YouTube Channel ID Finder — Extract Channel IDs

Channel URL or @handle

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How to use YouTube Channel ID Extractor

Paste any channel reference — @handle, channel URL, or a video from the channel.
Copy the UC… channel ID — the permanent identifier.
Use it where IDs are required: API calls, RSS (feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=…), widgets.
Store the ID, not the handle — handles change; the ID never does.

What is YouTube Channel ID Extractor?

A channel ID extractor resolves any way of naming a YouTube channel — @handle, custom URL, old /user/ URL, or just a video link — into the canonical channel ID: the UC… 24-character string that never changes and that technical integrations require.

The need exists because YouTube's human-friendly names are unstable and ambiguous (handles can change, custom URLs vary), while every API, RSS feed and third-party tool wants the immutable ID underneath. YouTube buries it deep in channel settings for your own channel and nowhere obvious for others' — hence extractors.

About the YouTube Channel ID Extractor

Paste anything that identifies a channel — youtube.com/@handle, a custom URL, a channel page link, even a video URL — and get the UC… channel ID.

What the ID unlocks: the channel's RSS feed (youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UC… — the no-API way to monitor uploads in any feed reader or automation), YouTube Data API calls (analytics tools, dashboards and bots all key on channel ID), embed and subscribe widgets that take IDs, and unambiguous channel references in databases and spreadsheets where names would drift.

Related identifiers worth knowing: the ID's sibling starting UU… is the channel's uploads-playlist ID (same string, UC→UU — the API trick for listing all uploads), and handles (@name) remain the human-facing name that can change — store the UC ID, display the handle.

Frequently Asked Questions

24 characters starting with UC — e.g. UCxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. It's assigned at channel creation and never changes, unlike handles and custom URLs.

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UC… — plug the ID in and any feed reader tracks the channel's uploads. The one YouTube feature that still speaks RSS, and it requires the ID.

The @handle is the changeable public name; the UC ID is the permanent database key. Tools and APIs use the ID precisely because handles can be renamed or reassigned.

Studio → Settings → Channel → Advanced settings — or extract it here from your channel URL in one paste, which is faster than the menu dive.

Every channel's "uploads" playlist ID is its channel ID with UC swapped to UU. APIs list a channel's full uploads through that playlist — the standard pattern for fetching a channel's videos.