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I'm not sure how well known it is, but YouTube itself has an RSS feed for each channel (well, Atom feed, most feed readers treat them interchangeably). https:/

I'm not sure how well known it is, but YouTube itself has an RSS feed for each channel (well, Atom feed, most feed readers treat them interchangeably). https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=XX https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=XX Where XX is the channel ID (the last component in the URL when you go to a channel). It's actually how I consume YouTube these days. It's a slightly orthogonal problem to the solution posted here, since it doesn't follow the RSS "enclosure" spec. Though my feedreader knows enough to call youtube-dl on these URLs, which is fragile at best, but works for me.

dugite-code 5y ago
I only subscribe to youtube channels with RSS. It's the only practical way to always see new videos on a channel. I find it honestly baffling me to see the hoops creators I subscribe to have to beg people to jump through to maaaybeee get notified when there is a new video up. They used to have an OPML export, but it looks like it was removed
- tantalor 5y ago
  > the only practical way to always see new videos What's wrong with the "subscriptions" tab/page on yt?
  - dugite-code 5y ago
    It will sometimes just not show a video from a creator for unknown reasons or it will disappear between sessions. It's been an issue that's popped up regularly over the years on the youtube support forums so it looks like even that is not a pure feed of content and is subject to the whims of the "algorithm". Not to mention the notifications list for new videos on mobile is also wildly inconsistent and unpredictable
    - tantalor 5y ago
      > an issue that's popped up regularly over the years... looks like even that is not a pure feed of content Sounds more like a bug affecting some small % of users a long time ago, and was fixed. > notifications list for new videos on mobile is also wildly inconsistent and unpredictable What does that even mean? It works fine for me. I see the exact same videos on mobile and desktop (65 subs).
  - dankwizard 5y ago
    A time it failed me is a content creator I follow who puts out social commentary on a variety of subjects, usually critising the moderation of YouTube, his video would not show in the subscriptions page and viewers would have to navigate to his channel and watch from there.
  - astura 5y ago
    It's not a straight feed (like you'd expect), it's more like recommendations so not all videos show up on it.
    - tantalor 5y ago
      This isn't true, and it's easy to check: go to your subscriptions page and compare to each channels' published videos. There should be none missing. I have 65 subs, and 100% of the videos from each channel are on my subscriptions page, with some channels publishing only once a month, or once a quarter.
    - IndexPointer 5y ago
      I don't think so... I've never seen the subscriptions tab skipping a video of the channels I follow.
  - IndexPointer 5y ago
    For some channels I only watch some of their content. RSS allows me to add filters based on the video name. Plus, my RSS client works like email, so I can mark as read or unread easily.
    - tantalor 5y ago
      This would be a good use case for an RSS feed of your own subscriptions, but sadly YT does not support that.
jldugger 5y ago
Your note about the enclosure spec is worth underscoring: without enclosures, it pretty much doesn't work on mobile podcast apps. At best you get a todo list that you have to manually click on to view, whereas normal enclosures can be downloaded and enjoyed offline. And woe unto the Android app that tries to circumvent this and download YT vids directly.
Isthatablackgsd 5y ago
You can use QuiteRSS to parse YouTube into a proper RSS feed. It can handles custom channel url as well and it will spit out into channel ID. Then you can export it into OPML for your preferred feed reader. Or use RSS Bridge (huge, huge supports for thousands of website), it required PHP though.
- Jorengarenar 5y ago
  >You can use QuiteRSS to parse YouTube into a proper RSS feed. Unless you are from Europe and are getting this stupid "Before you continue to YouTube" page.
IndexPointer 5y ago
Me too. I thought I was the only one that still uses RSS for my YouTube channels. I could just subscribe to the channel and open the subscriptions tab on YouTube, but RSS allows me to add manual filters on my RSS client (blogtrottr), because for some channels I'm only interested in some of their content.
- mackrevinack 5y ago
  its also great way to keep track of which videos you've watched
Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
And combine this with NewPipe[1] and there's no reason to miss YouTube app at least on android. [1] https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe

dugite-code 5y ago

I only subscribe to youtube channels with RSS. It's the only practical way to always see new videos on a channel. I find it honestly baffling me to see the hoops creators I subscribe to have to beg people to jump through to maaaybeee get notified when there is a new video up. They used to have an OPML export, but it looks like it was removed

tantalor 5y ago
> the only practical way to always see new videos What's wrong with the "subscriptions" tab/page on yt?
- dugite-code 5y ago
  It will sometimes just not show a video from a creator for unknown reasons or it will disappear between sessions. It's been an issue that's popped up regularly over the years on the youtube support forums so it looks like even that is not a pure feed of content and is subject to the whims of the "algorithm". Not to mention the notifications list for new videos on mobile is also wildly inconsistent and unpredictable
  - tantalor 5y ago
    > an issue that's popped up regularly over the years... looks like even that is not a pure feed of content Sounds more like a bug affecting some small % of users a long time ago, and was fixed. > notifications list for new videos on mobile is also wildly inconsistent and unpredictable What does that even mean? It works fine for me. I see the exact same videos on mobile and desktop (65 subs).
- dankwizard 5y ago
  A time it failed me is a content creator I follow who puts out social commentary on a variety of subjects, usually critising the moderation of YouTube, his video would not show in the subscriptions page and viewers would have to navigate to his channel and watch from there.
- astura 5y ago
  It's not a straight feed (like you'd expect), it's more like recommendations so not all videos show up on it.
  - tantalor 5y ago
    This isn't true, and it's easy to check: go to your subscriptions page and compare to each channels' published videos. There should be none missing. I have 65 subs, and 100% of the videos from each channel are on my subscriptions page, with some channels publishing only once a month, or once a quarter.
  - IndexPointer 5y ago
    I don't think so... I've never seen the subscriptions tab skipping a video of the channels I follow.
- IndexPointer 5y ago
  For some channels I only watch some of their content. RSS allows me to add filters based on the video name. Plus, my RSS client works like email, so I can mark as read or unread easily.
  - tantalor 5y ago
    This would be a good use case for an RSS feed of your own subscriptions, but sadly YT does not support that.

jldugger 5y ago

Your note about the enclosure spec is worth underscoring: without enclosures, it pretty much doesn't work on mobile podcast apps. At best you get a todo list that you have to manually click on to view, whereas normal enclosures can be downloaded and enjoyed offline. And woe unto the Android app that tries to circumvent this and download YT vids directly.

Isthatablackgsd 5y ago

You can use QuiteRSS to parse YouTube into a proper RSS feed. It can handles custom channel url as well and it will spit out into channel ID. Then you can export it into OPML for your preferred feed reader. Or use RSS Bridge (huge, huge supports for thousands of website), it required PHP though.

Jorengarenar 5y ago
>You can use QuiteRSS to parse YouTube into a proper RSS feed. Unless you are from Europe and are getting this stupid "Before you continue to YouTube" page.

IndexPointer 5y ago

Me too. I thought I was the only one that still uses RSS for my YouTube channels. I could just subscribe to the channel and open the subscriptions tab on YouTube, but RSS allows me to add manual filters on my RSS client (blogtrottr), because for some channels I'm only interested in some of their content.

mackrevinack 5y ago
its also great way to keep track of which videos you've watched

Abishek_Muthian 5y ago

And combine this with NewPipe[1] and there's no reason to miss YouTube app at least on android. [1] https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe