How to Fix YouTube API Daily Limit Exceeded

YouTube is home to all kinds of content, including stand-up material, music, movie trailers, tutorials, game teasers and reviews, class lessons, and just about anything else.

Embedding a channel gallery or playlist as well as a live stream usually involves a YouTube API key. There is a default quota provided by the platform, which might not be sufficient for some submissions.

As of October 2022, the quota is 20,000 requests per day. This means that if you have a high-traffic website, this quota might still be too small for what you need.

If this is the case, you can consider reducing the page size of your gallery. But sometimes your traffic might still be too high that you receive the message with this error ‘YouTube Data API quota exceeded.

How do you fix YouTube’s daily limit exceeded error message? Luckily, you can fix this by requesting YouTube/Google to give you a bit higher limit.

Steps on how to fix YouTube Daily Limit Exceeded

The first thing you want to do is create a YouTube API Key. Here is how you can do this.

1. Head to the Google APIs library using this link
2. Go down to the option ‘YouTube Data API v3’ and click it
3. Next, assuming you don’t have a Google Cloud Project to link the API key with, click ‘Enable’. You may not see the ‘Enable’ button, which means you have a YouTube API already enabled for your account. So instead of that, you should see and click the ‘Manage’ button, which will take you to ‘Credentials’. From there, copy the API key and proceed.
4. If you didn’t have a YouTube API enabled for the Google account you are using, you will have to click ‘Enable’, which will take you to a new window where you will create a new project, so click ‘Create Project’.
5. Give your project a name you can remember. I suggest you include YouTube and Plugin in the name of your project so that you don’t forget the purpose of the API. Now click ‘Create’ once you have named your project.
6. You should see that your project is active. Click ‘Enable to activate your API.
7. Select ‘Create Credentials’ to generate the credentials for the new YouTube API key.
8. Clicking the above button will take you to a new page where you will set the credentials for your YouTube Data API for ‘Web server’ based calls as well as ‘Public data’. Now select the button that says ‘What credentials do I need?’
9. You will now see your YouTube API key. Before you get started with using it, add restrictions first to the key. So, select the ‘Restrict Key’ link.
10. Be sure to turn on the HTTP referrers restriction, ensuring you add your domain and the text *.googleapis.com/* exactly as it is written.
11. In addition to the above restriction, you also want to ensure your key is used only for making YouTube Date v3 API calls.
12. Select ‘Save’ once you are finished
13. Sometimes another page will appear after saving asking you to add credentials to your project, in which case you should just click cancel.
14. Now start using your new YouTube API key by clicking the icon symbolizing copy so you can paste it into the appropriate space in the YouTube plugin.
15. Lastly, paste the new key into the API text of the plugin and then save

Increase Google Daily Limit

Now that you have a new YouTube API key, you can now request Google for a higher daily limit, and here are easy steps to follow:  

• Log into your Google account, ensuring that it is the account that is associated with the YouTube API key
• Extract the Project ID as well as the Number that is associated with the API key. You can retrieve this information using the link provided here  https://console.cloud.google.com/
• Make sure you have a valid reason for requesting a higher quota limit otherwise you will be turned down. If you do have valid reasons, fill out this application form using the link https://support.google.com/youtube/contact/yt_api_form?hl=en
• You will answer a few questions, including the API services your client will have to access. I suggest selecting ‘Embeds’ and ‘Data API’ since your plugin doesn’t use any other API listed.

There you go. Now, wait to see if your request will be granted.

Conclusion

YouTube limits the number of videos a channel can uphold per day across mobile, desktop as well as YouTube API to enhance the safety of the platform.

Limits tend to vary based on region or country or even the history of your channel. For instance, copyright strikes can affect your channel history eligibility.

Additionally, Community Guidelines strikes may also affect how many videos you can upload in a period of 24 hours. If you exceed a daily limit, you can use the steps in this guide to request a higher limit provided you have a valid reason.