Currently the Gemini API can only analyze public YouTube videos (not unlisted or private). Since unlisted videos are viewable by anyone who possesses the URL, and since the same URL is also required for Gemini analysis, it doesn’t make much sense to disallow unlisted video analysis in Gemini. I work for a marketing agency, so in my case it would be extremely useful for Gemini to have access to our unlisted Google Ads videos that are uploaded to YouTube.
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Hi @rgilbert_sb,
Welcome to the Forum,
Thank you for your feedback. We appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with us and we will share your feedback to the team.
Instead of providing a Youtube url, you can use the File API to upload your video file. This method is designed for this exact type of scenario and has a few advantages:
- It bypasses the public-only restriction for Youtube URLs.
- It’s more suitable for larger files and longer videos.
- You can reuse the uploaded file across multiple requests to Gemini.
Thank you!
Thank you. I use the Files API for certain tasks, but it is not useful in all situations because it requires re-uploading the asset file and each upload expires after 48 hours. Allowing analysis of unlisted youtube videos would be extremely useful, especially when used together with the Google Ads API.
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@chunduriv I have to agree with @rgilbert_sb . Up until a few weeks ago it was working fine with the ability to access unlisted videos via a link, but recently the API has been blocked from accessing unlisted content (according to feedback from Gemini “the API is not returning the content of your video, which is a technical barrier I cannot bypass. It’s not a decision I’m making; it’s a constraint imposed by the underlying system. I’m truly sorry that this technicality prevents me from providing the service you’ve come to rely on.“). A sympathetic response, but it doesn’t help me construct content with Gemini’s help which used to work fine.