On this page

• Why use this
• How it works
• How it differs from related options
• Step-by-step setup
• Common errors and troubleshooting

Why use this

• You run a YouTube channel and want every public video in your assistant's knowledge base.
• You publish new videos regularly and don't want to add them one at a time.
• Your videos cover information that isn't fully captured in your written content.
• You want the AI to cite specific videos in answers.

How it works

1. Channel validation. You provide a channel URL (handle, custom URL, or channel ID). Echo uses the YouTube Data API to resolve it to a canonical channel ID and pulls the channel's metadata (name, description, thumbnail).
2. Uploads playlist discovery. Every YouTube channel has an "uploads" playlist that contains every public video. Echo walks this playlist to discover every video on the channel.
3. Transcript extraction per video. For each video, Echo fetches the transcript — captions if available, auto-captions if not — and formats it into time-stamped paragraphs. Title, description, publish date, and thumbnail are stored as metadata.
4. Ongoing sync. Re-syncing the integration walks the uploads playlist again, picking up videos published since the last sync.

YouTube API quotas are tracked and respected — large channels are imported in batches to stay within limits.

How it differs from related options

• vs Single YouTube video upload — the manual type adds one video at a time. The channel integration imports every public video and keeps adding new uploads automatically. For 1–5 videos use manual; for an entire channel use this.
• vs WordPress or Framer — those handle web content. YouTube specifically handles spoken content via transcripts. They can run side by side on the same assistant.

Step-by-step setup

1. Open Integrations from the dashboard's Synced content sources section.
2. Click Add source and select YouTube.
3. Enter the channel URL. All of these work:
   • Handle URL: https://www.youtube.com/@yourhandle
   • Channel ID URL: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxxxxx
   • Custom URL: https://www.youtube.com/c/yourcustomname
4. Echo validates the channel and shows the resolved channel name and thumbnail.
5. Select the target assistant.
6. Submit. Initial import runs in the background.

Larger channels take longer to import — transcripts are fetched one video at a time. Watch the integration card for progress.

Common errors and troubleshooting

• "Invalid YouTube channel" — the URL didn't resolve to a channel. Double-check the URL in a browser. Channel IDs (UCxxxxx) are the most reliable form.
• "Failed to validate YouTube channel" — the YouTube Data API rejected the request. Usually transient — retry in a minute. Persistent failures usually indicate a quota issue on Echo's side.
• Some videos didn't import — transcripts aren't available for every video. Videos with no captions (auto or manual) are skipped. Private or unlisted videos are also skipped — only public uploads are imported.
• Re-sync doesn't pick up a new video — YouTube indexes new uploads on its own schedule. Wait an hour and re-sync. If still missing, check that the video's privacy is set to Public.
• Large channel import is slow — expected. Transcripts are fetched per video, and YouTube API quotas cap concurrency. Channels with thousands of videos can take hours.