Connecting YouTube

Connect your YouTube account to Opus Growth.

Before you start

• The channel must belong to the Google account you authorize with, or that account must be added as a manager on the channel.
• If the channel sits under a Brand Account, pick that brand account during authorization rather than the personal one.
• The connection is read-only; it changes no video, title or description.

Connection steps

1. Run the tool. Tell your assistant connect_youtube. It returns a one-time authorization link tied to your account; nothing is connected yet at this point.
2. Open the link. The link is valid for one hour. Open it in a browser where you are signed in as the person who has access to the YouTube account.
3. Grant access. Approve the requested permissions on the YouTube screen. This is YouTube's own consent screen, so the sign-in happens there, not with us.
4. Select an account. Your accounts are listed after authorization. Tick the ones you want to manage and save; every later operation runs on the account you picked.
5. Confirm. Run youtube_channels; if your channel is listed, the connection is ready.

Requested permissions

• openid
• https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.email
• https://www.googleapis.com/auth/yt-analytics.readonly
• https://www.googleapis.com/auth/youtube.readonly

Nothing outside this list is requested, and the token is stored encrypted at rest. If you decline any permission on the consent screen, the flow stops and no token is written.

Notes

• A separate, read-only connection — your Google Ads token is not touched.
• Your channels are listed with youtube_channels.
• It reads views/watch time/subscriber and traffic-source reports; it changes no content.

Troubleshooting

Why is my channel not in the list?

This nearly always comes from authorizing with the wrong account. If the channel sits under a Brand Account, you have to pick the brand account rather than your personal one on Google's consent screen. Disconnect from the panel and try again with the right account.

Why do the numbers not match YouTube Studio exactly?

YouTube Analytics corrects some metrics retroactively and filters views it counts as spam, and those corrections take a few days. Looking at the same period a few days later, the numbers settle.

Why does the link say the connection is invalid or expired?

An authorization link expires one hour after it is generated and it is single use; opening a link that was already used produces the same error. Run the connect tool again, and you get a fresh link to continue with.

I selected several accounts but only one was saved. Why?

Free and Pro are locked to a single account; managing several is an Agency feature. Even if you tick more than one on the selection screen, the first is kept when it saves. Agency work means upgrading the plan; after that you refresh the selection from the panel's account switcher, which reuses the stored token so you never authorize again.

I authorized with the wrong user. What happens?

The stored access is limited to the accounts that the authorizing user can see; an account that user cannot reach is not visible to us either. Disconnect from the panel and connect again with the right user, and the old token is deleted.

Disconnecting

Open the panel, find YouTube under connected platforms and choose disconnect. The stored token is deleted immediately, not just hidden, so we can no longer reach the account. Reconnecting later means running connect_youtube again and going through authorization from scratch. Disconnecting does not delete anything inside your YouTube account.

→ full list of YouTube tools