YouTube playlists are a useful way to watch videos in sequence or for sharing a list of videos with others. However, at times it may be insecure to share playlists created from your personal account or inconvenient to log in into your account to create them. This guide describes how to create playlists in a single link that allows you to view your videos immediately, save them for later, or to share them with others – without logging into your YouTube account.
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A YouTube playlist can be created manually by concatenating the unique videoIDs, separated by commas, to the URL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch_videos?video_ids=
A completed playlist will thus look like so:
https://www.youtube.com/watch_videos?video_ids=video_id#1,video_id#2,etc
Just paste the completed link into your browser to start the playlist. A more complete explanation of this process can be found at the following blog post: How to Create YouTube Playlists without Logging In.
Creating playlists manually can be inconvenient, so a way to accomplish this automatically with a script was sought. Because the Windows command-line doesn’t easily support the clipboard without 3rd part tools, AutoHotKey was used instead since it can manipulate the clipboard more easily. AutoHotKey version 1.1.22.06 was used for the script and tested on a system running WinXP.
AutoHotKey script: youtube_playlist2.ahk
To use the script, run it to monitor the clipboard for youtube.com/watch, youtube.com/embed/, or youtu.be; text which is used in normal, embedded, or shortened YouTube video links. The script generally ignores any other text, so in most cases, the script can be active and not interfere with normal clipboard activity.
After starting the script, a popup message (shown below) appears to alert the user that the script has started and informs the user that CNTL +Y will create the playlist link and copy it to the clipboard, and CNTL + Z exits the script.
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Each time a YouTube video link is copied to the clipboard, a Traytip displays the link that was processed and how many video links in total were copied and processed. Hit OK to continue. Wait 2.5 seconds between selecting videos (when the Traytip disappears) before selecting another video.
After selecting all your videos, use CNRL + Y to copy the final playlist to the clipboard. Another popup message (screenshot below) will appear. This popup indicates the total number of videos in the playlist, the final playlist link, how to exit the script, and reminds the user that the playlist link has been copied to the clipboard. The playlist link is ready to use by pasting it into a browser or in an email. After hitting OK you can continue adding videos or use CNTL + Z to exit. Exit and restart the script to clear everything out and start over.Image may be NSFW.
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The script can be customized by the user as desired.
