Upload content to your SFTP dropbox

These features are only available to partners using YouTube's Content Manager to manage their copyrighted content.

After validating the metadata for an upload batch, you're ready to upload the files. You upload content by copying the necessary files into your dropbox, then letting us know that they are ready by creating an empty file named delivery.complete.

Which files you need to complete an upload depends on which asset type you’re uploading. Every upload job must include a metadata file in XML or CSV format and any new media files that the metadata file references by name.

We recommend uploading new assets one at a time, each with its own dropbox folder and metadata file. For example, if you’re uploading three episodes of a TV program, create three separate folders and three separate metadata files. This approach makes it easier to track the progress of the upload and limits the impact of any issues that occur, without any impact on the upload processing speed.

(Other recommended best practices)

These instructions explain how to upload content using Cyberduck, but you can use any client software that supports SFTP connections.

To upload content to your SFTP dropbox:

1. Run the Cyberduck client application.

2. The application should open up to your Bookmarks.  If not, select the Bookmarks button in the top toolbar.  Double-click the connection for your dropbox.  The client connects to your dropbox and displays the top-level folders.
   
   If you haven't set up a connection for your dropbox yet, see Connecting to your SFTP dropbox.

3. Create a new folder for the new upload job.
   
   To create a folder, right-click in the file listings pane and select New Folder. To avoid possible conflicts, we recommend that you create a new directory each time you post content for YouTube and that you include a timestamp or incremental ID in each directory's name.

4. Copy all of the files for the upload package into the new folder.
   
   To copy files into a folder, right-click the folder in Cyberduck and select Upload.  Navigate to the folder with your files and select all the files you wish to upload to this folder.
   
   Alternatively, you can click-and-drag files from your computer into the folder in Cyberduck to upload.

5. When all files are copied, upload the delivery.complete file to the same folder.

   When YouTube begins processing the batch, it replaces the files you uploaded with a continuously updated status file named delivery.processing.

You must not add any new files to the directory or any of its subdirectories after posting the delivery.complete file. Depending on the size of the batch, it can take a few seconds or minutes before you notice the files being processed. Do not upload more than one delivery.complete file per batch.

After processing each upload batch, the upload engine posts a status report detailing the actions taken for each item in the batch. The report is named status-xml-filename, where xml-filename is the filename of your metadata file. The status report is placed in your dropbox in the same directory as the upload batch.

The time needed to process an upload batch and generate a status report varies depending on system load and the actions requested. For example, the system requires much less time to process updates to an asset's metadata than to process new reference files. The upload engine will also spend additional processing time on batches that generate failed actions, because the system retries certain failed actions to ensure that failures were not caused by transient conditions such as system downtime. In some cases, we may require more than one day to process an upload batch.