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How to cite a YouTube video in APA 7

For a YouTube video the account that uploaded it is credited as the author (even a screen name), the date is the full upload date, the title takes italics with a bracketed [Video] label after it, and YouTube itself appears as the publisher before the link.

A worked example

The first video ever uploaded to YouTube — real, short, and still online at that URL.

Reference list entry

jawed. (2005, April 23). Me at the zoo [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw

In-text citation

(jawed, 2005)

Why it looks like this

You identified this as a video.

Author: jawed — A single author is written family name first, with given names reduced to initials.
Title treatment: “Me at the zoo” is italicized — A video stands on its own, so APA italicizes its title.
Date: (2005, April 23) — A video publishes on a fast cycle, so the full date is given, not just the year.
Source line: “YouTube” is italicized as the channel/platform — The channel/platform is what carries the video — APA names it right after the title.
Retrieval link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw — No DOI is on record, so the URL is used instead — also with no trailing period.

Easily confused with

webpage: If this were a webpage instead, the source line would be labeled a website rather than a channel/platform.

What Citeory checks on a YouTube video

These are the checks the engine runs on this source type — a reference missing any of them is flagged before you paste it into a paper:

Missing author(s) — required for video sources.
Missing year — required for video sources.
Missing title — required for video sources.

Citeory also verifies the source exists — records are checked against Crossref, DataCite, OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar and PubMed, so a reference that cannot be found anywhere is flagged rather than formatted. The citation above was produced by that same rules engine, not written by hand and not generated by AI.

Format and check your YouTube video citation →
Paste a DOI, URL, or rough citation — the engine does the rest. No account needed to try it.