jQuery Youtube URL Validation with regex

Question

I know there is plenty of question answered over here https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/youtube+regex, but not able find a question similar to me.

Any body has the JavaScript Regular expression for validating the YouTube VIDEO URL's line below listed. Just want to know where such a URL can be possible

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQVoAWSP7k4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQVoAWSP7k4&feature=popular
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McNqjYiFmyQ&feature=related&bhablah
http://youtube.com/watch?v=bQVoAWSP7k4

-- update 1-- -- update 2--

This one worked almost fine, but failed for the URL http://youtube.com/watch?v=bQVoAWSP7k4

var matches = $('#videoUrl').val().match(/http:\/\/(?:www\.)?youtube.*watch\?v=([a-zA-Z0-9\-_]+)/);
if (matches) {
    alert('valid');
} else {
    alert('Invalid');
}

That regex you have there is very troublesome. Particularly the .* portion which matches anything. This means that it would also match the following url: http://hackersrus.com/youtube-watch?v=a — Senseful
– Senseful, Commented Jun 3, 2010 at 9:51
oops! changed to var matches = $('#videoUrl').val().match(/http:\/\/(?:www\.)?youtube.*watch\?v=([a-zA-Z0-9\-_]+)/); if (matches) { alert('valid'); } else { alert('Invalid'); } — Mithun Sreedharan
– Mithun Sreedharan, Commented Jun 3, 2010 at 10:04

Community · Accepted Answer · 2021-10-07 05:46:31Z

199

ULTIMATE YOUTUBE REGEX

Cherry picking

Because the explanation is getting longer and longer, I place the final result at the top. Feel free to copy+paste, and go on your way. For a detailed explanation, read _"the full story"_ below.

/**
 * JavaScript function to match (and return) the video Id 
 * of any valid Youtube Url, given as input string.
 * @author: Stephan Schmitz <[email protected]>
 * @url: https://stackoverflow.com/a/10315969/624466
 */
function ytVidId(url) {
  var p = /^(?:https?:\/\/)?(?:www\.)?(?:youtu\.be\/|youtube\.com\/(?:embed\/|v\/|watch\?v=|watch\?.+&v=))((\w|-){11})(?:\S+)?$/;
  return (url.match(p)) ? RegExp.$1 : false;
}

The full story

Amarghosh's regex looks good, at first sight. But it:

doesn't match video id's that include dashes (-),
doesn't validate the id length (v=aa and v=aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa return to be valid),
and doesn't match secured URLs at all (https://youtube.com/watch?valid_params)

To match https, the dash character, and to validate the id length, this was my initial suggestion of a modified version of Amarghosh's regex:

^https?:\/\/(?:www\.)?youtube\.com\/watch\?(?=.*v=((\w|-){11}))(?:\S+)?$

UPDATE 1: URLs versus Strings

After I posted the above pattern, I was asked: "What if the URL is like this;
youtube.com/watch?gl=US&hl=en-US&v=bQVoAWSP7k4"?

First of, please note that this not a URL at all. RFC compliant URLs must start with the scheme! ;)

Anyway, to match any kind of string that indicates to refer to a YouTube video, I updated my answer to exclude the URL scheme being required. So my second suggestion was as follows:

^(?:https?:\/\/)?(?:www\.)?youtube\.com\/watch\?(?=.*v=((\w|-){11}))(?:\S+)?$

UPDATE 2: The ultimate regex

Then I was asked to add support for a "special case"; the youtu.be short urls. Initially I did not add these, since it wasn't specifically part of the question. However I updated my answer now with all possible "special cases". This means that not only have I added support for youtu.be links, but also the request paths "/v" and "/embed".

So, may I introduce: My final and ultimate Youtube regex:

^(?:https?:\/\/)?(?:www\.)?(?:youtu\.be\/|youtube\.com\/(?:embed\/|v\/|watch\?v=|watch\?.+&v=))((\w|-){11})(?:\S+)?$

What strings are matched?

Now this pattern will work for any strings, formatted as follows:

Without scheme and subdomain (Domain: youtu.be, Path: /)

youtu.be/<video:id>

Without scheme, with subdomain (Domain: youtu.be, Path: /)

www.youtu.be/<video:id>

With HTTP scheme, without subdomain (Domain: youtu.be, Path: /)

http://youtu.be/<video:id>

With HTTP scheme and subdomain (Domain: youtu.be, Path: /)

http://www.youtu.be/<video:id>

With HTTPS scheme, without subdomain (Domain: youtu.be, Path: /)

https://youtu.be/<video:id>

With HTTPS scheme and subdomain (Domain: youtu.be, Path: /)

https://www.youtu.be/<video:id>

Without scheme and subdomain (Domain: youtube.com, Path: /embed)

youtube.com/embed/<video:id>   
youtube.com/embed/<video:id>&other_params

Without scheme, with subdomain (Domain: youtube.com, Path: /embed)

www.youtube.com/embed/<video:id>   
www.youtube.com/embed/<video:id>&other_params

With HTTP scheme, without subdomain (Domain: youtube.com, Path: /embed)

http://youtube.com/embed/<video:id>   
http://youtube.com/embed/<video:id>&other_params

With HTTP scheme and subdomain (Domain: youtube.com, Path: /embed)

http://www.youtube.com/embed/<video:id>   
http://www.youtube.com/embed/<video:id>&other_params

With HTTPS scheme, without subdomain (Domain: youtube.com, Path: /embed)

https://youtube.com/embed/<video:id>   
https://youtube.com/embed/<video:id>&other_params

With HTTPS scheme and subdomain (Domain: youtube.com, Path: /embed)

https://www.youtube.com/embed/<video:id>   
https://www.youtube.com/embed/<video:id>&other_params

Without scheme and subdomain (Domain: youtube.com, Path: /v)

youtube.com/v/<video:id>   
youtube.com/v/<video:id>&other_params

Without scheme, with subdomain (Domain: youtube.com, Path: /v)

www.youtube.com/v/<video:id>   
www.youtube.com/v/<video:id>&other_params

With HTTP scheme, without subdomain (Domain: youtube.com, Path: /v)

http://youtube.com/v/<video:id>   
http://youtube.com/v/<video:id>&other_params

With HTTP scheme and subdomain (Domain: youtube.com, Path: /v)

http://www.youtube.com/v/<video:id>   
http://www.youtube.com/v/<video:id>&other_params

With HTTPS scheme, without subdomain (Domain: youtube.com, Path: /v)

https://youtube.com/v/<video:id>   
https://youtube.com/v/<video:id>&other_params

With HTTPS scheme and subdomain (Domain: youtube.com, Path: /v)

https://www.youtube.com/v/<video:id>   
https://www.youtube.com/v/<video:id>&other_params

Without scheme and subdomain (Domain: youtube.com, Path: /watch)

youtube.com/watch?v=<video:id>   
youtube.com/watch?v=<video:id>&other_params   
youtube.com/watch?other_params&v=<video:id> 
youtube.com/watch?other_params&v=<video:id>&more_params

Without scheme, with subdomain (Domain: youtube.com, Path: /watch)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=<video:id>   
www.youtube.com/watch?v=<video:id>&other_params   
www.youtube.com/watch?other_params&v=<video:id>  
www.youtube.com/watch?other_params&v=<video:id>&more_params

With HTTP scheme, without subdomain (Domain: youtube.com, Path: /watch)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=<video:id>   
http://youtube.com/watch?v=<video:id>&other_params   
http://youtube.com/watch?other_params&v=<video:id>   
http://youtube.com/watch?other_params&v=<video:id>&more_params

With HTTP scheme and subdomain (Domain: youtube.com, Path: /watch)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<video:id>   
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<video:id>&other_params   
http://www.youtube.com/watch?other_params&v=<video:id>   
http://www.youtube.com/watch?other_params&v=<video:id>&more_params

With HTTPS scheme, without subdomain (Domain: youtube.com, Path: /watch)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=<video:id>   
https://youtube.com/watch?v=<video:id>&other_params   
https://youtube.com/watch?other_params&v=<video:id>   
https://youtube.com/watch?other_params&v=<video:id>&more_params

With HTTPS scheme and subdomain (Domain: youtube.com, Path: /watch)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<video:id>   
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<video:id>&other_params   
https://www.youtube.com/watch?other_params&v=<video:id>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?other_params&v=<video:id>&more_params

FUNCTIONAL USAGE

The most easy way to use the pattern, is to wrap it into a function such as this one:

/**
 * JavaScript function to match (and return) the video Id
 * of any valid Youtube Url, given as input string.
 * @author: Stephan Schmitz <[email protected]>
 * @url: https://stackoverflow.com/a/10315969/624466
 */
function ytVidId(url) {
  var p = /^(?:https?:\/\/)?(?:www\.)?(?:youtu\.be\/|youtube\.com\/(?:embed\/|v\/|watch\?v=|watch\?.+&v=))((\w|-){11})(?:\S+)?$/;
  return (url.match(p)) ? RegExp.$1 : false;
}

// for example snippet only!
document.body.addEventListener('click', function(e) {
    if (e.target.className == 'yt-url' && 'undefined' !== e.target.value) {
        var ytId = ytVidId(e.target.value);
        alert(e.target.value + "\r\nResult: " + (!ytId ? 'false' : ytId));
    }
}, false);

<!-- Click the buttons to probe URLs -->
<input type="button" value="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-e2G_VcTms&feature=g-logo&context=G29aead6FOAAAAAAABAA" class="yt-url">
<input type="button" value="https://www.youtube.com/latest" class="yt-url">

If the type of the function's result value must be a boolean value, just replace RegExp.$1 by true. That's it.

One final note on the video Id length: One asked if the ids have a fixed length of 11 chars? and if it might change in the future?

The best answer to that question is probably also the only "official" statement that I've found here and which says: "I don't see anywhere in the documentation where we officially commit to a standard length of 11 characters for YouTube video ids. It's one of those things where we have a current implementation, and it may stay that way indefinitely. But we're not offering any official commitment to that, so proceed at your own risk."

edited Oct 7, 2021 at 5:46

CommunityBot

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answered Apr 25, 2012 at 12:48

eyecatchUp

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26 Comments

Yasin Ergul Over a year ago

youtube.com part in your regexp can match anything like youtubeXcom, you should escape that period

FizzBuzz Over a year ago

What if the URL is like this; youtube.com/watch?gl=US&hl=en-US&v=bQVoAWSP7k4

eyecatchUp Over a year ago

@FizzBuzz Well, that is not a valid URL at all (even though (most) web browsers will accept this input)! RFC compliant URLs must provide a means of locating the resource by describing its primary access mechanism which refers to the valid URI syntax that always starts with the access scheme. However, you could make the scheme optional in the regex like this: var pattern = /^(?:https?:\/\/)?(?:www\.)?youtube\.com\/watch\?(?=.*v=((\w|-){11}))(?:\S+)?$/; Does that answer your question?

Dan Diplo Over a year ago

What about youtu.be/_d6KuiuteIA which you get if you select the embed option?

lightsaber Over a year ago

It gives following warning "nested repeat operator '+' and '?' was replaced with '*' in regular expression"

|

Amarghosh · Accepted Answer · 2010-06-03 10:12:37Z

20

^http:\/\/(?:www\.)?youtube.com\/watch\?v=\w+(&\S*)?$

//if v can be anywhere in the query list

^http:\/\/(?:www\.)?youtube.com\/watch\?(?=.*v=\w+)(?:\S+)?$

edited Jun 3, 2010 at 10:12

answered Jun 3, 2010 at 9:47

Amarghosh

59.5k11 gold badges95 silver badges122 bronze badges

4 Comments

Mithun Sreedharan Over a year ago

Great one but failed for youtube.com/watch?gl=US&hl=en-US&v=bQVoAWSP7k4

Yasin Ergul Over a year ago

youtube.com part in your regexp can match anything like youtubeXcom, you should escape that period

eyecatchUp Over a year ago

see my answer (stackoverflow.com/a/10315969/624466) for an improved version.

Pratik Joshi Over a year ago

@Amarghosh , can you please do courtecy of telling which urls out of 2 are correct? Is it very difficult to give some explanation ?

safdsas · Accepted Answer · 2010-06-30 15:56:12Z

4

You can not match the id-part with \w+, as it does not include the dash character (-). [a-zA-Z0-9_-]+ would be something more correct.

answered Jun 30, 2010 at 15:56

safdsas

1151 silver badge3 bronze badges

4 Comments

eyecatchUp Over a year ago

You can not validate the id length with +, {11} would be something more correct. ;)

eyecatchUp Over a year ago

Forgot to mention that (\w|-) is shorter than [a-zA-Z0-9_-]. :p ;)

Yasin Ergul Over a year ago

is ids fixed to 11 chars? it might be change in the future?

eyecatchUp Over a year ago

The best answer to that question is probably also the only "official" statement i've found here groups.google.com/group/youtube-api-gdata/browse_thread/thread/… and which says "I don't see anywhere in the documentation where we officially commit to a standard length of 11 characters for YouTube video ids. It's one of those things where we have a current implementation, and it may stay that way indefinitely. But we're not offering any official commitment to that, so proceed at your own risk."

Blagoj Atanasovski · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-28 09:15:41Z

2

@eyecatchup ubove has an excelent regex, but with the help of regexper.com i saw that his regex will pass any youtube url where the ?v parameter had a value of any word or - sign repeated 11 times. But youtube specificly restricts the video id to 11 characters so a fix for his regex would be

/^(?:https?:\/\/)?(?:www\.)?(?:youtu\.be\/|youtube\.com\/(?:embed\/|v\/|watch\?v=|watch\?.+&v=))((.|-){11})(?:\S+)?$/

compare the vizualization of his regex

http://www.regexper.com/#/%5E%28?:https?:%5C/%5C/%29?%28?:www%5C.%29?%28?:youtu%5C.be%5C/%7Cyoutube%5C.com%5C/%28?:embed%5C/%7Cv%5C/%7Cwatch%5C?v=%7Cwatch%5C?.%2b&v=%29%29%28%28%5Cw%7C-%29%7B11%7D%29%28?:%5CS%2b%29?$/

and my fix

http://www.regexper.com/#%2F%5E(%3F%3Ahttps%3F%3A%5C%2F%5C%2F)%3F(%3F%3Awww%5C.)%3F(%3F%3Ayoutu%5C.be%5C%2F%7Cyoutube%5C.com%5C%2F(%3F%3Aembed%5C%2F%7Cv%5C%2F%7Cwatch%5C%3Fv%3D%7Cwatch%5C%3F.%2B%26v%3D))((%5Ba-zA-Z0-9%5D%7C-)%7B11%7D)(%3F%3A%5CS%2B)%3F%24%2F

as an edit to the 11 character limit changing in future then the current regex would mean that any word or - would have to be repeated exactly 11 times, to that my fix is

/^(?:https?:\/\/)?(?:www\.)?(?:youtu\.be\/|youtube\.com\/(?:embed\/|v\/|watch\?v=|watch\?.+&v=))((\w|-){11,})(?:\S+)?$/

edited Nov 28, 2013 at 9:15

answered Nov 28, 2013 at 8:59

Blagoj Atanasovski

8736 silver badges15 bronze badges

1 Comment

yenren Over a year ago

Seems to be no longer working. It validates video IDs longer than 11 characters too.

Mrskman · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-29 16:30:40Z

1

Improvement for @eyecatchUp's great regex:

Add support for m.youtube.com domain
Add support for youtube-nocookie.com domain by @Nijikokun

^(?:https?:\/\/)?(?:(?:www|m)\.)?(?:youtu\.be\/|youtube(?:-nocookie)?\.com\/(?:embed\/|v\/|watch\?v=|watch\?.+&v=))((\w|-){11})(?:\S+)?$

Regexper:

http://regexper.com/#%5E(%3F%3Ahttps%3F%3A%5C%2F%5C%2F)%3F(%3F%3A(%3F%3Awww%7Cm)%5C.)%3F(%3F%3Ayoutu%5C.be%5C%2F%7Cyoutube(%3F%3A-nocookie)%3F%5C.com%5C%2F(%3F%3Aembed%5C%2F%7Cv%5C%2F%7Cwatch%5C%3Fv%3D%7Cwatch%5C%3F.%2B%26v%3D))((%5Cw%7C-)%7B11%7D)(%3F%3A%5CS%2B)%3F%24

answered May 29, 2015 at 16:30

Mrskman

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Comments

Someshver Thakur · Accepted Answer · 2020-09-24 13:36:32Z

1

 /* test youtube */
 var src = "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCPLKrRguDM";
  regExTestYT(src);
   function regExTestYT(str){
   var exp = new RegExp(/(youtu\.be|youtube\.com)/);
   return exp.test(str); 
  }

answered Sep 24, 2020 at 13:36

Someshver Thakur

3222 silver badges13 bronze badges

Comments

soloko · Accepted Answer · 2022-08-12 22:45:15Z

1

Here it is with Youtube shorts added:

/^(?:https?:\/\/)?(?:www\.)?(?:youtu\.be\/|youtube\.com\/(?:embed\/|(?:shorts\/)|v\/|watch\?v=|watch\?.+&v=))((\w|-){11})(?:\S+)?$/

answered Aug 12, 2022 at 22:45

soloko

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Comments

HiTech · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-27 22:52:24Z

-3

function get_youtube_video_id_from_url(url){
    var code = url.match(/v=([^&#]{5,})/)
    return (typeof code[1] == 'string') ? code[1] : false;
}

answered May 27, 2013 at 22:52

HiTech

4253 silver badges7 bronze badges

1 Comment

eyecatchUp Over a year ago

Wrong at all. This matches even var url = 'v=abcde';. Furthermore, if no match is found, you produce a TypeError: Cannot read property '1' of null.

Taryn · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-07 10:38:22Z

-5

function validYT(url) {
  var p = /^(?:https?:\/\/)?(?:www\.)?youtube\.com\/watch\?(?=.*v=((\w|-){11}))(?:\S+)?$/;
  return (url.match(p)) ? RegExp.$1 : false;
}

edited Oct 7, 2013 at 10:38

Taryn

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answered Oct 7, 2013 at 6:58

user1948368

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1 Comment

eyecatchUp Over a year ago

Congrats. You posted an outdated version of my code above.

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jQuery Youtube URL Validation with regex

9 Answers 9

ULTIMATE YOUTUBE REGEX

Cherry picking

The full story

UPDATE 1: URLs versus Strings

UPDATE 2: The ultimate regex

What strings are matched?

FUNCTIONAL USAGE

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9 Answers 9

ULTIMATE YOUTUBE REGEX

Cherry picking

The full story

UPDATE 1: URLs versus Strings

UPDATE 2: The ultimate regex

What strings are matched?

FUNCTIONAL USAGE

26 Comments

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