YouTube Watch History Extractor: Convert HTML to CSV & JSON

📌 Overview

YouTube Watch History Extractor is a Python script that parses and extracts structured data from a YouTube watch-history.html file. It converts your YouTube watch history into CSV and JSON formats, making it easier to analyze trends, track favorite creators, and build datasets for further research.

🚀 Features

• ✅ Extracts video titles, URLs, channel names, timestamps from YouTube history.
• ✅ Outputs structured CSV and JSON files for easy data manipulation.
• ✅ Efficient HTML parsing with BeautifulSoup.
• ✅ Handles large history files smoothly (40MB HTML file ≈ 40 minutes runtime of python script).
• ✅ Useful for personal analytics, recommendations, and archiving.

📂 Example Output

CSV (watched_history.csv)

video_title	video_url	channel_name	channel_url	date	time
Sample Video 1	abc123xyz	Tech Guru	channel456	2024-01-20	15:34:12

JSON (watched_history.json)

[
    {
        "video_title": "Sample Video 1",
        "video_url": "abc123xyz",
        "channel_name": "Tech Guru",
        "channel_url": "channel456",
        "date": "2024-01-20",
        "time": "15:34:12"
    }
]

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How to Download Your YouTube Watch History

Follow these steps to download your watch-history.html file from Google:

Step 1: Go to Google Takeout

1. Visit Google Takeout.
2. Sign in with your Google account if prompted.

Step 2: Select Only YouTube History

1. Click "Deselect all" to remove all other Google data.
2. Scroll down and check "YouTube and YouTube Music".
3. Click "All YouTube data included", uncheck everything except "History", then click OK.

Step 3: Configure the Export

1. Scroll down and click "Next step".
2. Under "Delivery method," choose "Download link via email" (or another preferred option).
3. Select "Export once" and ".ZIP" format (recommended).
   
4. Click "Create Export".

Step 4: Download and Extract Your Data

1. Wait for Google to process your request (it may take minutes to hours).
2. Once done, download the ZIP file from the email link.
3. Extract the ZIP file to access the folder named "Takeout".

Step 5: Locate Your Watch History File

1. Inside the extracted folder, navigate to:
   Takeout > YouTube and YouTube Music > history
2. Look for a file named watch-history.html.
3. Copy this file to the same directory where you'll run this script.

✅ Now you're ready to use the YouTube Watch History Extractor! 🚀

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🛠️ Installation

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/atishramkhe/YouTube-Watch-History-Extractor-Convert-HTML-to-CSV-JSON
   cd YouTube-Watch-History-Extractor-Convert-HTML-to-CSV-JSON

2. Install dependencies Ensure you have Python 3.8+ installed, then run:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Place your YouTube history file Download your watch-history.html from Google Takeout and move it to the script directory.

▶️ Usage

Make sure that the watch-history.html file is in the same directory as the Python script. Then, run the script to extract and save history data:

python extract_watch_history.py

This will generate two output files in the same directory:

• watched_history.csv
• watched_history.json

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🎯 Potential Use Cases

• Data Analysis: Track watch patterns and preferences.
• Machine Learning: Train recommendation models based on user history.
• Personal Archiving: Keep records of watched content.
• Integration: Use extracted data for custom dashboards or automation.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to:

• Report issues 🐞
• Suggest improvements 🚀
• Submit pull requests 📌

📜 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

📧 Contact

Created by Atish K. Ramkhelawon

• GitHub: atishramkhe
• LinkedIn: Atish K. Ramkhelawon