Connecting your YouTube accounts to channel-guard

channel-guard reads your YouTube channel data through OAuth — you authorize it once per Google account, and we can read the channels on that account until you revoke access.

Step-by-step: first connection

1. Sign in to channel-guard with the same email you'll use for your YouTube data.
2. Click "Connect YouTube account" on the onboarding screen.
3. Google's consent screen opens. Sign in with the Google account that owns (or manages) the YouTube channels you want to monitor.
4. Grant the requested scopes:
   • youtube.readonly (channel metadata)
   • yt-analytics.readonly (analytics)
5. You'll be redirected back to channel-guard with the channels visible.
6. Select which channels to track.

Multiple Google accounts

If you operate channels across several Google accounts:

1. After the first connection, click "Connect another account" in Settings → Accounts.
2. Sign out of Google (or use a different browser/profile) so the OAuth flow shows the right account chooser.
3. Sign in with the second Google account. Authorize the same scopes.
4. The channels from that account appear alongside the first set.

Repeat for each Google account.

Brand accounts

Brand-account channels show up when you sign in with any Google account that manages the brand account. You don't need to find the brand account itself — connecting the manager account is enough.

If you have a channel on a brand account that no longer has any manager Google account, you'll need to recover or add a manager first (Google account settings → Brand account → Add manager).

When access stops working

OAuth tokens can expire if:

• You revoke access in your Google account security settings
• Google rotates the refresh token (rare, security-driven)
• The Google account is closed or suspended

If channel-guard loses access, the affected channel shows "Sync error" in your dashboard. Click "Reconnect" to redo the OAuth flow.

What we can and can't see after connection

Can see:

• Public and private channel metadata (subscriber count, views, video list)
• Analytics data (views, watch time, demographics)
• Per-video performance

Cannot see:

• Content of unpublished or draft videos
• Comments awaiting moderation
• Email addresses of your subscribers
• Anything outside YouTube (Gmail, Drive, etc.)

Revoking access

You can revoke channel-guard's access in two places:

1. In channel-guard: Settings → Accounts → click "Disconnect" next to the account
2. In Google: myaccount.google.com/permissions → find channel-guard → Remove access

Revoking stops new data sync immediately. Existing data we've stored remains until you delete your channel-guard account (Settings → Delete account).

Adding or removing channels later

If you create new YouTube channels under an already-connected Google account, they appear in channel-guard within 24 hours. To track them, go to Settings → Accounts → Select channels and enable them.

To stop tracking a channel without disconnecting the whole Google account, untoggle it in the same settings page.

Plan limits

• Free: 1 channel
• Starter: 5 channels
• Pro: 30 channels

You can connect channels above your plan limit but only the first N (by selection order) will sync. The rest show "Plan limit reached" until you upgrade or remove others.