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There are 3 rate limit categories in the API explorer:

quotas

If I create a client-side web app using the Youtube Data api (in which the implicit OAuth grant flow is followed), am I still limited to 10k quota units total? If this is the case, then the application cannot handle >10 users who make a single youtube-search through the api.

Ryan Joseph
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kantianethics
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  • Kindly check this [SO post](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15568405/youtube-api-limitations) regarding QPD using Youtube API. Please be noted that only retrieving the resource parts that your application needs conserves your daily quota and make the entire system more efficient. You can also check the [documentation of Youtube API quota limit](https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/getting-started#calculating-quota-usage). – Jessica Rodriguez Feb 22 '19 at 13:01
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    This post doesn't answer whether the 10k/day is the limit for every user of an application when implicit grant flow is followed. – kantianethics Feb 22 '19 at 23:00

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The limitation is done at the Registered Application level. The 10,000 queries per day is really 10,000 units per day and depending on the methods your using and the number of times you use the particular methods the cost can vary. Each user of the application does not get 10,000 units. The users share a pool of 10,000 per day. You need to come up with a math formula based on the different methods you use, and the number of times you use them per day on average and sum them up to figure out how many credits you need and if 10,000 credits will be enough.

Google calculates your quota usage by assigning a cost to each API method request.

Different types of operations have different quota costs.

For example:

  • A read operation that retrieves a list of resources -- channels, videos, playlists -- usually costs 1 unit.
  • A write operation that creates, updates, or deletes a resource usually has costs 50 units.
  • A search request costs 100 units.
  • A video upload costs 1600 units.

See this link for a complete table of available API methods and the associated cost: https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/determine_quota_cost

After you complete your formula and sum up the number of units you need per day, if it exceeds 10,000 you can make a request to get an extension and increased quota https://support.google.com/youtube/contact/yt_api_form

vvvv4d
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    Thanks for the info. Really is a shame the default limit is only 10,000. I wanted to use the API to check for when channels go live, but it's just not possible with the 10,000 limit. From reading other peoples experiences, requesting a quota increase is a pain. Some don't get approved and some even get their project shut down if google doesn't like what you're using it for. I use the Twitch api to check for channels that go live and it's very simple and easy, but YouTube makes it such a hassle that I'm stuck with scraping the channel page to see if it's live or not... Thanks again. – 010011100101 Aug 31 '20 at 22:34
  • I know that I'm late to this thread, but I'm adding this for anyone else who happens to stumble across this thread. If you are restrict your queries to once every 10 seconds or left, you should be fine (86400 seconds in a day). You can then cache the result in a database with a timestamp for last query. Use the database value if current time is less than 10 seconds after the timestamp. Execute a new query if greater. Of course, if you have multiple things to query, you may need to increase the sampling interval. – MikeMayer67 Mar 07 '23 at 13:09