Bulk Upload Videos to YouTube: 10 Videos in One Command

Uploading 10 Videos to YouTube With a Single Command

You just finished a batch render session. Ten Shorts sitting in an output directory, each with its own title, description, tags, and thumbnail file. Uploading them one by one through YouTube Studio means clicking through the same multi-step upload wizard ten separate times, dragging files, copying metadata, setting thumbnails, configuring privacy settings. Here is how to send all ten videos to YouTube with a single command and per-video metadata.

The Batch Upload Script

A batch upload script iterates over a directory of video files, reads metadata from companion JSON files, and calls the YouTube API sequentially for each video with individual settings:

const fs = require('fs');
const path = require('path');
const { google } = require('googleapis');

async function batchUpload(videoDir) {
  const youtube = google.youtube({ version: 'v3', auth: oauth2Client });
  const files = fs.readdirSync(videoDir)
    .filter(f => f.endsWith('.mp4'))
    .sort();

  for (const file of files) {
    const slug = path.basename(file, '.mp4');
    const metaPath = path.join(videoDir, slug + '.json');
    const meta = JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync(metaPath));

    const res = await youtube.videos.insert({
      part: ['snippet', 'status'],
      requestBody: {
        snippet: {
          title: meta.title,
          description: meta.description,
          tags: meta.tags,
          categoryId: '28',
        },
        status: {
          privacyStatus: meta.scheduledAt ? 'private' : 'public',
          publishAt: meta.scheduledAt || undefined,
        },
      },
      media: { body: fs.createReadStream(path.join(videoDir, file)) },
    });

    // Set thumbnail if companion image exists
    const thumbPath = path.join(videoDir, slug + '.jpg');
    if (fs.existsSync(thumbPath)) {
      await youtube.thumbnails.set({
        videoId: res.data.id,
        media: { body: fs.createReadStream(thumbPath) },
      });
    }
  }
}

Directory Structure

Organize your batch output directory so the script can discover everything automatically through naming conventions:

output/
  video-01.mp4
  video-01.json     # metadata: title, description, tags, scheduledAt
  video-01.jpg      # thumbnail (1280x720)
  video-02.mp4
  video-02.json
  video-02.jpg
  ...

Each JSON file contains the metadata for its corresponding video. The naming convention (shared base name with different extensions) keeps metadata tightly coupled with its video file and makes the batch self-documenting.