How to cite a YouTube video in APA, MLA and Chicago style

To cite a YouTube video, copy five things from its page: who made it or uploaded it, the exact title, the upload date, the site name (YouTube) and the web address. Then put them in the order your style asks for. APA 7 puts the date straight after the author. MLA 9 puts the uploader's name after the title when the creator is not clear. Chicago adds the running time. Each style has a template, a worked example and an in-text form below.

If you would rather not assemble the entry by hand, the free YouTube Citation Generator writes the APA, MLA and Chicago versions from the video link, the channel name, the title and the upload date. The rest of this guide is for checking its output and for the cases a form cannot decide for you: who counts as the author, how to quote a moment, and how to cite a Short.

One real video runs through the whole guide so you can compare the styles line by line. It is “Soft Robotic Gripper for Jellyfish”, a 67-second video on Harvard University's YouTube channel, posted on 28 August 2019. APA Style prints this same video as one of its own examples. The MLA and Chicago entries are our application of those styles' templates to it, not examples printed by MLA or Chicago, and they are labelled that way. Your instructor, journal or publisher can overrule any rule here, so check their instructions first.

What to copy from the video page

All three styles draw on the same few details, and every one of them is on the video page.

• Creator or uploader. The channel name under the video is the uploader. The creator is whoever made the video, which is often the same name but not always. The description sometimes credits a different person or organisation.
• Title. Copy it as YouTube shows it, then change the capital letters only if your style asks for it.
• Upload date. YouTube shows it below the video. Use the full day, not just the year.
• Address. The address of the video itself: youtube.com/watch?v= followed by the video ID, or the short youtu.be/ form. Our advice is to drop tracking extras such as ?si= from a share link, so the address stays clean.
• Running time. Only Chicago asks for it. It is written as minutes and seconds, such as 1:07, or with hours when the video is longer than an hour, such as 1:22:40.

Keep the video open while you work. The title, the date and the credit line in the description are the three places a citation most often goes wrong.

Who is the author: the creator or the uploader?

The three styles answer this differently, and it is the main reason one video gets three different-looking citations.

• APA says to use the name of the account that uploaded the video as the author. If the account did not create the work and readers need to know that, say so in your sentence. APA adds that if citing the uploader would mean relying on a source that looks unauthoritative, you can look for the real author's channel, website or social media to see whether the same video is available there.
• MLA says that if the primary creator is clear, you list the creator in the author position. If it is not clear, you leave the author out, start with the title and name the uploading account after the word YouTube. You can also name the account when the creator is clear, if it helps readers.
• Chicago's editors say most YouTube content is made by someone other than YouTube, so the key is to give the details of the item itself, doing extra research if needed, and then add the YouTube details, at the very least a URL.

In our example, Harvard University is the uploader and the video description credits the Wyss Institute at Harvard University. The APA entry therefore names Harvard University, as APA's own example does. Our MLA and Chicago entries name the Wyss Institute and show Harvard University as the uploader.

How to cite a YouTube video in APA 7

APA Style's page on YouTube references, which follows section 10.12 of the Publication Manual, gives one template for a video. Italicise the title of the video, which plain text here cannot show.

• Author: the account that uploaded the video.
• Date: the specific day the video was uploaded, written as (2019, August 28).
• Title: italic, in sentence case. APA's capitalisation page says to use sentence case for the titles of works in reference entries even if the original used title case. In sentence case you capitalise the first word of the title, the first word of a subtitle, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns. YouTube shows this title as “Soft Robotic Gripper for Jellyfish”, so the reference lowercases Robotic, Gripper and Jellyfish.
• Description: [Video] in square brackets straight after the title.
• Site and address: YouTube, then the URL, with no full stop after the URL. A video reference has no retrieval date. A channel reference does, as shown below.

APA in-text citations

APA prints the two forms for this video as a parenthetical citation, (Harvard University, 2019), and a narrative citation, Harvard University (2019). To cite the words of someone who appears in a video, APA says to name or describe that person in your sentence and then cite the video in parentheses.

To quote from a video, APA says to give a time stamp for the start of the quotation in place of a page number, and its example, (Cuddy, 2012, 2:12), is a talk. A quotation of fewer than 40 words goes inside quotation marks in your sentence. At 40 words or more it becomes a block quotation with no quotation marks, indented 0.5 in. from the left margin, with the citation after the final punctuation. In both cases the citation goes in the same sentence as the quote.

APA: a YouTube channel

APA has a separate form for a whole channel. The title is the name of the channel tab you used, italic, followed by [YouTube channel]. Channel pages open on the Home tab, so Home is the title unless you cite another tab such as Playlists. A channel reference has a retrieval date, because the content is designed to change over time and is not archived. Cite the channel when your point is about the channel itself. If you rely on one video, cite the video.

How to cite a YouTube video in MLA 9

The MLA Style Center's answer depends on whether the primary creator is clear. Copy the title exactly as it appears on YouTube. The container is YouTube, set in italics, followed by the date shown below the video and then the address.

A complete work uploaded to YouTube, such as a film, is different. The film is the first container, with its director and studio taken from the description, and YouTube is the second container. This guide covers ordinary videos.

MLA abbreviates the longer month names, as its own YouTube example does with 24 Apr. 2014, and that example gives the address without https://. Some university guides keep https://, so follow whichever your instructor expects. The words uploaded by Harvard University are optional here, because the creator is clear. The Style Center says you may include the account name when it gives readers useful information.

An access date is optional. The MLA Style Center post on the subject, written about the eighth edition, says it is most useful when a work has no date or may be altered or removed. If you add one, it goes at the end: Accessed 3 Oct. 2026.

MLA in-text citations

An MLA in-text citation begins with whatever comes first in the works-cited entry, the author's name or the title. If you quote or paraphrase a specific part and the work offers a page number, line number, time stamp or similar marker, that marker goes in the parentheses. Do not repeat the author in both your sentence and the parentheses.

The MLA Style Center confirms that a time stamp is a location marker but does not set out how to write it. Two university library guides to MLA 9 do. The University of British Columbia guide says to give hours, minutes and seconds as they display on your device, separated by colons. Los Angeles Pierce College gives the pattern as hours:minutes:seconds, a hyphen between the start and end of a passage, and says you can leave out the hours for something under an hour. The timestamp belongs in the in-text citation only. The UBC guide says a works-cited entry does not need one.

How to cite a YouTube video in Chicago style

Chicago has two systems. Notes and bibliography puts a numbered note at the foot of the page and a bibliography at the end. Author-date puts the author and year in the text and a reference list at the end. The patterns below follow the 18th edition (2024), as shown in the Chicago Manual of Style's citation quick guides and its Q&A on YouTube.

Chicago's editors start with the creator, then add what YouTube contributes: the posting date, the uploader, YouTube itself and the running time, ending with the address. The quick guide adds that, unless it is clear from context, the bibliography may say video or the like.

The shortened note and the in-text form show how Chicago handles a moment in a video: the word at, then the time. Its quick guide gives a range as at 6:09–17, where the second time drops the minute. By the same pattern, a passage from 0:32 to 0:41 would read at 0:32–41. The 1:07 running time in the notes is the video's full length, as Chicago's own examples give it.

Quoting a moment: timestamps in all three styles

Use the time where the quoted words begin. Every example time in this guide, including 0:32, is a placeholder to show the format. It is not a claim about what that video says at that moment. YouTube's transcript panel shows the caption text, and clicking a line jumps the video to that part, which is a quick way to find the second you need.

To copy the words together with their times, the Transcript Generator shows the caption track, keeps the time on each line when YouTube supplies one, and lets you copy it or download it as TXT or SRT. YouTube warns that automatic captions can misrepresent the spoken words. Listen to the clip before you put words in quotation marks, and quote what you hear.

How to cite a YouTube Short

None of the three style guides has a separate rule for a Short. A Short is a YouTube video, so you use the video template and change only the address. A Short's own address reads youtube.com/shorts/ followed by the video ID, and the same ID also opens in a youtube.com/watch?v= address. Use the one from your address bar, or the form your instructor asks for.

Our example is a Short from NASA's channel, “Heart Tissues Beat on the International Space Station”, posted on 14 February 2023 and 8 seconds long. NASA's channel is both uploader and creator here, so there is no author question.

APA's examples use the description [Video] and do not mention Shorts, so use [Video] rather than inventing [Short]. The styles ask for a timestamp when you quote or point to a specific part, so a Short you refer to as a whole needs none. For what makes a video a Short in the first place, see our guide to how long YouTube Shorts can be.

Citing a channel, a playlist or a livestream

A channel

APA's channel form is above. MLA's guidance on social media profiles, which is written about a Twitter account and does not mention YouTube, says that if you refer to a profile only in general terms, giving its address or handle in parentheses in your text is enough and you need no works-cited entry. If you quote or paraphrase a specific post, you create an entry for that post. We suggest treating a channel the same way: a passing mention gets the address in the text, and a video you rely on gets its own entry.

The Chicago quick guides have no template for a channel page. They say citations of social media content can usually be limited to the text, with a note added if a more formal citation is needed. That fits a passing mention of a channel. If you rely on a channel page as a source, cite it like a web page, with the date you accessed it, which is our suggestion rather than a Chicago example.

A playlist

None of the guides we checked has a template for a playlist. Cite the individual videos you used.

A livestream

APA says a livestream that is not archived by YouTube and cannot be retrieved any other way is cited as a personal communication. By extension, a stream that YouTube has archived and readers can still play is cited with the video template, which is our reading rather than an example APA prints.

Common mistakes

• Title case in APA. APA reference entries use sentence case even when the uploader used title case, so “Soft Robotic Gripper for Jellyfish” becomes Soft robotic gripper for jellyfish. MLA is the opposite: it copies the title exactly as YouTube shows it.
• Leaving out [Video] in APA. The bracketed description tells readers what kind of source it is.
• Naming the channel as author without checking the credit. APA wants the uploading account. MLA and Chicago want the real creator when you can tell who it is, and the description is where to look.
• Quoting without a time. All three styles ask for a location marker when you quote, and for a video that is the time the quote begins.
• Trusting the caption wording. Automatic captions might mishear a name or a term, so check the audio before you quote.
• Citing a re-upload by accident. The same work often appears on several channels, and the MLA Style Center notes that versions of one work on video sites can differ, even in length by a few seconds. Cite the version you watched.
• Adding a retrieval date to an APA video entry. A video reference has none. A channel reference does.
• Mixing styles. Year placement from APA with month abbreviations from MLA gives an entry that no style guide recognises.

Using the free citation generator

The YouTube Citation Generator is free and needs no account. Paste a video link, and its fill button reads the title, channel and upload date from YouTube's public video data. You can also type those three details in. It returns an APA 7 reference with the in-text forms, an MLA 9 entry, and a Chicago note and bibliography entry, with italics on the APA title and the MLA site name. A switch tells it whether the channel made the video or only uploaded it, which decides whether MLA and Chicago lead with the channel name. YouTubeScribe makes the tool, so read this section as the vendor talking. The style rules above come from the style guides listed under Sources, not from the tool.

The citations are built in your browser. Only the fill button makes a request, and it sends just the video link. The tool tidies a youtu.be link, a Shorts link or a link with a timestamp to the plain youtube.com/watch?v= address, so swap in the /shorts/ form for a Short if you prefer it.

Four things stay with you. APA wants a sentence-case title, and the tool keeps the title as you give it, so lowercase it yourself. A timestamp for a quotation has to be added by hand. Chicago's running time is not added either. And when the channel is not the creator, change the channel name to the person or organisation credited in the description for MLA and Chicago.

Whatever produces the entry, compare it with the video page before you submit. Check the title, the date and the credit line, because those are the details a tool cannot judge for you.

Questions people ask

Sources

1. APA Style. YouTube references (Publication Manual section 10.12). apastyle.apa.org· Checked 3 October 2026, read from the Internet Archive copy of 30 September 2026 because the live page blocks automated requests.
2. APA Style. Quotations. apastyle.apa.org· Checked 3 October 2026, read from the Internet Archive copy of 30 September 2026.
3. APA Style. Direct quotation of material without page numbers. apastyle.apa.org· Checked 3 October 2026, read from the Internet Archive copy of 30 September 2026.
4. APA Style. Sentence case capitalization. apastyle.apa.org· Checked 3 October 2026, read from the Internet Archive copy of 30 September 2026.
5. MLA Style Center. How do I cite YouTube videos? style.mla.org· Checked 3 October 2026.
6. MLA Style Center. In-text citations: an overview. style.mla.org· Checked 3 October 2026.
7. MLA Style Center. How do I cite a social media profile? style.mla.org· Checked 3 October 2026.
8. MLA Style Center. How do I treat the title of a work uploaded to a video sharing site? (post about the eighth edition). style.mla.org· Checked 3 October 2026.
9. MLA Style Center. When should I include an access date for an online work? (post about the eighth edition). style.mla.org· Checked 3 October 2026.
10. University of British Columbia Library. MLA 9th edition citation style guide: audiovisual and images. guides.library.ubc.ca· Checked 3 October 2026.
11. Los Angeles Pierce College Library. Citing your sources in MLA 9th: videos and other multimedia. library.lapc.edu· Checked 3 October 2026.
12. The Chicago Manual of Style Online. How do I cite a YouTube video in Chicago style? (18th edition). chicagomanualofstyle.org· Checked 3 October 2026.
13. The Chicago Manual of Style Online. Citation quick guide: notes and bibliography. chicagomanualofstyle.org· Checked 3 October 2026.
14. The Chicago Manual of Style Online. Citation quick guide: author-date. chicagomanualofstyle.org· Checked 3 October 2026.
15. YouTube Help. View video transcripts. support.google.com· Checked 3 October 2026.
16. YouTube Help. Use automatic captioning. support.google.com· Checked 3 October 2026.
17. Harvard University. Soft Robotic Gripper for Jellyfish (YouTube video, 1:07, posted 28 August 2019; the example video). youtube.com· Checked 3 October 2026.
18. NASA. Heart Tissues Beat on the International Space Station (YouTube Short, 0:08, posted 14 February 2023; the example Short). youtube.com· Checked 3 October 2026.

Reviewed on 3 October 2026. If a line is wrong, email support@youtubescribe.com.