Automate YouTube Shorts Uploads with n8n & Google API

Transform your YouTube Shorts content creation from a time-consuming manual process into a fully automated system. This n8n workflow template uses Google Drive storage and ChatGPT transcription to automatically upload your short-form videos with AI-generated titles, descriptions, and hashtags—all without lifting a finger.

What this workflow does

This automation creates a complete YouTube Shorts publishing pipeline that handles everything from video selection to upload:

• Connects to your Google Drive datasheet containing your shorts and reels library
• Downloads the next scheduled video from your Drive automatically
• Uses ChatGPT to transcribe video content from video format to text
• Generates optimized titles, descriptions, and hashtags based on the video transcript
• Uploads the video to your YouTube channel with all metadata
• Marks videos as uploaded to prevent duplicates
• Runs on your custom schedule to maintain consistent posting frequency

Use cases

• Content creators who want to maintain consistent YouTube Shorts posting schedules without manual intervention
• Social media agencies managing multiple client YouTube channels with bulk video content
• Educators and coaches repurposing longer content into automated short-form video series
• SaaS companies automating product demo shorts and tutorial uploads
• Marketing teams scaling video content distribution across YouTube Shorts

Technical details

This template integrates several powerful automation nodes:

• YouTube API integration for automated video uploads and channel management
• Google Drive API for video file storage and retrieval
• ChatGPT integration for video transcription and content generation
• Data Table node for managing upload queues and tracking
• Conditional logic (If node) for upload status management
• Custom code execution for advanced video processing

Setup requires Google Cloud Console configuration for YouTube API access and OAuth credentials—but once configured, the workflow runs completely hands-free. Perfect for n8n users ready to scale their YouTube Shorts strategy with intelligent automation.