How to Export a YouTube Playlist to a Spreadsheet (CSV, Excel, Google Sheets)

YouTube has no button to export a playlist to a spreadsheet. You can scroll a playlist, but you can't sort it, tick videos off, add a notes column or paste 40 links into a message without copying them one at a time. The fix is small: pull the playlist into a table once, save it as a CSV, and let a spreadsheet do the rest.

This guide uses the free YouTube playlist extractor, which needs no account, then shows how to open the file in Excel and Google Sheets and what to do with it. The same method works for Vimeo showcases and Dailymotion playlists.

Export a YouTube playlist to CSV in three steps

1. 1

   Copy the playlist link

   Open the playlist on YouTube and copy the address bar. A youtube.com/playlist?list=... link works. So does a video link that carries &list=..., because both contain the same playlist id.

2. 2

   Paste it into the extractor

   Go to the YouTube playlist extractor, paste the link and press Extract playlist. The table appears with every video in the order YouTube plays them.

3. 3

   Download the CSV

   Press Download CSV. You can also copy every watch URL at once, one per line, if all you need is the links.

What is in the file

The CSV has one header row and one row per video. These are the columns, with made-up example values so you can see the shape:

Titles with commas or quotes are escaped properly, so they stay in one cell. One safety detail: if a title starts with a character like = or +, the file adds a leading apostrophe so Excel and Sheets show it as text and never run it as a formula.

Open the CSV in Excel or Google Sheets

Excel

On the Data tab choose From Text/CSV, pick the file and press Import. If the columns land in one cell, change the Delimiter in the preview, then press Load. Microsoft notes that opening a CSV with File > Open also works, but Excel then applies its default format to each column, so the import route gives you more control (see the sources below).

Google Sheets

Open Google Sheets, choose File > Import, upload the CSV and pick where the data should go, for example a new spreadsheet or a new sheet in the current file. Google also lets you set the separator (comma for this file) or leave it on auto-detect. Once it is in Sheets, you can share it and let others add notes.

Five things to do with a playlist spreadsheet

Course tracker

Add Status, Date watched and Rating columns next to the list. A long free course stops feeling endless once you can see 14 of 38 lectures marked done.

Study plan

Add up the durations (convert them to minutes first if your sheet keeps them as text) and divide by the number of days until your exam. That gives you a daily watch target. For pacing advice, see how long to study a lecture and how to review lecture recordings before an exam.

Research log

Keep a column for the claim a video makes and another for where it is said. Pair the sheet with a citation for each video and you already have a source list.

From a list of videos to actual notes

A spreadsheet tells you what to watch. It does not tell you what you remember. When you open a video from your list, you can grab its transcript, then turn it into notes and review material. Start with how to get the transcript of a YouTube video or the free YouTube to transcript tool.

Each playlist row also links to that video's transcript tool, so you can go from the extractor straight to a transcript without retyping a URL. For retention, turning videos into flashcards beats rewatching, as covered in active recall vs rewatching.

Vimeo showcases and Dailymotion playlists

Both platforms have a matching free extractor with the same Download CSV button. The columns differ a little because the platforms expose different details.

If you searched for "Vimeo to Excel", this is the route: extract the showcase, download the CSV and open it in Excel as above. Vimeo calls a playlist a Showcase. Private or password-protected showcases and private Dailymotion playlists return nothing, same as visiting them logged out.

Want transcripts for a whole list? The transcript tools take one link at a time, so work through your sheet row by row. For Vimeo specifically, see Vimeo video transcripts.

Study the videos, not just list them

Save a video to UpSolo and turn its transcript into a summary, flashcards, a quiz or a study report. Signed-in features use credits, with a free daily allowance.

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