Any YouTube ID is a YouTube ID which means you can use any shorts ID and music ID to watch as a YouTube URL (adding functionality shorts and music URLs lack)
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/01/24
YouTube has diversified its content separating out YouTube Shorts and YouTube Music.
The main YouTube viewing experience has a few advantages over the other two experiences:
- content can be monetised
- content can arranged into lists (including Watch Later)
- auto-play can be turned off
All below links have the same ID, but the ones with checkmarks can use all the above features whereas the ones with crosses cannot.
I have omitted both the communication protocol (which can be http or https) and where possible the subdomain (for which you can add as www for the full web-site and m for the mobile web-site).
| Box | Example | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| ✅ | youtube.com/watch?v=VT-zZpc0rRg | |
| ✅ | youtube.com/v/VT-zZpc0rRg | |
| ✅ | youtu.be/VT-zZpc0rRg | |
| ❌ | youtube.com/shorts/VT-zZpc0rRg | No monetisation; auto-play; no list-management |
| ❌ | music.youtube.com/watch?v=VT-zZp | No monetisation; audio-only; no list-management |
Based on:
- [Wayback/Archive] ⣗⡲⡯⠝ ⢎⣉⣉⣉⣉⣉⡱ on Twitter: “PSA:
youtube.com/shorts/VT-zZpc0rRg❌ views cannot* be monetized ❌ autoplay is on ❌ the moral equivalent of linking someone to tvtropes change the “shorts” into “v“:youtube.com/v/VT-zZpc0rRg✅ views are monetizable ✅ won’t play another short afterwards ✅ share this link instead” - [Wayback/Archive] Jeroen Wiert Pluimers on Twitter: “@badp Green check marks too: …A shorts ID is just a YouTube ID, same for any music ID…”
Related: [Wayback/Archive] Monetization | Wikitubia | Fandom
TODO: hold this against these forks for completeness:
- [Wayback/Archive] Example of the various YouTube url formats (rodrigoborgesdeoliveira)
- [Wayback/Archive] Example of the various YouTube url formats (Xeoncross)
- [Wayback/Archive] Example of the various YouTube url formats (jezmck)
--jeroen
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
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