XCDYouTubeKit is a YouTube video player for iOS, tvOS and macOS.

MacOS

June 2, 2025

XCDYouTubeKit is a YouTube video player for iOS, tvOS and macOS.

Are you enjoying XCDYouTubeKit? You can say thank you with a tweet. I am also accepting donations. 😉

Requirements

Runs on iOS 8.0 and later

Runs on macOS 10.9 and later

Runs on tvOS 9.0 and later

Warning

XCDYouTubeKit is against the YouTube Terms of Service. The only official way of playing a YouTube video inside an app is with a web view and the iframe player API. Unfortunately, this is very slow and quite ugly, so I wrote this player to give users a better viewing experience.

Installation

XCDYouTubeKit is available through CocoaPods, Carthage and Swift Package Manager.

CocoaPods:


                                              
                                                pod “XCDYouTubeKit”, “~> 2.15”

Carthage:


                                              
                                                github “0xced/XCDYouTubeKit” ~> 2.15

Swift Package Manager:

Add XCDYouTubeKit to the dependencies value of your Package.swift


                                              
                                                dependencies: [

.package(url: “https://github.com/0xced/XCDYouTubeKit.git”, from: “2.15.0”)

]

Alternatively, you can manually use the provided static library or dynamic framework. In order to use the static library, you must:

Create a workspace (File → New → Workspace…)
Add your project to the workspace
Add the XCDYouTubeKit project to the workspace
Drag and drop the libXCDYouTubeKit.a file referenced from XCDYouTubeKit → Products → libXCDYouTubeKit.a into the Link Binary With Libraries build phase of your app’s target.

These steps will ensure that #import <XCDYouTubeKit/XCDYouTubeKit.h> will work properly in your project.

Usage

XCDYouTubeKit is fully documented.

iOS 8.0+ & tvOS (AVPlayerViewController)


                                              
                                                AVPlayerViewController *playerViewController = [AVPlayerViewController new];

[self presentViewController:playerViewController animated:YES completion:nil];
__weak AVPlayerViewController *weakPlayerViewController = playerViewController;

[[XCDYouTubeClient defaultClient] getVideoWithIdentifier:videoIdentifier completionHandler:^(XCDYouTubeVideo * _Nullable video, NSError * _Nullable error) {

if (video)

{

NSDictionary *streamURLs = video.streamURLs;

NSURL *streamURL = streamURLs[XCDYouTubeVideoQualityHTTPLiveStreaming] ?: streamURLs[@(XCDYouTubeVideoQualityHD720)] ?: streamURLs[@(XCDYouTubeVideoQualityMedium360)] ?: streamURLs[@(XCDYouTubeVideoQualitySmall240)];

weakPlayerViewController.player = [AVPlayer playerWithURL:streamURL];

[weakPlayerViewController.player play];

}

else

{

[self dismissViewControllerAnimated:YES completion:nil];

}

}];

iOS, tvOS and macOS


                                              
                                                NSString *videoIdentifier = @”9bZkp7q19f0″; // A 11 characters YouTube video identifier

[[XCDYouTubeClient defaultClient] getVideoWithIdentifier:videoIdentifier completionHandler:^(XCDYouTubeVideo *video, NSError *error) {

if (video)

{

// Do something with the `video` object

}

else

{

// Handle error

}

}];

iOS 8.0

On iOS, you can use the class XCDYouTubeVideoPlayerViewController the same way you use a MPMoviePlayerViewController, except you initialize it with a YouTube video identifier instead of a content URL.

Present the video in full-screen


                                              
                                                – (void) playVideo
{
XCDYouTubeVideoPlayerViewController *videoPlayerViewController = [[XCDYouTubeVideoPlayerViewController alloc] initWithVideoIdentifier:@”9bZkp7q19f0″];
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(moviePlayerPlaybackDidFinish:) name:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification object:videoPlayerViewController.moviePlayer];
[self presentMoviePlayerViewControllerAnimated:videoPlayerViewController];
}

– (void) moviePlayerPlaybackDidFinish:(NSNotification *)notification
{
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self name:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification object:notification.object];
MPMovieFinishReason finishReason = [notification.userInfo[MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishReasonUserInfoKey] integerValue];
if (finishReason == MPMovieFinishReasonPlaybackError)
{
NSError *error = notification.userInfo[XCDMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishErrorUserInfoKey];
// Handle error
}
}

Present the video in a non full-screen view


                                              
                                                XCDYouTubeVideoPlayerViewController *videoPlayerViewController = [[XCDYouTubeVideoPlayerViewController alloc] initWithVideoIdentifier:@”9bZkp7q19f0″];

[videoPlayerViewController presentInView:self.videoContainerView];

[videoPlayerViewController.moviePlayer play];

GitHub

View Github

#video