Youtube Can Currently Allow 73,786,976,294,838,206,464 Videos to Be Uploaded to the Site

Youtube is a massive site.

It is the largest video-sharing website in the world and the 2nd most visited site on the web behind google.

Hundreds of hours of video gets uploaded to youtube every minute.

Literally every major company in the world advertises on youtube through their youtube channel.

Videos are many times lifestreamed.

How many videos can youtube currently allow on the site? There's got to be a limit, right?

Well, right now that limit is 73,786,976,294,838,206,464 videos.

Yes, 73 quintillion videos. Not billions, not trillions, not quadrillions, but 73 quintillions.

How did I arrive at this number?

If you're astute with youtube, you may have noticed that each video that gets uploaded to the site has an 11-digit ID number.

Youtube generates a random 11-digit ID number for each video uploaded to the site.

This 11-digit number is based off of base 64 counting system.

What this means is that each digit of the 11 digits selected has 64 possible combinations.

The base 64 system uses 64 possible combinations, digits 0-9 (10 combinations), lowercase letters a-z (26 combinations), uppercase letters A-Z (26 combinations), a hypen (-), and an underscore (_).

Let's break this down. Being that each of the 11 digits has 64 possible combinations, there is 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 possible combinations, or 73,786,976,294,838,206,464 possible combinations.

Let's break this down slowly.

If youtube used a single digit, there would be 64 (64¹) possible combinations of IDs. In other words, it would run out in less than a second. This wouldn't work.

If youtube used 2 digits, there would be 64 x 64 (64²) combinations, or 4096 possible combinations. Youtube gets this in an hour. It also wouldn't work.

If youtube used 3 digits, there would be 64 x 64 x 64 (64³) combinations, or 262,144 combinations.

If youtube used 4 digits, there would be 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 (64⁴) combinations, or 16,777,216 combinations. We're in the millions with just 5 digits

If youtube used 5 digits, there would be 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 (64⁵) combinations, or 1,073,741,824 combinations. We've now hit the billion mark with 6 digits.

If youtube used 6 digits, there would be 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 (64⁶) combinations, or 68,719,476,736 combinations. We're deep in the billions.

If youtube used 7 digits, there would be 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 (64⁷) combinations, or 4,398,046,511,104 combinations. We're now in the trillions with 7 digits.

If youtube used 8 digits, there would be 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 (64⁸) combinations, or 281,474,976,710,656 combinations. We're now deep in the trillions with 8 digits.

If youtube used 9 digits, there would be 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 (64⁹) combinations, or 18,014,398,509,481,984 combinations. We're now in the quadrillions with 9 digits.

If youtube used 10 digits, there would be 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 (64¹⁰) combinations, or 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 combinations. We're now over 1 quintillion with 10 digits.

If youtube used 11 digits, there would be 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 (64¹¹) combinations, or 73,786,976,294,838,206,464 combinations. We're now deep in the quintillions with 11 digits.

Let's think about how significant of a number this is? 73,786,976,294,838,206,464

There's just about 7 billion people in the world. Yes, I know some of them are newborns or are 1 or 2 and yes some are hooked up to life support, so those groups won't necessarily be uploading videos to youtube, but for all purposes, let's say there's 7 billion people, which is 7,000,000,000.

73,786,976,294,838,206,464/7,000,000,000= 10,540,996,613.5

This means that youtube will run out of video id numbers if every person in the world uploads 10,540,996,613.5 videos during their lifetime. Not happening.

Youtube is safe.

And even if youtube wasn't, all they would have to do is add more digits. If they added a single digit more, making 12 digits, there would be 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 x 64 (64¹²) combinations, or 4,722,366,482,869,645,213,696 combinations. Yes, 4 sixtillion video ids with just a single more digit addeed.

Youtube doesn't have to worry about video ids. They won't run out of video ids before they run out of server space. That's more of a pressing concern.

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