YouTube Watch Later MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides access to a custom YouTube playlist. The server exposes a simple tool to retrieve URLs of videos added to the specified playlist within a specified timeframe.

Features

Get URLs of videos added to a custom playlist within a configurable number of days
Simple interface that returns just the video URLs
OAuth2 authentication for secure access to your YouTube data

Installation

Installing via Smithery

To install YouTube Watch Later for Claude Desktop automatically via Smithery:

npx -y @smithery/cli install youtube-watchlater --client claude

Manual Installation

Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/rados10/youtube-watchlater-mcp.git
cd youtube-watchlater

Install dependencies:

npm install

Build the project:

npm run build

Setup

1. Create Google Cloud Project

Go to Google Cloud Console
Create a new project or select an existing one
Enable the YouTube Data API v3
Go to Credentials → Create Credentials → OAuth 2.0 Client ID
Set Application Type to "Web application"
Add "http://localhost:3000/oauth2callback" to Authorized redirect URIs
Copy your Client ID and Client Secret

2. Get Refresh Token

Run the provided script with your Google Cloud credentials:

OAUTH_CLIENT_ID="your_client_id" OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET="your_client_secret" node get-refresh-token.js

The script will:

Open your default browser to the Google authorization page
Ask you to sign in and authorize the application
Display your refresh token in the terminal

3. Configure MCP Settings

Add the server configuration to your MCP settings file:

For VSCode (Claude Dev Extension): ~/Library/Application Support/Code/User/globalStorage/saoudrizwan.claude-dev/settings/cline_mcp_settings.json

For Claude Desktop App: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-watchlater": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/youtube-watchlater/build/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "OAUTH_CLIENT_ID": "your_client_id",
        "OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET": "your_client_secret",
        "OAUTH_REFRESH_TOKEN": "your_refresh_token"
      }
    }
  }
}

Usage

The server provides a single tool get_watch_later_urls that accepts an optional daysBack parameter:

// Get videos added in the last day (default)
{ "daysBack": 1 }

// Get videos added in the last week
{ "daysBack": 7 }

The server will return an array of YouTube URLs for the matching videos:

[
  "https://youtube.com/watch?v=video1",
  "https://youtube.com/watch?v=video2",
  ...
]

Token Refresh

The refresh token doesn't expire unless you explicitly revoke access. You only need to get a new one if you:

Revoke the application's access in your Google Account settings
Reset your Google account's security settings
The token becomes invalid for any other reason

To get a new refresh token, simply run the get-refresh-token.js script again as described in the Setup section.

Development

The server is built with:

TypeScript
@modelcontextprotocol/sdk
googleapis (YouTube Data API v3)

To modify the server:

Make your changes in src/index.ts
Run npm run build to compile
Restart the MCP server to apply changes