YouTube Comment Picker

This YouTube comment picker chooses one or more winners from the people who commented on your video. Paste the video link and the tool imports the public comments, applies your giveaway rules and draws winners plus alternates at random. Use it as a YouTube giveaway picker or a plain random comment picker for YouTube. It is free, with no account to create.

Instagram works differently: it does not let outside sites read comments from a link, so the Instagram giveaway picker uses comments you copy and paste.

1. Copy the video’s address: a standard watch link, a youtu.be short link, a Shorts link or a live link. The 11-character video ID on its own works too.
2. Paste it into “YouTube video link”, set the import options and click “Import comments”. A counter shows the progress, and “Cancel” stops the import.
3. Set your rules: one entry per account, required keyword or hashtag, minimum mentions, excluded accounts.
4. Review the preview table, where each comment is marked valid or excluded, with the reason.
5. Choose how many winners and alternates you need, then click “Draw”.

The picker reads the video’s top-level comments, up to 20,000 per import. Replies are not imported, and neither are comments held for review in YouTube Studio: approve those first if they should take part. Private videos and videos with comments turned off cannot be imported.

Two options apply before the import. “Exclude the channel’s own comments” is on by default, so the comment announcing your giveaway can never make your channel a winner. “Comments posted until” is optional: enter the closing date and time from your rules, in your device’s time zone, and later comments are left out.

Your browser then applies the same filters as our Instagram tool. One entry per account, on by default, gives a viewer who commented six times a single chance. Required keyword or hashtag keeps only comments that contain it, Minimum mentions (0 by default) asks for distinct @handles, and Excluded accounts removes moderators or sponsors. The preview shows each comment’s status and the number of valid entries.

Draw from 1 to 100 winners and up to 20 alternates, without replacement, so no account comes out twice. Results are ranked: winners first, then alternates in the order you would contact them if a winner goes silent. Up to 5,000 entries, the draw plays on the animated wheel; above that, a fast reel of names takes its place.

Copy the results, export a CSV file or create a result image sized for a story or a square post. The draw certificate records the date, the settings, the winners, the alternates and a SHA-256 fingerprint of the participant list. Share the list too, and anyone can recompute the fingerprint.

Put the rules in the video description or a pinned comment: the prize, who can enter, shipping countries, the closing date and time with its time zone, and how long the winner has to reply. Then copy that exact deadline into “Comments posted until”.

YouTube no longer has private messages, so announce the winner by replying to their comment or in a community post, and ask them to email the address given in your rules. Warn viewers that fake accounts copying a creator’s name often reply to comments asking for fees: you will never do that.

YouTube’s contest policies ask, among other things, that you state YouTube is not a sponsor of your giveaway; check the current version and your local law. This is general information, not legal advice.

Our server sends the video ID to the YouTube API Services and passes the public comments back to your browser, with no YouTube login, password or Google account involved. API responses stay in a cache for 10 minutes at most to save quota, then are deleted. By using the import, you agree to the YouTube Terms of Service; the Google Privacy Policy also applies. Details are in our privacy policy.

Yes. Your browser’s cryptographic random generator picks winners among valid entries only, and each result is fixed before the animation starts. With 800 valid accounts and one entry per account, each has exactly 1 chance in 800 of being the first winner. Our page on how the draw stays fair explains the method, with a simulator. For a list that doesn’t come from YouTube, use the raffle generator; for several different prizes, try a prize wheel.