Online Tool Store
· 4 min read
How to Check Which Category a YouTube Video Uses
Heshan Fernando
Co-founder & COO
Category is the setting nobody thinks about. It’s buried under “Show more” in the upload flow, it defaults to whatever you picked last time, and most creators set it once in 2019 and never look again.
It’s a minor signal — but it’s not nothing, and it’s one of the few upload settings you can check on other people’s videos. When a channel in your niche consistently uses a different category from yours, that’s worth at least a look.
What the category actually does
Every YouTube video carries a category, stored as a numeric ID: 27 is Education, 26 is Howto & Style, 22 is People & Blogs, 20 is Gaming. The public interface shows the name; the API shows the number.
The category contributes to how the platform understands your content, and it plays a part in advertiser suitability — which advertisers are willing to appear against which kinds of video. It also loosely shapes the pool of content yours gets compared against.
What it does not do is override behaviour. Watch time, click-through rate and viewer satisfaction dominate everything. Changing category on a video that isn’t working won’t fix it. Setting it correctly is hygiene, not strategy.
Why people get stuck here
- It’s hidden. Under advanced settings, easy to miss entirely on upload.
- It’s sticky. New uploads inherit the last setting, so one wrong choice propagates for years.
- The names overlap. Education, Howto & Style, and Science & Technology all plausibly describe a tutorial about a piece of software.
- You can’t see it on other videos in the normal interface, so there’s no easy way to compare against your niche.
What good category hygiene looks like
Consistent across a channel
Wildly varying categories across similar videos gives the platform contradictory signals. Pick the one that best describes what you make, and apply it consistently unless a video genuinely differs.
Matched to comparable content
If eight of the ten videos most like yours use Education and you’re using People & Blogs, that’s a mismatch worth understanding. It may be deliberate — or it may be a setting nobody ever revisited.
Checked when the channel changes direction
Channels drift. A gaming channel that becomes a hardware review channel should revisit the setting rather than inheriting it forever.
| Content | Common Choice | Also Plausible |
|---|---|---|
| Software tutorial | Education (27) | Science & Technology (28) |
| Craft or cooking demo | Howto & Style (26) | Education (27) |
| Personal update | People & Blogs (22) | Entertainment (24) |
Common mistakes to avoid
- Leaving the default in place because the upload succeeded anyway.
- Changing category weekly to test it — the effect, if any, is slow and swamped by everything else.
- Choosing a category for perceived reach rather than accuracy; misfiling is more likely to confuse the recommendation system than to game it.
- Assuming a category change will reset or damage a video’s performance. It won’t.
- Treating category as an SEO lever. It isn’t one.
How to do it with YouTube Video Category Checker
The YouTube Video Category Checker shows the filed category and the numeric ID, which is the piece the normal interface hides.
- Paste the video URL you want to inspect.
- Read the category name and its ID.
- Compare against similar videos in the same niche to see whether you’re the outlier.
- If your own videos are misfiled, change it in YouTube Studio under the video’s advanced settings, and give it a couple of weeks before judging anything.
The YouTube Data API documentation lists every category ID if you’re working programmatically. Other channel tools are in the tools directory.
Frequently asked questions
Does category affect how many views a video gets?
Only weakly. It’s one signal among many, and behaviour signals matter far more. It does matter for advertiser suitability, which can affect revenue on monetised channels.
Can I change the category after publishing?
Yes, in YouTube Studio under advanced settings. It doesn’t reset performance or re-trigger a publishing notification.
What is a category ID for?
It’s what the API uses. If you’re bulk-uploading, auditing a back catalogue, or scripting anything against your channel, you’ll work in numbers rather than names.
Final thought
Set it accurately, set it consistently, and then stop thinking about it. Category is a box worth ticking correctly once — it’s not a lever worth pulling repeatedly.