What is the maximum results returned for YouTube Data API v3 call

Question

Context

I am in the process of providing some consultancy on doing a HTTP GET using YouTube Data API V3; in order to develop a Windows based application to GET a list of results from Youtube, for say a specific CATEGORY, or a specific TAG.

We are open to using any programming language(I'm from a C++ background and am hoping You tube will support direct HTTP connections without using Google client SDK and so on) to connect to YouTube and (HTTP) GET data.(Once a month or so, so YouTube API quotas should not be problem).

The Issue

We are being told by some of my client's web developers that YouTube API v3 will only return a maximum of 500 records/results, for say a query that returns JUST the Total viewers, the Video's link, and basic meta data such as that.

S, say I wish to find 5,000 results for category "House music" or "basketball" - and I have the Developer Key etc are all set up, would that be possible?

If so, what GET fields would I need to populate(such as "max_results_per_page")?

Thank you.

Answer 1

The API won't provide more than ~500 search results for any arbitrary query. It's by design. Technically, it means that the nextPageToken field won't be returned once you hit ~500 results. No additional parameter can change that.

If you want more than ~500 results for a query, you have to split it into more specific sub-queries. I'd suggest using the publishedAfter and publishedBefore parameters to achieve that, but feel free to experiment with the other ones here.

Answer 2

This only holds for the search-Query. Other queries like "PlaylisItem:list" deliver more results. I have tested with 100.000 items to get the videos of a playlist.