README

A Laravel package to download YouTube comments without using API keys, utilizing yt-dlp as the backend for extraction.

Requirements

PHP 8.3 or higher
Laravel 10.x or higher
yt-dlp installed and accessible via terminal

Installation

Install the package via Composer:

composer require aronpc/youtube-comments

The package will be automatically discovered by Laravel.

Publish the configuration file:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="AronPC\YouTubeComments\YouTubeCommentsServiceProvider" --tag="config"

Install yt-dlp (if not already installed):

# Linux/macOS
sudo curl -L https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp -o /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp

# Windows
# Download from https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases and add to your PATH

Configure the package in config/youtube-comments.php if needed.

Usage

Using Artisan Commands

This package provides several Artisan commands to interact with YouTube comments and live chat.

Fetch Comments (All-in-one)

To fetch comments from a YouTube video in a single step (download and parse), use the following command:

php artisan youtube:fetch-comments VIDEO_ID

Replace VIDEO_ID with the ID of the YouTube video. For example:

php artisan youtube:fetch-comments dQw4w9WgXcQ

This will generate a file in the configured output directory named comments_VIDEO_ID.txt containing all the comments from the video.

Fetch Live Chat

To fetch live chat from a YouTube video that had a live stream, use:

php artisan youtube:fetch-livechat VIDEO_ID

This will generate a file in the configured output directory named livechat_VIDEO_ID.txt containing all the live chat messages from the video.

Fetch Both Comments and Live Chat

To fetch both comments and live chat in a single operation, use:

php artisan youtube:fetch-all VIDEO_ID

This will generate two files in the configured output directory:

comments_VIDEO_ID.txt containing all the comments
livechat_VIDEO_ID.txt containing all the live chat messages

If either comments or live chat are not available for the video, the command will still succeed but will display a warning message.

Download Comments Only

If you want to only download the comments and save them as a JSON file (useful for debugging), use:

php artisan youtube:download-comments VIDEO_ID

This will generate a file in the configured output directory named comments_VIDEO_ID.json containing the raw JSON data.

Parse Comments Only

To parse previously downloaded comments from a JSON file, use:

php artisan youtube:parse-comments VIDEO_ID

This command expects a file named comments_VIDEO_ID.json to exist in the configured output directory.

Using the Facade

You can also use the provided facade to interact with the YouTube client directly in your code:

use AronPC\YouTubeComments\Facades\YouTubeComments;

// Fetch comments from a YouTube video
$commentsFile = YouTubeComments::fetchComments('dQw4w9WgXcQ');

// Fetch live chat from a YouTube video
$liveChatFile = YouTubeComments::fetchLiveChat('dQw4w9WgXcQ');

// Fetch both comments and live chat
$results = YouTubeComments::fetchCommentsAndLiveChat('dQw4w9WgXcQ');
$commentsFile = $results['comments'];
$liveChatFile = $results['livechat'];

// Download comments only (returns path to JSON file)
$jsonFile = YouTubeComments::downloadComments('dQw4w9WgXcQ');

// Parse comments from a JSON file
$outputFile = YouTubeComments::parseComments('dQw4w9WgXcQ', $jsonFile);

Output Format

The parsed comments are saved in a text file with the following format:

Author:
Comment text

Author:
Comment text

How It Works

The application uses yt-dlp to download the comments from the YouTube video
It processes the JSON data and formats the comments
The formatted comments are saved to a text file in the output directory

Configuration

The package configuration file is located at config/youtube-comments.php after publishing. It includes the following options:

return [
    // Directory where downloaded comments and live chat messages will be saved
    'output_directory' => env('YOUTUBE_COMMENTS_OUTPUT_DIR', storage_path('app/youtube-comments')),

    // Path to the youtube-dl or yt-dlp executable
    'youtube_dl_path' => env('YOUTUBE_DL_PATH', 'yt-dlp'),

    // Maximum time (in seconds) to wait for a command to complete
    'command_timeout' => env('YOUTUBE_COMMENTS_TIMEOUT', 300),
];

You can customize these settings by editing the configuration file or by setting the corresponding environment variables in your .env file.

Testing

The package includes a comprehensive test suite built with PHPUnit. The tests cover the main functionality of the package, including:

Service classes (YouTubeClient)
Command classes (FetchCommentsCommand, DownloadCommentsCommand, ParseCommentsCommand)

Running Tests

If you want to run the tests for this package, you can clone the repository and run:

composer install
composer test

Troubleshooting

Make sure yt-dlp is installed and accessible from the command line
Some videos may have comments disabled, in which case no comments will be downloaded
Future live events that haven't started yet don't have comments available
If you encounter any issues, try updating yt-dlp to the latest version
For video IDs that start with a hyphen (e.g., -6oKXN8D6BI), you need to use the -- separator to prevent the shell from interpreting the ID as a command option:
```
php artisan youtube:fetch-comments -- -6oKXN8D6BI
```
Note: The package has special handling for video IDs that start with a hyphen to ensure they are processed correctly.

License

This package is open-sourced software licensed under the MIT license.

aronpc / youtube-comments

Maintainers

Details