The most effective way to find a YouTube Channel ID from a channel handle (`@tavakfi`) using **Python without an API** is by web scraping the channel's HTML source code. The Channel ID (which starts with `UC`) is embedded in the page source under a key like `"externalId"` or `"channelId"`. Here is the Python script you can use: ### Python Channel ID Finder (No API) This script uses the `requests` library to fetch the HTML content and the built-in `re` (regular expressions) library to search for the Channel ID. ```python import requests import re def get_channel_id_from_handle(handle_url): """ Fetches the YouTube channel ID from a handle URL by scraping the source code. """ try: # 1. Fetch the HTML content of the channel page response = requests.get(handle_url) response.raise_for_status() # Raise an exception for bad status codes html_content = response.text # 2. Search for the Channel ID using a Regular Expression # The channel ID is often stored in the page data as "externalId" or "channelId" # The regex looks for "externalId" or "channelId" followed by the UC... string match = re.search(r'"externalId":"(UC[a-zA-Z0-9_-]{22})"', html_content) if match: # The Channel ID is captured in the first group of the regex match return match.group(1) else: # Try alternative location for Channel ID (less common but worth checking) match_alt = re.search(r'"channelId":"(UC[a-zA-Z0-9_-]{22})"', html_content) if match_alt: return match_alt.group(1) else: return "Channel ID not found in page source." except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e: return f"Error fetching URL: {e}" # The handle URL you provided channel_url = "https://www.youtube.com/@tavakfi" # Run the function channel_id = get_channel_id_from_handle(channel_url) print(f"Channel Handle: {channel_url}") print(f"Channel ID: {channel_id}") ``` ----- ### How the Code Works 1. **`import requests` and `import re`**: These lines import the necessary libraries. `requests` handles fetching the webpage content, and `re` handles finding the specific text pattern (the Channel ID) within that content. 2. **`requests.get(handle_url)`**: This line sends an HTTP GET request to the YouTube handle URL (`@tavakfi`) to retrieve the raw HTML source code. 3. **`re.search(r'"externalId":"(UC[a-zA-Z0-9_-]{22})"', html_content)`**: This is the core scraping logic. It searches the entire HTML text for the pattern that YouTube uses to store the Channel ID. * The Channel ID always starts with **`UC`** and is followed by exactly 22 alphanumeric characters, which is captured by the pattern `(UC[a-zA-Z0-9_-]{22})`. * The ID is then extracted using `match.group(1)`. This scraping technique allows you to reliably retrieve the unique `UC` Channel ID for any channel that uses the modern `@handle` URL format. You can learn more about the channel and its content by watching this video: [Türkiye Research Foundation - Videos](https://www.youtube.com/@tavakfi/videos).