YouTube tag extractor.See any video's tags, counted like YouTube.

How to see the tags on a YouTube video

• Copy the video's linkFrom the address bar, or Share > Copy link in the app. Watch pages, youtu.be links, Shorts and live streams all work.
• Paste it above and press Get the tagsThe tags appear in a copy of YouTube Studio's Tags field, in the order the uploader typed them, with the count YouTube would show.
• Copy what's usefulCopy every tag at once, comma-separated and ready to paste, or just the hashtags. Then write your own with the tag generator, which opens on the video's title.

On your own videos you don't need a tool: in YouTube Studio, select Content, then the video, and click SHOW MORE (YouTube Help). On a phone, the extractor above is the quickest way: the YouTube app doesn't show other people's tags.

See a video's tags without a tool

YouTube doesn't show tags on the watch page, but on a computer they're in the page's code:

• Open the page sourceOn the video's page, press Ctrl+U on Windows or Option+Cmd+U on a Mac.
• Search for "keywords":[Press Ctrl+F or Cmd+F. The words in quotes after it are the tags, in the uploader's order.
• Nothing found? There are no tagsDon't trust the <meta name="keywords"> line near the top: on a video without tags, YouTube fills it with generic words like "video, sharing, camera phone".

YouTube can change its page code whenever it likes, and none of this works in the app. The extractor reads the tags from the official YouTube Data API instead.

Why some videos have no tags

Because the channel didn't add any, and YouTube doesn't mind. Its own help page says tags "play a minimal role in your video's discovery", and that they're mostly useful when your subject is often misspelled. The title, thumbnail and description matter more (YouTube Help).

So a video with no tags isn't a mistake, and a video with 40 isn't ahead. When you see an empty field above, it's the real answer: that video found its audience without them.

How YouTube counts the 500 characters

All the tags on a video share 500 characters, and YouTube counts more than the letters: the commas between tags count, and a tag with a space counts two more, as if it were in quotes (YouTube Data API). The extractor applies the same rule, which is why its count is higher than the letters you see.

The tag generator's page has the full rule, and writes tags that stay under the limit.

Should you copy another video's tags?

You can read them, and use them as a list of ideas. Copying them wholesale rarely helps:

• Tags don't carry a video's successThe other video ranks for its title, its thumbnail and how people watch it. Its tags play a minimal role, by YouTube's own account.
• Keep the ones that describe your videoA tag that fits their video and not yours brings viewers who leave. Take the words that are true for yours.
• Look for the misspellingsThe most useful thing in someone else's list is a spelling of the subject you hadn't thought of: that's the case where YouTube says tags help.
• Leave out their channel nameTheir brand in your tags describes their video, not yours.

Reading tags is fine: they come from YouTube's official API, which any developer can query. What you do with them is up to the YouTube Terms of Service and YouTube's spam policies, like any metadata you write.

Tags on YouTube Shorts

Shorts can have tags too, added from a computer through the same YouTube Studio upload as any video (YouTube Help). Paste a /shorts/ link and the extractor reads them. Many Shorts have none, often because they're posted straight from a phone and never opened in YouTube Studio.