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POST
Get Metadata

Overview

Extract metadata (title, duration, thumbnail, etc.) from a video URL without actually downloading the video. Useful for preview, validation, or getting video information before creating a download job.

Header Parameters

string
required
Your API key for authentication

Request

string
required
The video URL to extract metadata from

Response

All metadata fields below may be null when the source does not expose them. A successful lookup is a metadata snapshot, not a guarantee that a later download will succeed. Successful results can be cached (default five minutes, configurable).
string
Video title
number
Video duration in seconds
integer
Video width in pixels
integer
Video height in pixels
string
Platform name (e.g., “YouTube”, “Vimeo”)
string
Channel or uploader name
string
URL to the video thumbnail
string
Video description
integer
Number of views
integer
Number of likes
string
Upload date in YYYYMMDD format
integer
Approximate file size in bytes

Examples

Success Response

Error Responses

Capacity saturation returns 503 with JSON retry_after: 2; extraction timeout returns 504. Malformed URLs and unsupported YouTube playlist/channel-only inputs can return 400 before extraction.

Use Cases

Preview Before Download

Get video information before creating a download job to show users what they’re about to download.

Validate URLs

Check if a URL is valid and supported before adding it to a batch.

Get Thumbnail

Extract the thumbnail URL to display in your UI without downloading the full video.

Estimate Storage

Use filesize_approx, when non-null, as a source estimate. It is not a bound on the encoded output size.