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Paste a YouTube URL. Get a clean APA 7th edition reference plus a matching in-text citation — channel as author, italicized title, [Video] bracket, and full URL. Free, no signup.
Tip: Paste the video URL — we'll pull the title, channel, and upload date automatically.
The big decision when citing a YouTube video in APA 7 is who counts as the author. APA's rule: the person or group who uploaded the video is the author — even if a different person appears in the video. So a TED talk uploaded by the TED channel is "TED" as author, not the speaker. A lecture uploaded by Stanford with Robert Sapolsky on screen is "Stanford" as author. The exception: when the channel name is clearly just the creator's name (e.g., "Veritasium" is run by Derek Muller, but "Veritasium" is what appears as the author). This rule trips up almost every student — most expect the speaker on screen to be the author. APA disagrees.
TED. (2010, October 5). Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgRlrBl-7Yg
Sapolsky, R.(Year, Month Day) form: (2010, October 5). APA 7 requires the full date for online videos, not just the year.[Video] immediately after the title, not italicized. This signals the medium to readers.https://.Standard APA in-text format: (Author, Year). For a video, that's the channel name and upload year: (TED, 2010). When quoting or referencing a specific moment, add the timestamp in hh:mm:ss format: (TED, 2010, 3:14). For a range, use a hyphen: (TED, 2010, 3:14–4:02). The timestamp goes where a page number would in a print-source citation.
(TED, 2010, 3:14)
APA 7 explicitly says: "For audiovisual works on streaming platforms, the person or group who uploaded the work is credited as the author." This is true even when the actual speaker, performer, or director is named in the video. Channels are treated like organizational authors. The only time you'd use a person's name in the author slot is when the channel is that person's name (e.g., "Veritasium" stays as "Veritasium," but a personal vlog channel called "Jane Smith" becomes Smith, J.). When in doubt, copy the channel name exactly as YouTube displays it.
[Video] format bracket. APA 7 requires it for all video sources to flag the medium.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=… form, not youtu.be/….Paste a YouTube URL and we read the page metadata (Open Graph tags, schema.org JSON-LD) for the video title, channel name, and upload date. The CSL engine renders APA 7 formatting: channel as author, italicized sentence-case title, [Video] bracket, "YouTube." site, full URL. The matching (Channel, Year) in-text citation comes alongside — add a timestamp manually when quoting a specific moment.
The channel. APA 7's rule: the uploader is the author, even when a different person appears on screen. So a TED talk uploaded by TED is "TED" as author. A lecture uploaded by Stanford is "Stanford." Mention the on-screen speaker in your text ("Daniel Kahneman argues…"), but the citation uses the channel.
Add the timestamp inside the in-text parenthesis: (TED, 2010, 3:14) for a single moment, (TED, 2010, 3:14–4:02) for a range. Use hh:mm:ss when the video is over an hour. The timestamp doesn't go in the reference list — only the in-text citation.
Use the channel name exactly as YouTube displays it, including capitalization and stylization (Vsauce, MrBeast, T-Series). Treat it as an organizational author. Don't expand abbreviations or normalize the case.
No. APA 7 only requires retrieval/access dates for content designed to change (wikis, live data, social profiles). YouTube videos have a fixed upload date, so the upload date is enough. Don't add "Retrieved [Date]" or "Accessed [Date]" to a YouTube video citation.
If the video is publicly accessible via the URL (even if behind a paywall or membership), cite it normally. If it's truly private and your reader can't access it, treat it as a personal communication — cite it in-text only with the format (F. Lastname, personal communication, October 5, 2010) and don't include it in the reference list.
Same template: uploader as author, full date, italicized sentence-case title, format bracket (e.g., [Video]), site name, URL. APA 7 covers all audiovisual social media with the same structure. Switch the source-type pill to "Video" and the generator handles it.
The full APA 7 Citation Generator handles books, websites, journal articles, reports, and more.
Use the MLA YouTube Citation Generator for the same video in MLA 9 — the format is quite different.
Use the APA Website Citation Generator for articles, blog posts, and online news in APA 7.
Our How to cite a YouTube video guide covers Vimeo, TikTok, and other platforms.
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