are trying to do this.

<?php
  $video = 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u00FY9vADfQ';
  $parsed_video = parse_url($video, PHP_URL_QUERY);
  parse_str($parsed_video, $arr);
?>
<iframe
src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/<?php echo $arr['v'];  ?>"
frameborder="0">
</iframe>

score 0 · Answer 19 · answered Nov 06 '19 at 02:26

and what if I want to extract a youtue url from a string full of other characters? like this:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPW9Y94BJI0 laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

and get https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPW9Y94BJI0 from that string?

PHP Regex to get youtube video ID?

19 Answers19

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