An apology for the long outage
Updated
DiskYT remained broken for far too long. If you relied on it to organize your playlists, spent time retrying failed actions, or reported a problem and waited for a fix, I'm sorry. Your frustration was justified.
What happened
Users reported failures when adding videos, importing playlists, and authorizing YouTube sync. Some reports included a YouTube API quota error. At the time, I suspected an API-key problem, but I did not investigate enough to establish the exact cause. It would be misleading to attribute every failure to one invalidated key, or to blame YouTube for the entire outage.
There were also problems that predated the outage: confusing controls, large-playlist limits, and unreliable workflows. Restoring the YouTube connection alone does not address all of them.
How DiskYT started
I finished the original DiskYT project in 2016, between full-time jobs. It was a personal experiment in making YouTube playlists easier to organize. I thought the main achievement was finishing it and putting it online for people to use, after which it could mostly live on its own. I also hoped it might eventually become financially sustainable.
I underestimated what comes after launch. Frameworks and dependencies change, operating systems age, security vulnerabilities appear, and YouTube, Google, and Facebook APIs evolve. Keeping a small website running is ongoing work, not a one-time accomplishment. PHP and this hosting stack are not technologies I use professionally; I chose them as an affordable way to host my experiments on a VPS.
Why it took so long
Full-time work left much less time and energy for those experiments. I gradually retired several other projects, and even lost one after missing a domain renewal. With DiskYT, years without active development made returning to the code increasingly daunting. I kept postponing the work instead of fixing the problems or clearly explaining the situation. That explains the delay; it does not excuse it.
In October 2026, I found myself between jobs again. While looking for a new role, I have a little more time to revisit DiskYT. A critical PHP vulnerability was the push to stop postponing maintenance, and AI-assisted development made tackling the modernization feasible. Without that combination, I honestly doubt I would have returned to it now.
AI assistance is a tool, not a guarantee that the work is correct. The focus is on maintaining the application on a supported stack, testing core playlist workflows, and reviewing the feedback that accumulated. Basic playlist functionality is the first priority; not all advanced features have been checked yet. This is not a claim that every historical problem has been resolved.
Trust and communication
This project was built with good intentions, but I understand that broken features and unanswered reports can undermine trust. I am not active on social media and do not check those channels regularly. That contributed to slow responses; I should have made it clearer where to report problems and what level of support to expect.
You do not need a social login to use DiskYT. You can create a name-and-password account without an email address or your real name. Choose an available username and a unique password, not a password you use elsewhere. Copying to YouTube or accessing private YouTube playlists still requires separate Google authorization.
What to expect
Reliability and clearer workflows come before new features. DiskYT still depends on YouTube: API quota, unavailable videos, embedding restrictions, and authorization can limit what it can do. Those limitations need to be explained rather than leaving you with a button that appears to do nothing.
Continued availability also depends on YouTube's policies and permission to use its services, as well as my ability to maintain DiskYT. I cannot guarantee that either will remain unchanged, or promise that the site will always be available. I hope it remains useful, but please do not rely on it as the only record of an important collection.
I am not currently planning to make DiskYT open source. Finding a sustainable way to fund it is still an aspiration, not a business plan or a promise of ongoing support.
For now, please use GitHub issues for bug reports and suggestions rather than the old on-site comments. Check existing reports first. If you open an issue, include your browser, the steps you tried, the error message, and a public example link if possible. Do not post passwords, API keys, or private playlist information.
I cannot promise a response time or a fix for every request. Thank you to everyone who reported problems and explained how you used DiskYT. That feedback helps identify what matters most.