A YouTube widget for your own site.
Embedding one video is easy. Keeping a gallery of your latest videos on your site, in order, without editing HTML every time you publish — that is the part people give up on. A YouTube widget does the maintaining for you.
YouTube works today. Public channel data needs only an API key on our side, so there is no app review to wait for and nothing for you to authorise.
What it looks like
Video thumbnails are 16:9 and carry a runtime, so they want a layout that respects the aspect ratio rather than cropping it to a square.
12:41Making things that make things: the Meridian Works brand film
24:07One menu, forty dishes, two days: shooting Salt & Ember
8:22How we rebuilt Ashgrove College’s admissions campaign
15:58Studio process: how a brief becomes a brand in six weeks
What a YouTube widget can pull from a channel
YouTube is the most cooperative network in this list. Public channel data is genuinely public, which is why this integration works now while others are still waiting on review boards.
What you get
- Every public upload, newest first, from a channel ID, @handle or channel URL
- Thumbnails at several resolutions, so the gallery stays sharp on retina screens
- Runtime and view count per video
- A specific playlist, if you would rather curate than show everything
What it won’t do
- Private and unlisted videos — sign-in territory, not public API
- Members-only content behind channel membership
- Comments, unless you go and ask for them separately
- Live chat and premiere state, which change faster than any wall refreshes
How to add a YouTube feed
- 01
Find your channel
Paste your channel URL, your @handle, or the raw channel ID. All three resolve to the same place — you do not need to hunt for the ID.
- 02
Whole channel or one playlist
A channel feed stays current on its own. A playlist feed gives you an editor's hand: reorder it on YouTube and your site follows.
- 03
Pick a video layout
Video-first gives each thumbnail room with its runtime overlaid. A denser grid suits a Shorts-heavy channel where the thumbnails carry less detail.
- 04
Embed it
One snippet. New uploads appear at your plan's refresh cadence with no redeploy.
Why a thumbnail gallery beats a row of embedded players
The obvious way to show several videos is to drop in several YouTube iframes. It is also the single heaviest thing you can do to a page, and it is why so many video sections tank a Lighthouse score.
- Each embedded player pulls its own player bundle before anyone presses play — multiply that by six and the page is carrying a lot of script for content most visitors will scroll past
- A thumbnail is an image. It lazy-loads, it costs kilobytes, and it looks identical until the moment of intent
- Clicking through opens the video where the viewer expects it, and your watch time still counts
- The gallery also stays in your layout and your typography, instead of YouTube's
YouTube questions, answered
No. Public channel data does not require you to sign in to anything — we read it with our own API key. That is also why YouTube is available now rather than pending a review process.
Other feeds people build
Build your first wall today.
Start on the free plan with the sources that are ready now, and add YouTube the day it opens.
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