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YouTube

YouTube

Track what you watch without an account or API key.

What it does

YouTube syncs your watch history into daily markdown files. Patina reads your browser's local history database, extracts YouTube URLs, fetches video titles, and writes them to youtube/YYYY-MM-DD.md. This feeds into your identity profile and surfaces patterns in your interests over time.

No YouTube account, API key, or authentication is needed. It reads directly from your browser's SQLite database on your machine.

Used by

/sync-youtube /sync /sync-identity

Setup

1

Use a supported browser

Patina reads watch history from your browser's local database. The following browsers are supported:

  1. Chrome (most common)
  2. Arc
  3. Dia

The sync script tries each browser in order and uses the first one it finds. You don't need to configure anything as long as you use one of these browsers to watch YouTube.

2

Grant disk access (if needed)

The first time the sync runs, macOS may ask for permission to read your browser's history file. Grant access when prompted. If running headlessly via the menu bar app, make sure your terminal app has Full Disk Access in System Settings > Privacy & Security.

3

Create the sync skill

Paste this into Claude Code:

Set up content history tracking for my Patina. Create a /sync-youtube skill that creates a youtube/ directory and a script to read my local browser history SQLite database (try Chrome, Arc, and Dia), filter for youtube.com/watch URLs, fetch titles via oEmbed, and write daily markdown files.
4

Run your first sync

$ bash scripts/sync-youtube.sh

You can sync multiple days at once by setting YOUTUBE_SYNC_DAYS=7 before running the script.

How it works

  1. Locates your browser's history SQLite database on disk
  2. Queries for URLs matching youtube.com/watch
  3. Fetches video titles using YouTube's public oEmbed API (no key needed)
  4. Groups videos by date
  5. Writes one file per day to youtube/YYYY-MM-DD.md
  6. Incremental: existing entries aren't duplicated on re-sync

The /sync-all skill includes YouTube sync automatically, so your watch history stays up to date if you run syncs regularly or have them scheduled.