Persist Youtube Data API access token in Python desktop app

Question

I have a Python application that accesses Youtube-Data-API v3.

After the program runs for an hour, it throws an error suggesting the access token has expired.

How can I persist the token for a longer period?

Answer 1

There is now way to extend the time for access token. They get expired after an hour. The only way of using a token is to get a new token using refresh_token provided by the api.

First you get offline token by setting access_type to offine while authenticating the user.

{
    'response_type': 'code',
    'client_id': 'client_id',
    'redirect_uri': '...',
    'access_type':'offline',
    'scope': 'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/youtube.readonly',
}

you will get refresh_token, access_token, id_token along with expiry and some other fields which you can save in you database and fetch later when needed.

Before using the access_token you check if it is valid

creds = google.oauth2.credentials.Credentials(access_token,refresh_token=refresh_token,id_token=id_token,token_uri=token_uri,client_id=client_id,client_secret=client_secret,scopes=scopes,expiry=expirytime)
if creds.valid == False:
  // Refresh to get the new token
  req =google.auth.transport.requests.Request()
  creds.refresh(req)
  // Now Save new Credentials from "creds" so that you can use later.

After verifying the access_token you can now query youtube data api requests

youtube = googleapiclient.discovery.build(
    "youtube", "v3",credentials=creds)
req = youtube.videos().getRating(id="xxxxxxxxx")
resp =req.execute()