Connect your YouTube channel

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TubeCMS connects to your YouTube channel via Google OAuth. This means you sign in with your Google account and grant TubeCMS read-only access to your channel's public data (videos, playlists, channel info).

YouTube is required — your site needs a connected channel to go live. Without it, your site will be in maintenance mode and visitors will see a holding page.

When do you connect?

There are two ways your channel gets connected:

  • During signup — if you click Sign up with YouTube, your channel is connected automatically as part of the signup flow. Your channel name, avatar, banner, and videos are pulled in immediately.
  • During the setup wizard — step 3 of the 3-step setup wizard after signup prompts you to connect your YouTube channel if you haven't already (e.g. if you signed up via email).

If you skip both, you can always connect later from the Integrations page.

Connecting manually

  1. Go to your Admin Panel → Social → Integrations
  2. Find the YouTube section
  3. Click Connect YouTube
  4. Sign in with the Google account that owns your YouTube channel
  5. Grant the requested permissions

Integrations page showing YouTube connection status
Integrations page showing YouTube connection status

TubeCMS requests read-only access to your YouTube channel. We never post, delete, or modify anything on your channel.

What gets synced

Once connected, TubeCMS pulls in:

  • Channel info — name, description, avatar, banner image
  • All public videos — title, description, thumbnail, publish date, view count
  • New uploads — synced automatically within seconds via push notifications

Multiple channels

Each TubeCMS site connects to one YouTube channel. If you have multiple channels, you can create separate TubeCMS sites for each.

Disconnecting

You can disconnect your YouTube channel at any time from Admin Panel → Social → Integrations → Disconnect YouTube. This removes your OAuth token and all YouTube data (cached videos, thumbnails, channel info) from your site, as required by Google's API policies.

Important: Disconnecting puts your site into maintenance mode, since a connected YouTube channel is required for your site to be live. Reconnecting will restore your site and re-sync your videos.