YouTube PoToken Generator

Introduction

This program outputs the mysterious pair { visitorData, poToken }, with the help of jsdom.

How does it work

Only one network request is made to get a fresh copy of visitorData.

Then poToken is generated with pre-downloaded scripts from YouTube and some magic provided in lib/inject.js

No real browser is required to install.

How to use it from another language or command line

# Install NodeJS >= 18.0 and issue the folling command to install this tool
npm install -g youtube-po-token-generator

# Execute the following command somewhere in your program or directly in a shell
youtube-po-token-generator
# => {"visitorData":"...","poToken":"..."}
# A string of JSON format would be printed to stdout, parse and use it as you like

Define proxy settings before you run the program If you are in the case that typically a proxy is needed to access YouTube.

export HTTPS_PROXY=http://127.0.0.1:8888
# For Windows users
# set HTTPS_PROXY=http://127.0.0.1:8888

youtube-po-token-generator

How to use it in your JavaScript code

# Clone this repo and install dependencies
cd youtube-po-token-generator && yarn
# Or issue `npm install` instead of `yarn`, alternatively

generate is exported as the primary entry to execute the program.

const { generate } = require('youtube-po-token-generator')

generate().then(console.log, console.error)
// => { visitorData: '...', poToken: '...' }

Require lib/task directly if you have already prepared your visitorData.

const { createTask } = require('youtube-po-token-generator/lib/task')

const visitorData = '...'

createTask(visitorData).then(task => task.start()).then(console.log, console.error)
// => { poToken: '...' }

Inspect examples and bin/cli.mjs for simple examples.

Related works

This project is inspired by iv-org/youtube-trusted-session-generator.

What is a PoToken and when to use it

Please refer to the excellent explanation here.

More

Debugging the source code from YouTube was a pain.

• Pausing at key parts of the poToken generation may lead to misleading branches.

• Modification on the injected code from botguardData.program may lead to invalid tokens.

• Improper userAgent would lead to valid or invalid poToken being generated randomly, like a lottery.