High-efficiency YouTube MCP server: Get token-optimized, structured data for your LLMs using the YouTube Data API v3.
Token Optimized Youtube Data And Transcript MCP server exists for a simple reason — assistants are far more useful when they can act on Token Optimized Youtube Data And Transcript directly instead of describing what you should do. High-efficiency YouTube MCP server: Get token-optimized, structured data for your LLMs using the YouTube Data API v3.
Unlike standard API wrappers that flood your LLM with redundant data, this server strips away YouTube's heavy payload bloat. It is designed to save you massive amounts of context window tokens, protect your daily API quotas via caching, and run reliably without breaking your workflows.
Once Token Optimized Youtube Data And Transcript is connected, these are the calls the assistant has available:
getVideoDetails — Retrieves detailed, lean information for multiple YouTube videos including metadata, statistics, engagement ratios, and content detailssearchVideos — Searches for videos or channels based on a query string with various filtering options, returning concise resultsgetTranscripts — Retrieves token-efficient transcripts (captions) for multiple videos, with options for full text or key segments (intro/outro)getChannelStatistics — Retrieves lean statistics for multiple channels (subscriber count, view count, video count, creation date)getChannelTopVideos — Retrieves a list of a channel's top-performing videos with lean details and engagement ratiosgetTrendingVideos — Retrieves a list of trending videos for a given region and optional category, with lean details and engagement ratiosgetVideoCategories — Retrieves available YouTube video categories (ID and title) for a specific region, providing essential data onlygetVideoComments — Retrieves comments for a YouTube video. Allows sorting, limiting results, and fetching a small number of replies per commentfindConsistentOutlierChannels — Identifies channels that consistently perform as outliers within a specific niche. Requires a MongoDB connection.Prerequisites — The Prerequisites tool exposed by this serverSetup follows the usual MCP pattern — install or clone the server, register it in your client's configuration file, restart the client. The configuration blocks on this page cover the common clients.
You will need 2 environment variables: YOUTUBE_API_KEY, MDB_MCP_CONNECTION_STRING. The server will not start without them, which is usually why the tools fail to appear on a first run. Keep credentials in your client's env block or a secrets manager rather than in a file you might commit.
package.json engines field - currently >=20.0.0) - npm (usually comes with Node.js) - A YouTube Data API v3 Key (see YouTube API Setup)Among the database access options, the useful question is rarely "what can it do" but "what does it cost you to run" — permissions, credentials, and how much of your context its toolset consumes. Token Optimized Youtube Data And Transcript's toolset — getVideoDetails, searchVideos, getTranscripts and 7 more — is a fair guide to whether it matches your workflow. It is maintained by kirbah; worth a glance at recent repository activity before you build anything load-bearing on it.
SyncDev reviews every entry in this directory against the project's own documentation before publishing, and revisits them as servers change.
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| getVideoDetails | Retrieves detailed, **lean** information for multiple YouTube videos including metadata, statistics, engagement ratios, and content details. |
| searchVideos | Searches for videos or channels based on a query string with various filtering options, returning **concise** results. |
| getTranscripts | Retrieves **token-efficient** transcripts (captions) for multiple videos, with options for full text or key segments (intro/outro). |
| getChannelStatistics | Retrieves **lean** statistics for multiple channels (subscriber count, view count, video count, creation date). |
| getChannelTopVideos | Retrieves a list of a channel's top-performing videos with **lean** details and engagement ratios. |
| getTrendingVideos | Retrieves a list of trending videos for a given region and optional category, with **lean** details and engagement ratios. |
| getVideoCategories | Retrieves available YouTube video categories (ID and title) for a specific region, providing **essential data only**. |
| getVideoComments | Retrieves comments for a YouTube video. Allows sorting, limiting results, and fetching a small number of replies per comment. |
| findConsistentOutlierChannels | Identifies channels that consistently perform as outliers within a specific niche. **Requires a MongoDB connection.** |
| Prerequisites | The Prerequisites tool exposed by this server. |
{
"mcpServers": {
"youtube": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@kirbah/mcp-youtube"]
}
}
}Configuration as documented by the project. Restart the client after saving.
package.json engines field - currently >=20.0.0) - npm (usually comes with Node.js) - A YouTube Data API v3 Key (see YouTube API Setup)| Variable | Description | Required |
|---|---|---|
| YOUTUBE_API_KEY | Credential the server authenticates with. | Yes |
| MDB_MCP_CONNECTION_STRING | Configuration value read at startup. | Optional |
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