YouTube Watch History Replayer

README.md

YouTube Watch History Replayer

Replay YouTube Watch History from Google Takeout. Relies on https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp.

Usage

Go to https://www.youtube.com/ then save the cookie export using Get cookies.txt.

Do a YouTube Takeout and download the archive. In the archive, there's a file called watch-history.json.

composer install
chmod +x youtube-watch-history-replayer
./youtube-watch-history-replayer --watch-history-file=./path/to/watch-history.json --cookies-file=./path/youtube.com_cookies.txt

YouTube Watch History Replayer
==============================

 Will now replay 4523 URLs:
    805/4523 [=====>-----------------------]   18% 26 min

composer.json

{
    "require": {
        "symfony/process": "^6.0",
        "symfony/console": "^6.0"
    }
}

youtube-watch-history-replayer

#!/usr/bin/env php
<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

require_once __DIR__.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'vendor'.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'autoload.php';

use Symfony\Component\Process\Process;
use Symfony\Component\Process\ExecutableFinder;
use Symfony\Component\Process\Exception\ProcessFailedException;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Command\Command;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Helper\ProgressBar;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputOption;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Output\OutputInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Console\SingleCommandApplication;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Style\SymfonyStyle;

(new SingleCommandApplication())
    ->setVersion('0.1.0')
    ->addOption('watch-history-file', null, InputOption::VALUE_REQUIRED, 'Path to the watch-history.json file', '.'.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'watch-history.json')
    ->addOption('cookies-file', null, InputOption::VALUE_REQUIRED, 'Path to the youtube.com_cookies.txt file', '.'.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'youtube.com_cookies.txt')
    ->setCode(function (InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output) {
        $io = new SymfonyStyle($input, $output);
        $io->title('YouTube Watch History Replay');

        if (file_exists($input->getOption('watch-history-file').'.tmp')) {
            $ids = json_decode(file_get_contents($input->getOption('watch-history-file').'.tmp'), associative: true);
        } else {
            $ids = [];
            $history = array_reverse(
                json_decode(
                    file_get_contents($input->getOption('watch-history-file')),
                    associative: true
                )
            );

            foreach ($history as $entry) {
                if (isset($entry['titleUrl']) && strtolower($entry['header']) === 'youtube') {
                    $qs = [];
                    // Parses the URL to get the ID
                    parse_str(parse_url($entry['titleUrl'], PHP_URL_QUERY), $qs);

                    $ids[] = $qs['v'] ?? null;
                }
            }

            $ids = array_values(array_unique(array_filter($ids)));
            
            file_put_contents($input->getOption('watch-history-file').'.tmp', json_encode($ids));
        }

        $count = \count($ids);
        if (false === $ids || 0 === $count) {
            $io->error('Empty or not found watch-history-file');

            return Command::INVALID;
        }

        if (!file_exists($input->getOption('cookies-file'))) {
            $io->error('cookies-file not found');

            return Command::INVALID;
        }

        $io->text('Will now replay '.$count.' URLs:');

        $progressBar = new ProgressBar($output);
        $progressBar->setFormat('verbose');
        $progressBar->start($count);

        $ytdlp = (new ExecutableFinder())->find('yt-dlp');
        $cookiesFile = $input->getOption('cookies-file');

        // This is the yt-dlp command, you can add/remove options as needed
        $cmdTemplate = <<<TPL
        %s
        --simulate
        --mark-watched
        --abort-on-error
        --no-playlist
        --ignore-config
        --no-warnings
        --no-progress
        --cookies "%s"
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=%s"
        TPL;

        $errors = [];

        foreach ($ids as $id) {
            try {
                $cmd = str_replace(
                    PHP_EOL,
                    ' ',
                    sprintf(
                        $cmdTemplate,
                        $ytdlp,
                        $cookiesFile,
                        $id
                    )
                );

                (Process::fromShellCommandline($cmd))->mustRun();
            } catch (\Throwable $e) {
                $errors[$id] = $e->getMessage();
            } finally {
                $progressBar->advance();
            }
        }

        $progressBar->finish();
        file_put_contents('errors.log.json', json_encode($errors));

        $io->newLine(2);
        \count($errors) ? $io->warning('done with errors') : $io->success('done');
        @unlink($input->getOption('watch-history-file').'.tmp');

        return Command::SUCCESS;
    })
    ->run();