youtube-handles

programmatically check availability of youtube handles

• use your own youtube account, no password required (see disclaimer))
• support for force logout, rate limiting

Motivations

• I got distracted
• I wanted a cool youtube username

Technologies

• Python 3.10
• requests ( for interacting with youtube's API)
• haralyzer (for parsing HAR files, to allow dynamic account session imports)

Installation

• Video Walkthrough
• Clone the repository to a local directory (or download it, extract it)
• Open that directory in your terminal (cd <insert folder path here>)
• Install the dependencies (pip install -r requirements.txt)
• Create usernames.csv in a text editor (one username per line)
• Navigate to youtube.com/handle, click 'change/choose handle'
• Open network inspector in your browser firefox, for now (press 'F12', then click the 'network' tab)
• Change your username in the input box
• Right click on the request in network inspector, and select 'save all as HAR'
• Move the HAR file into your youtube-handles folder

Usage

• Run handle_search.py (python3 handle_search.py)

Disclaimers & Notes

• I am not responsible if you end up getting your account banned (I recommend using one you don't care about)
• Be considerate—save some usernames for the rest of us
• Feel free to submit pull requests
• Fresh Google Accounts won't work