Google API Access from web application to youtube

Question

I am trying to achieve the following:

• an authenticated user uploads a video on my web application
• my web app stores the video, logs it in our database etc. then connects to a Google account and makes a request to upload the video to a Youtube channel within that google account

I've created the Google account, enabled the youtube API, configured OAuth 2.0 access etc, but I'm not sure that any of the documented workflows meet my requirements. (For example I don't want any user interaction as part of the authentication process).

It looks like a Service Account ( https://developers.google.com/accounts/docs/OAuth2ServiceAccount ) is what I need, however these accounts dont appear to support all Google APIs, or at least not youtube.

Does anyone have any advice / has anyone implemented something similar?

Answer 1

When you say ... "For example I don't want any user interaction as part of the authentication process", how will that work.

The user might not be logged in to Google, or might be logged in to multiple accounts so will have to choose which account to use for your app. So the potential for user interaction is unavoidable.

Once the user has authorised your app, logged on to your app (ie. accessed it and you've stored his user id in the session), then future accesses will be devoid of user interaction; at least until he logs off.

The difference between service accounts and user accounts is not the auth flow. The difference is that with a user account, the API access is by the user via your app (so the video will be "owned" by the user. With a service account, your app IS the user (so the video will be owned by you).

I'm not saying that Service Account is wrong for you, just that your reason for going that way is not quite right.