YouTube MCP Server: Upload & Schedule Videos with AI

What is a YouTube MCP server?

A YouTube MCP server is a tool server that lets an AI agent work with YouTube through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). The agent, say Claude makes a request, the server acts on YouTube, and the result comes back into the same chat. YouTube MCP servers come in two kinds - read servers, which fetch transcripts, search and research channels, and publish servers, which upload videos. WoopSocial is a publisher server.

Does YouTube have an official MCP server?

Google has not yet officially released a YouTube MCP server for uploading videos (as of November 2026). YouTube uses YouTube Data API as its own path and this requires a Google OAuth verification, a daily quota, and a resumable upload flow. Servers called “YouTube MCP” come from third-party developers and companies.

Those servers fall into three groups:

YouTube MCP server types compared with WoopSocial
	Research/transcript servers	Self-hosted upload repos	WoopSocial
Uploads videos	No	Yes	Yes
Schedules Shorts	No	No (publishAt doesn’t support Shorts)	Yes
Google OAuth verification	n/a	Yours, often 4 to 6 weeks	None on your side
Quota	n/a	Your 10,000 units a day	Not your concern

What your AI agent can do with YouTube

Once connected, your agent can do nine things on YouTube:

What an AI agent can do with YouTube through WoopSocial
What you ask	What happens
Upload a video	Uploads a video from your file through an upload session
Upload a Short	Uploads a vertical or square video, which YouTube detects as a Short.
Set public, unlisted or private	Sets who can see the video.
Set title, tags, category and made-for-kids	Fills in the metadata YouTube requires and accepts.
Schedule, including Shorts	Queues the upload with SCHEDULE_FOR_LATER, converted to UTC.
Draft	Holds the post in WoopSocial for you to review.
Cross-post a Short	Sends the same Short to TikTok and Instagram Reels.
Check upload status	Reports whether the upload is live or failed.
Read performance	Returns account-level and post-level analytics.

How to connect a YouTube MCP server to your agent (3 steps)

Get your MCP URL. Create a free WoopSocial account and open the API access page. Use the OAuth URL, https://api.woopsocial.com/mcp, for clients that support sign-in, or the API-key version for clients that don’t. The key sits inside that URL, so treat the whole URL like a password.
Connect your YouTube channel. In WoopSocial, add a YouTube channel with Google sign-in. You approve access on Google’s own sign-in page, so your agent will never see your password and no need for a Google Cloud project.
Add WoopSocial to your agent. In Claude, ChatGPT or another MCP client, add WoopSocial as a remote MCP server and authorize it. Then ask: “List my social accounts in WoopSocial.” If your YouTube channel comes back, you’re ready to upload. Our MCP setup guide covers more about this.

A real conversation

This is a recorded session, not a mock-up. The prompt was: “Upload this vertical clip as an unlisted Short titled ‘…’, not made for kids, and make it public Friday 17:00.”

The tool chain: the upload session → posts_validate → posts_create, with SCHEDULE_FOR_LATER.

YouTube MCP prompts to try

You can simply copy any of these into your agent, and replace with your own content.

“Upload this video as unlisted so I can review it first.”
“Schedule this Short for Saturday 10:00 and post it to TikTok and Instagram Reels too.”
“Write a title under 100 characters and 10 tags for this video.”
“Upload these 3 clips as Shorts, one per day.”
“Is my YouTube upload from this morning live yet?”
“Cancel the video scheduled for Monday.”

YouTube requirements and limits

These limits come from YouTube Data API and not WoopSocial.

Title: up to 100 characters.
Description: up to 5,000 bytes.
Tags: up to 500 characters in total.
Shorts: up to 3 minutes.
Videos over 15 minutes: need a verified YouTube account.
Made for kids: must be declared on every upload.

WoopSocial vs the YouTube Data API directly

Going direct to YouTube’s API means dealing with the following - all of which WoopSocial handles:

YouTube Data API direct compared with WoopSocial
YouTube Data API direct	WoopSocial
Google OAuth verification for the youtube.upload scope, often 4 to 6 weeks	Already verified
Unverified apps: 100 test users and 7-day refresh tokens	No test-user cap
10,000 quota units a day, with videos.insert costing about 100 units	No quota math for you
A resumable upload flow	Upload sessions up to 5 GB
No service accounts, so OAuth for every channel	Connect each channel once

What it doesn’t do

WoopSocial is a publishing server that uploads and schedules videos, so some YouTube features are out of scope:

Custom thumbnails
Playlists
Transcripts or channel research
Comments
Live streams or premieres

FAQ

Is there an official YouTube MCP server?

No. Google hasn’t published an official YouTube MCP server for uploading videos (as of November 2026)..

Can Claude upload to YouTube?

Yes. Add WoopSocial to Claude as a connector, connect your YouTube channel, and simply Claude to upload. It asks for your approval before each action, so you have nothing to worry about.

Do I need a Google Cloud project or API key?

No. You connect your YouTube channel through WoopSocial with Google sign-in, so there’s no Google Cloud project to create and no OAuth verification on your side, because WoopSocial already has authorization and approval. An API key is only needed for MCP clients that can’t use OAuth sign-in.

Can it schedule YouTube videos?

Yes. With WoopSocial, you can also schedule a post for later or save a draft first. Always name your time zone in the prompt.

Can it reply to YouTube comments?

No. WoopSocial is a publishing server, so it uploads and schedules videos and reads performance. It doesn’t read or reply to comments.

Can it get YouTube transcripts?

No. Fetching transcripts, searching videos and researching channels is the job of a read-only research server, and WoopSocial is a publishing server that uploads and schedules.

Can it schedule YouTube Shorts?

Yes, even though YouTube’s native publishAt parameter doesn’t work with Shorts. WoopSocial uploads it and publishes at the time you specify. A video is identified as a Short by YouTube - its shape, square or vertical, and its duration, up to 3 minutes.

Do I need to verify a Google Cloud app?

No. WoopSocial is verified for the youtube.upload scope, so you just connect your channel and start uploading. You bypass brand verification, the demo video, the 4 to 6 weeks of review, and your own app stays under the 100 test-user limit and the 7-day refresh tokens.

Can it set thumbnails or playlists?

Not so far. WoopSocial uploads to YouTube have a title, privacy, category, tags, and made-for-kids declaration, and description (which is from your post text). Custom thumbnails and playlists aren’t yet supported, so create those on YouTube Studio after the upload.

Does it include YouTube analytics?

Yes. WoopSocial returns account-level and post-level analytics for YouTube, so your agent can answer how a video or your channel is performing with no need to open YouTube Studio.

Learn more

YouTube upload API: the REST API for the same uploading features
YouTube API alternatives: how the options compare
Post to YouTube with Hermes, Muse or Grok
TikTok MCP server: the same approach for TikTok
LinkedIn MCP server: Post and Schedule to Profiles and Company Pages from Your AI Agent
Instagram MCP server: Publish and Schedule Reels, Stories and Carousels from Your AI Agent
Facebook MCP server: Publish and Schedule Page Posts, Reels and Stories from Your AI Agent
TikTok MCP server: Publish and Schedule Videos and Photo Posts from Your AI Agent