YouTube MCP connector

The YouTube connector lets AI agents analyze and manage your YouTube channel through InsightfulPipe's hosted MCP server at https://youtube.insightfulmcp.com/. It combines YouTube Analytics reports (views, watch time, subscribers, demographics, traffic sources and estimated revenue) with YouTube Data API actions for videos, playlists and comments.

YouTube MCP server reference

Endpoint: https://youtube.insightfulmcp.com/
Server name: youtube-mcp
Actions: 43 (34 read, 9 write). Workspace owners, admins and operators choose which actions each connected account exposes, and destructive actions are off by default.

Add it from a terminal, then click Authorize access in the browser window that opens:

claude mcp add --transport http youtube-mcp https://youtube.insightfulmcp.com/
gemini mcp add --transport http youtube-mcp https://youtube.insightfulmcp.com/
codex mcp add youtube-mcp --url https://youtube.insightfulmcp.com/

What agents can do

Channel and video analytics: views, watch time, average view duration, subscribers and engagement for the channel or individual videos.
Audience and discovery: age and gender, traffic sources (including the YouTube search terms that led to views), devices and operating systems, playback locations, provinces and sharing services.
Other reports: cards, end screens, playlist performance and custom reports.query requests with your own metrics, dimensions and filters.
Revenue: estimated revenue for monetized channels.
Channel data: channel details, top videos, video details, playlists and their items, comment threads, subscriptions, activity, search, trending videos and categories.
Writes: upload a video, update a video's title, description, tags and privacy, create and update playlists, add videos to playlists, and reply to, edit or delete comments.

Before you connect

A Google login that owns or manages the channel.

Connect YouTube

In the InsightfulPipe app, open Connectors, choose YouTube and click Connect.
Choose Read Only or Read + Write.
Sign in with Google and approve access.
Select the channel.
Add the MCP server to Claude, ChatGPT or another client, then click Authorize access.

Permissions and safety

Uploads, video edits, playlist changes and comment replies need Read + Write.
upload_video publishes to the channel. Set the privacy status in the request if the video shouldn't be public yet.
delete_comment is destructive, so it stays off until an owner, admin or operator enables it in Configure actions for this account.

Limits

insert_comment creates replies to existing comments, not new top-level comments.
Analytics cover your own channel. Search and trending actions return public data only.
There is no report of the hours when your viewers are on YouTube.

Example prompts

"Using YouTube, show my top 10 videos by watch time in the last 90 days."
"Which YouTube search terms brought the most views to the channel last month?"
"Break down views by age group and gender for this quarter."
"Update the description and tags of my latest video."

Troubleshooting

The channel isn't listed: sign in with the Google account that owns or manages the channel, then reconnect.
Revenue is empty: estimated revenue only appears for monetized channels.
"This account is connected read-only, so this action cannot be enabled for it." Reconnect with Read + Write.