Automatic YouTube Gallery – Embed Auto-Updating YouTube Video Galleries, Feeds, Playlists & Channels

Changelog

2.9.1

• Compatibility: Tested with WordPress 7.1.

2.9.0

• Security Fix: Fixed a vulnerability that allowed an unauthenticated visitor to add YouTube videos of their choosing to any gallery on the site through the gallery pagination endpoint. The endpoint now identifies the gallery from the site’s own saved data instead of trusting the request, and will not fetch from the YouTube Data API for a gallery that does not exist on the site.
• Security Fix: A gallery’s cache duration can no longer be altered by the request, so the cache can no longer be bypassed to force repeated YouTube Data API calls against your quota. Your “Cache Duration” setting continues to work exactly as configured, including “No Caching”. Added the ayg_ajax_cache_duration filter hook for sites that need to change it.
• Security Fix: Pagination tokens for galleries that read from the YouTube Data API are now signed, so only page requests your own site issued are acted on. This closes the remaining way an unauthenticated visitor could run down your daily API quota.
• Security Fix: Search keywords are now fully URL encoded before the request is sent to the YouTube Data API, so extra parameters can no longer be appended to the outgoing request.
• Security Fix: Hardened reading of stored video thumbnail data so it can only ever produce plain data.

All of the security issues above were discovered and reported responsibly to us by Mohammed Abd Alrahman.

• New: Introduced ayg_ajax_cache_duration filter hook.
• New: Introduced ayg_get_gallery_source(), ayg_db_gallery_has_videos(), ayg_sign_page_token() and ayg_verify_page_token() helper functions.

2.8.1

• New: Introduced the Gallery Builder, which replaces the classic Shortcode Builder. Every gallery now has its own saved shortcode with a single unique ID — e.g. [automatic_youtube_gallery id="123"] — that you can reuse anywhere and manage from one place.
• New: Galleries now store their videos in the plugin’s own tables, unlocking new per-gallery options: order videos by published date, title, duration, or random; filter by duration to show only Shorts or hide Shorts; and exclude specific videos from the import.
• New: Galleries are kept up to date automatically by a scheduled background sync — choose hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly per gallery, or pause it entirely. If you ever need the newest videos right away, just open the gallery and click “Update Gallery” for an instant refresh.
• New: Gallery Builder galleries are no longer limited to 50 videos per page — set “Videos per Page” to 0 to show all videos on a single page.
• Tweak: Your existing shortcodes, Gutenberg blocks, and widgets are fully backward compatible and continue to work exactly as before — nothing on your live site changes or needs to be rebuilt.
• Tweak: Removed the “Show Annotations” (iv_load_policy) player option, as YouTube retired video annotations and the parameter no longer has any effect.
• Tweak: Refreshed the plugin logo and admin branding.
• Tweak: Updated Freemius SDK to version 2.13.4.
• Fix: Various minor bug fixes and performance enhancements.

2.7.2

• New: Added “Slider Autoplay” and “Autoplay Speed” settings for the Slider + Popup theme.
• New: Introduced ayg_theme_classic_params, ayg_theme_inline_params, ayg_theme_playlist_params, ayg_theme_slider_params, ayg_theme_slider_inline_params, and ayg_theme_slider_popup_params filter hooks for customizing player parameters per theme.
• New: Introduced ayg_theme_slider_slick_options filter hook for customizing Slick carousel options across all slider themes.
• New: Introduced ayg_search_form_params filter hook for customizing search form parameters. The previous ayg_search_form_args hook is deprecated but retained for backward compatibility.
• New: Introduced ayg_autoflush_rewrite_rules_in_admin filter hook to optionally enable rewrite rule checks in admin contexts (runs on public pages only by default).
• Tweak: Updated Freemius SDK to version 2.13.1.
• Tweak: Improved performance of video storage by replacing per-video database queries with a single bulk INSERT per API response, reducing database load on cache-miss pagination requests.
• Tweak: Disabled autoloading for the ayg_transient_keys, ayg_channel_ids, and ayg_playlist_ids options to prevent lookup caches from being loaded on every page request site-wide.
• Tweak: Switched rewrite rule flush from hard (.htaccess rewrite) to soft (database only), avoiding unnecessary file I/O on the front end.
• Fix: WordPress 7.0 compatibility issues.

2.7.1

• New: Added options to force-load the plugin’s CSS and JavaScript across all front-end pages. This helps resolve layout or functionality issues caused by themes, page builders, or optimization plugins.
• New: Added a “Shorts / Vertical (9:16)” option to the “Image Height (Ratio)” setting.
• New: Added a “Shorts / Vertical (9:16)” option to the “Player Height (Ratio)” setting.
• Tweak: Improved popup player behavior — the player now always fits within the viewport. Previously, it could extend beyond the visible area.
• Tweak: Enhanced slider dots behavior by limiting the maximum number of dots to 5 and automatically enabling dots during navigation when using the slider template.
• Tweak: Introduced a new wrapper function, ayg_get_option(), for the WordPress get_option() function to prevent issues when plugin settings are missing.
• Fix: Resolved an issue where deeplinking did not work correctly on the site home/front page.
• Fix: Registered custom query variables to prevent conflicts with SEO and optimization plugins that may strip unrecognized query vars.
• Fix: Various minor bug fixes and performance enhancements.

2.6.5

• Tweak: Updated Freemius SDK to version 2.13.0.
• Fix: WordPress 6.9 compatibility issues.

2.6.4

• New: Added support for displaying single videos in a popup.
• Tweak: Enhanced Schema.org (JSON-LD) structured data support for all single video layouts.
• Tweak: Updated Freemius SDK to version 2.12.2.
• Fix: Resolved issue where the fullscreen button stopped working during continuous play in fullscreen mode.
• Fix: Improved compatibility with the Divi page builder.
• Fix: Various minor bug fixes and performance enhancements.

2.6.1

• Security Fix: Addressed multiple security issues to enhance overall plugin security.
• Tweak: Updated the Freemius SDK to version 2.12.1.
• Fix: Fixed compatibility issues with the Oxygen page builder.
• Fix: Various minor bug fixes and performance improvements.

2.6.0

• New: Added support for disabling automatic page scroll to the video player by setting the “Page Scroll Top Offset” to -1, giving users more control over layout behavior.
• Fix: Resolved various minor bugs and applied performance improvements for a smoother experience.

2.5.9

• New: Introduced a search form to filter videos within the gallery for easier navigation.
• New: Added a dedicated settings page to manage all button labels used by the plugin in one place.
• Tweak: “Development Mode” is now disabled by default, as some users were unknowingly using it on production websites, leading to YouTube quota exceeded errors.
• Tweak: Added an option to disable caching on a per-gallery basis for greater flexibility.
• Fix: Addressed several minor bugs and implemented performance enhancements.

2.5.6

• Update: Upgraded to the latest version of the Freemius SDK for enhanced compatibility.
• Fix: Fixed multiple minor bugs to ensure a smoother and more reliable user experience.

2.5.5

• Tweak: Updated the “Freemius SDK” to version 2.10.1.
• Fix: Compatibility issues with the Elementor page builder.

2.5.2

• New: Introduced a “Custom Video Player” as an alternative to the default native YouTube embed. Users can configure this via the “Player Type” option.
• New: Added “Lazy Loading” for images and videos, enhancing page load times and overall performance.
• New: Introduced a new “Page Scroll Top Offset” option, enabling users to define a custom top offset (in pixels) when the page scrolls to the video player after clicking on a thumbnail.
• Tweak: Completely rewrote the plugin’s JavaScript files using the latest “Custom Elements” technology, ensuring better integration and improved performance.
• Tweak: Updated the “Freemius SDK” to version 2.9.0.
• Fix: Resolved various minor bugs to enhance stability and functionality.

2.4.3

• New: Introduced a new “Player Width” option.
• Tweak: Updated Freemius SDK (2.7.4).
• Fix: Poster image display issue when using the single video shortcode.
• Fix: [+] a few minor bug fixes.

2.3.9

• Tweak: Updated Freemius SDK (2.7.0).
• Fix: Livestream API caching issue.
• Fix: Conflict issue with the Google Site Kit plugin.
• Fix: [+] a few minor bug fixes.

2.3.8

• Tweak: Optimized JavaScript loading.
• Tweak: Updated Freemius SDK (2.6.2).
• Fix: GDPR compatibility issues.
• Fix: YouTube Livestream feature stopped working due to a recent update from the YouTube API.
• Fix: [+] a few minor bug fixes.

2.3.6

• Tweak: Updated Freemius SDK (2.6.1).
• Fix: WordPress 6.4 compatibility issues.
• Fix: [+] a few minor bug fixes.

2.3.5

• Fix: Security fix: Broken Access Control. Thanks to Rafshanzani Suhada from Patchstack.
• Fix: [+] a few minor bug fixes.

2.3.3

• Tweak: Updated Freemius SDK (2.5.10).
• Fix: Security fix.
• Fix: [+] a few minor bug fixes.

2.3.2

• New: WPML Compatibility.
• New: POLYLANG Compatibility.
• New: Support for the “Muted” option in the player.
• New: “Privacy Enhanced Mode” for the player.
• New: Support for YouTube “Origin” parameter that adds extra security for the player.
• New: Options to change the “Load More”, “Previous”, and the “Next” pagination button labels.
• Tweak: Updated to the Gutenberg API Version 2.
• Tweak: Updated Freemius SDK (2.5.7).
• Tweak: All the CSS & JS files added by the plugin are minified for better performance.
• Fix: [+] a few minor bug fixes.

2.2.0

• Tweak: Updated Freemius SDK (2.5.2).
• Fix: Performance issues that occurred after upgrading to our 2.1.0 version.

2.1.0

• New: Sidebar Widget.
• New: A filter hook “ayg_pagination_args” for developers to override the pagination args.
• Tweak: Player initialization has been changed from “Iframe” to “Javascript” for better performance.
• Tweak: Updated Freemius SDK (2.4.5).
• Fix: [+] few minor bug fixes.

2.0.0

• New: GDPR consent before the playback.
• Tweak: The plugin front-end has been completely rewritten.
• Fix: [+] few minor bug fixes.

1.6.5

• Security Fix.

1.6.4

• New: Auto Embed Live Stream from a YouTube Channel.
• Fix: [+] few minor bug fixes.

1.6.3

• Fix: Videos with the “Unlisted” status on the YouTube website are not showing.
• Fix: The “Single Video” source type is broken when the default theme is “Popup” in the plugin’s global settings page.

1.6.2

• Fix: WordPress 5.8 compatibility issues.

1.6.1

• Tweak: Player & Gallery script files rewritten completely for more performance and flexibility.
• Tweak: Disabled related videos at the end of the video.
• Tweak: Excluded private videos from the gallery.
• Tweak: Automatic advancing to the next video when the video is the last on the page. The “Pagination Type” should be “Load More”.
• Tweak: Updated Freemius SDK (2.4.2).
• Fix: [+] few minor bug fixes.

1.6.0

• Tweak: Updated Freemius SDK (2.4.1).
• Fix: WordPress 5.6 compatibility issues.

1.5.0

• New: A filter hook “ayg_script_args” for developers to override the gallery JS args.
• Fix: WordPress 5.5 compatibility issues.
• Fix: YouTube API key 403 forbidden error.
• Fix: SMUSH plugin conflict issues.
• Fix: [+] few minor bug fixes.

1.4.0

• Tweak: Make URLs as clickable links in the video description.
• Tweak: Updated Freemius SDK (2.4.0).
• Fix: [+] few minor bug fixes.

1.3.0

• New: Updated plugin dashboard with a shortcode builder.
• Fix: Conflict with fitvids.js plugin.

1.2.0

• Tweak: Updated Freemius SDK (2.3.0).
• Fix: Security fix.

1.1.0

• Fix: Security fix.

1.0.0

• Initial release.