How to let an editor upload to your YouTube channel
You have four options. Three of them do not involve us.
The honest version of this question is not “which tool” but “how much am I willing to hand over”. Here is each option with what it actually costs, including the ones you should take if they fit — most channels do not need a fourth thing.
Share your Google login
How it works. You give your editor the email and password to the Google account that owns the channel.
What it costs you. Everything in that account, not just YouTube — Gmail, Drive, anything else signed in with it. Two-step verification either has to be turned off or its codes shared, and if the account is ever compromised there is no way to tell which of you was signed in.
Verdict. The one option with no upside. Channel permissions exist specifically so nobody has to do this.
Grant channel permissions
How it works. In YouTube Studio → Settings → Permissions, invite your editor by email and give them the Editor role. They sign in with their own Google account and never see your password.
What it costs you. There is no approval step. Every role that can upload can also publish, immediately. And a standard Editor sees your revenue and can edit every video you have already published — the role that hides earnings is the separately-named Editor (limited), which can still do everything else.
Verdict. The right answer to password-sharing, and it does not answer the review question at all.
Upload as private or unlisted, publish yourself
How it works. Grant permissions as above, but agree that everything goes up unlisted. You watch it, then flip it to public.
What it costs you. It relies on the agreement being kept every single time, because the permission that uploads is the permission that could publish. It also costs you the listing work — a video already on the channel is awkward to send back with notes, so corrections tend to happen in chat and get lost.
Verdict. Works, and it is a convention rather than a control. Fine with one editor you have worked with for years.
Put an approval step in front of YouTube
How it works. Your editor uploads the finished master to Uplora and writes the title, description, tags and thumbnail there. You watch it, leave notes pinned to the second they are about, and either approve it or send it back. Only on approval does anything reach YouTube.
What it costs you. A subscription, from $9.99 a month, and one more place your editor uploads to. Editors and managers are free — the channel's owner is the only paid seat.
Verdict. The only one of the four where the video cannot reach the channel before you have seen it.
Why there is no approval step to turn on
It is worth understanding rather than working around blindly. YouTube's permission roles are built to answer “who may touch this channel”, not “in what order”. Every role that can upload can publish, and Google's own documentation also states that users invited through channel permissions cannot access YouTube APIs — so no third-party tool can add a review step using your editor's access either. The full table, with the source, is on the permissions page.
That is the whole reason Uplora publishes on the channel owner's own authorisation. It is not a preference — it is the only way an outside tool can put a video on your channel at all. What that authorisation does and does not include.
Questions
- Can my editor publish to my channel without my Google password?
- Yes — that is exactly what YouTube's channel permissions are for. Invite them in YouTube Studio → Settings → Permissions and they sign in with their own account. What permissions do not give you is a review step: the same role that uploads can publish immediately.
- Which YouTube role should I give a freelance editor?
- If you want them to be unable to see your earnings, the role is 'Editor (limited)' rather than 'Editor' — the standard Editor role includes revenue data. Neither role can be stopped from publishing, and both can edit videos you have already published.
- Can a third-party tool upload to my channel using my editor's access?
- No. Google's documentation states that users invited through channel permissions cannot access YouTube APIs. Any tool that publishes on your behalf must run on the channel owner's own authorisation, granted by the owner directly.
- What happens to my videos if I stop paying?
- The workspace becomes read-only. Nothing is deleted — every master, comment and setting stays viewable, downloadable and exportable, and publishing switches back on the moment a plan is picked. There is a 7-day trial first, with no card.
If option four is the one you want, the plans are here — 7 days free, no card, and your editors never pay.