How do I find all YouTube video ids in a string using a regex?

A YouTube video URL may be encountered in a variety of formats:

• latest short format: http://youtu.be/NLqAF9hrVbY
• iframe: http://www.youtube.com/embed/NLqAF9hrVbY
• iframe (secure): https://www.youtube.com/embed/NLqAF9hrVbY
• object param: http://www.youtube.com/v/NLqAF9hrVbY?fs=1&hl=en_US
• object embed: http://www.youtube.com/v/NLqAF9hrVbY?fs=1&hl=en_US
• watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLqAF9hrVbY
• users: http://www.youtube.com/user/Scobleizer#p/u/1/1p3vcRhsYGo
• ytscreeningroom: http://www.youtube.com/ytscreeningroom?v=NRHVzbJVx8I
• any/thing/goes!: http://www.youtube.com/sandalsResorts#p/c/54B8C800269D7C1B/2/PPS-8DMrAn4
• any/subdomain/too: http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/NLqAF9hrVbY
• more params: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spDj54kf-vY&feature=g-vrec
• query may have dot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spDj54kf-vY&feature=youtu.be
• nocookie domain: http://www.youtube-nocookie.com

Here is a PHP function with a commented regex that matches each of these URL forms and converts them to links (if they are not links already):

// Linkify youtube URLs which are not already links.function linkifyYouTubeURLs($text) {    $text = preg_replace('~(?#!js YouTubeId Rev:20160125_1800)        # Match non-linked youtube URL in the wild. (Rev:20130823)        https?://          # Required scheme. Either http or https.        (?:[0-9A-Z-]+\.)?  # Optional subdomain.        (?:                # Group host alternatives.          youtu\.be/       # Either youtu.be,        | youtube          # or youtube.com or          (?:-nocookie)?   # youtube-nocookie.com          \.com            # followed by          \S*?             # Allow anything up to VIDEO_ID,          [^\w\s-]         # but char before ID is non-ID char.        )                  # End host alternatives.        ([\w-]{11})        # $1: VIDEO_ID is exactly 11 chars.        (?=[^\w-]|$)       # Assert next char is non-ID or EOS.        (?!                # Assert URL is not pre-linked.          [?=&+%\w.-]*     # Allow URL (query) remainder.          (?:              # Group pre-linked alternatives.            [\'"][^<>]*>   # Either inside a start tag,          | </a>           # or inside <a> element text contents.          )                # End recognized pre-linked alts.        )                  # End negative lookahead assertion.        [?=&+%\w.-]*       # Consume any URL (query) remainder.        ~ix', '<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=$1">YouTube link: $1</a>',        $text);    return $text;}

; // End $YouTubeId.

And here is a JavaScript version with the exact same regex (with comments removed):

// Linkify youtube URLs which are not already links.function linkifyYouTubeURLs(text) {    var re = /https?:\/\/(?:[0-9A-Z-]+\.)?(?:youtu\.be\/|youtube(?:-nocookie)?\.com\S*?[^\w\s-])([\w-]{11})(?=[^\w-]|$)(?![?=&+%\w.-]*(?:['"][^<>]*>|<\/a>))[?=&+%\w.-]*/ig;    return text.replace(re,        '<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=$1">YouTube link: $1</a>');}

Notes:

• The VIDEO_ID portion of the URL is captured in the one and only capture group: $1.
• If you know that your text does not contain any pre-linked URLs, you can safely remove the negative lookahead assertion which tests for this condition (The assertion beginning with the comment: "Assert URL is not pre-linked.") This will speed up the regex somewhat.
• The replace string can be modified to suit. The one provided above simply creates a link to the generic "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID" style URL and sets the link text to: "YouTube link: VIDEO_ID".

Edit 2011-07-05: Added - hyphen to ID char class

Edit 2011-07-17: Fixed regex to consume any remaining part (e.g. query) of URL following YouTube ID. Added 'i' ignore-case modifier. Renamed function to camelCase. Improved pre-linked lookahead test.

Edit 2011-07-27: Added new "user" and "ytscreeningroom" formats of YouTube URLs.

Edit 2011-08-02: Simplified/generalized to handle new "any/thing/goes" YouTube URLs.

Edit 2011-08-25: Several modifications:

• Added a Javascript version of: linkifyYouTubeURLs() function.
• Previous version had the scheme (HTTP protocol) part optional and thus would match invalid URLs. Made the scheme part required.
• Previous version used the \b word boundary anchor around the VIDEO_ID. However, this will not work if the VIDEO_ID begins or ends with a - dash. Fixed so that it handles this condition.
• Changed the VIDEO_ID expression so that it must be exactly 11 characters long.
• The previous version failed to exclude pre-linked URLs if they had a query string following the VIDEO_ID. Improved the negative lookahead assertion to fix this.
• Added + and % to character class matching query string.
• Changed PHP version regex delimiter from: % to a: ~.
• Added a "Notes" section with some handy notes.

Edit 2011-10-12: YouTube URL host part may now have any subdomain (not just www.).

Edit 2012-05-01: The consume URL section may now allow for '-'.

Edit 2013-08-23: Added additional format provided by @Mei. (The query part may have a . dot.

Edit 2013-11-30: Added additional format provided by @CRONUS: youtube-nocookie.com.

Edit 2016-01-25: Fixed regex to handle error case provided by CRONUS.

Here's a method I once wrote for a project that extracts YouTube and Vimeo video keys:

/** *  strip important information out of any video link * *  @param  string  link to a video on the hosters page *  @return mixed  FALSE on failure, array on success */function getHostInfo ($vid_link){  // YouTube get video id  if (strpos($vid_link, 'youtu'))  {    // Regular links    if (preg_match('/(?<=v\=)([\w\d-_]+)/', $vid_link, $matches))      return array('host_name' => 'youtube', 'original_key' => $matches[0]);     // Ajax hash tag links    else if (preg_match('§([\d\w-_]+)$§i', $vid_link, $matches))      return array('host_name' => 'youtube', 'original_key' => $matches[0]);    else      return FALSE;  }  // Vimeo get video id  elseif (strpos($vid_link, 'vimeo'))  {    if (preg_match('§(?<=/)([\d]+)§', $vid_link, $matches))      return array('host_name' => 'vimeo', 'original_key' => $matches[0]);     else      return FALSE;  }  else    return FALSE;}

1. Find a regex that will extract all links from a text. Google will help you there.
2. Loop all the links and call getHostInfo() for each

While ridgerunner's answer is the basis for my answer, his does NOT solve for all urls and I don't believe it is capable of it, due to multiple possible matches of VIDEO_ID in a YouTube URL. My regex includes his aggressive approach as a last resort, but attempts all common matchings first, vastly reducing the possibility of a wrong match later in the URL.

This regex:

/https?:\/\/(?:[0-9A-Z-]+\.)?(?:youtu\.be\/|youtube\.com(?:\/embed\/|\/v\/|\/watch\?v=|\/ytscreeningroom\?v=|\/feeds\/api\/videos\/|\/user\S*[^\w\-\s]|\S*[^\w\-\s]))([\w\-]{11})[?=&+%\w-]*/ig;

Handles all of the cases originally referenced in ridgerunners examples, plus any url that might happen to have an 11 character sequence later in the url. ie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUEZCxBcM78&feature=pyv&feature=pyv&ad=10059374899&kw=%2Bwingsuit

Here is a working sample that tests all of the sample YouTube urls:

http://jsfiddle.net/DJSwc/5/