5 ms·

Show HN: FreshTube – show latest videos from YouTube channels

115 points by porjo 3y ago

I use it almost daily and thought others might find it useful. I submitted this to HN 6 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14409019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14409019

nobrains 3y ago
How is it different from YouTube subscriptions page? As I understand it will hide any old ones since last refresh compared to the YT subs page which will show all. (I need something like this for Hacker News)
- pgorczak 3y ago
  The subscriptions page can’t be filtered to show some subset/group of channels. I use PocketTube as a plugin-based alternative.
  - thanksgiving 3y ago
    I am not a fan of the “upcoming” or scheduled videos. I wish there was a way to remove shorts and upcoming videos from my subscription page on YouTube.
    - ithinkso 3y ago
      I forgot shorts exist, there are ublock origin filters that work beautifully. I haven't blocked the upcoming ones because there are very rare in my feed and I just unsubscribed from the few notorious offenders
    - browningstreet 3y ago
      There are plugins available that do this on desktop.
- ireadmevs 3y ago
  For HN I like to use https://hckrnews.com/ https://hckrnews.com/ It doesn’t hide old entries, but clearly divide them.
Oras 3y ago
Is there a way to see newly uploaded videos by topic instead of channels?
thomashabets2 3y ago
I wrote https://github.com/ThomasHabets/yurate https://github.com/ThomasHabets/yurate and use it daily to triage new videos from channels I subscribe to. It uses a playlist (to triage into) and google drive's application specific storage (so not access to other google drive files) for state, so is entirely client side. Usable here: https://cement.retrofitta.se/tmp/yt/yt.html https://cement.retrofitta.se/tmp/yt/yt.html
manuelmoreale 3y ago
Not the same but since YouTube still has RSS support you can add your favorite channels to an rss reader and get notified about new videos (and unfortunately also shorts)
- dewey 3y ago
  Having no way to filter shorts is such a weird behavior. Especially on the TV apps…where portrait format video makes even less sense.
  - nntwozz 3y ago
    You can filter out shorts with Yattee https://github.com/yattee/yattee https://github.com/yattee/yattee and Invidious https://github.com/iv-org/invidious https://github.com/iv-org/invidious.
    - dewey 3y ago
      Thanks but all these alternative front ends are not really a solution most of the time as I still rely on native YouTube features a lot (playlists, recommendations, notifications, etc.)
  - throw7 3y ago
    for shorts i use youtube-shorts block. the key thing is it plays it as a normal video, but you can also block/hide shorts.
- jraph 3y ago
  Yep! That's what Invidious uses. That's what I use to subscribe to channels. The main view does not separate shorts from normal videos neither though. I guess some could implement this in the future.
stevethomas 3y ago
Slightly tangential to this but I also use https://getstarmaker.com/spark https://getstarmaker.com/spark to discover really fresh videos with low subscriber count.
- JoshTriplett 3y ago
  Interesting metric. What are some videos that you found that way and consider worth watching?
punkspider 3y ago
For a similar reason I've been using https://pockettube.io/ https://pockettube.io/ for the past year, to manage my YT subscriptions, and it is one of the most impactful extensions I've installed. Features I really like: + Subscription groups: When subscribing to channels you choose in what subscription group to put them. In your left sidebar you can see all your subscription groups and total the number of new videos they published. - When you click on a subscription group from your left sidebar, it doesn't take you away from the current YT URL you're on. It just opens a well-integrated modal window from which you can see what's new. There you can also filter whether the videos watched/unwatched/shorts/uploads/live/. + Notifications when a new video video is published in a certain subscription group. For example last year I wanted to keep up with the latest Stable Diffusion developments, so I had a group for this, with high quality channels only, and wanted to be notified when a new video is published. It feels like more people should know about this extension. Somehow I feel I've found it pretty late in the game, when I realized YT's default subscription management was very painful to me.
- bambax 3y ago
  Interesting, but most features seem to be reserved to Patreon sponsors.
  - punkspider 3y ago
    I never felt like I needed the premium features. It seems like they offer a higher level of granularity when organizing your subscriptions. For me, the features offered by the free version are perfect and I often wonder why YouTube doesn't have something like these features built-in.
- okasaki 3y ago
  You can subscribe to youtube channels through an RSS reader and get features like this.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
Escapade5160 3y ago
I'll try this out. Currently I use PipePipe (NewPipe fork) and have subscription groups I use to pull the latest videos for a specific set of channels.
- hiccuphippo 3y ago
  Same here. Extra points because NewPipe subscriptions are independent of YouTube subscriptions. You don't even need to be logged in.
gillyb 3y ago
I created TubeMail.io to get an email digest of new videos from a list of YouTube channels u define. It's not open source, but free to use (with no ads or catches)
- pcf 3y ago
  I tried logging in using my Google account, but I got this: "Access blocked: tubemail.io has not completed the Google verification process p.c.frankplads@gmail.com tubemail.io has not completed the Google verification process. The app is currently being tested, and can only be accessed by developer-approved testers. If you think you should have access, contact the developer. If you are a developer of tubemail.io, see error details. Error 403: access_denied"
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Decabytes 3y ago
My strategy is just to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/blocksite/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/blocksite/ with the regex R:^https://www.youtube.com/$ https://www.youtube.com/$ and redirect that to https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions With this strategy, I've often seen videos from my favorite YouTubers within minutes of them posting a new video. It also allows me to "finish" watching YouTube for the day.
- nullandvoid 3y ago
  My version of this is news feed eradicator extension (to block any algorithmic sections on YT), plus ublock origin to block shorts element shown in subscriptions.
- figgyc 3y ago
  I think you've linked the wrong "Block Site" extension, at least I couldn't find regex blocking or redirecting in that one, but this one has it: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/block-website/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/block-website...
justinl33 3y ago
This is definitive proof that YouTube subscriptions is dead
collsni 3y ago
We've come full circle. Honestly I hate 'AI' or predicted recommendations in my personal feed.this type of stuff is fine in a explore category. I actually feel as if the recommendations make it harder to find videos I enjoy
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
throw0101b 3y ago
Reminder that YouTube provides feeds for channels: * https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=[ID] https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=[ID]
bloopernova 3y ago
Mostly offtopic: This reminds me of the LiveJournal page where you could view all the latest images uploaded to that site. It was a mix of everything from news to porn and gave a small insight into the zeitgeist. It was also voyeuristic, and to this almost 50 year old it seems similar to the endless-refresh consumption of tiktok. The web was definitely much, much smaller back then. You couldn't do something similar with any of the large social media sites, although maybe a small random sampling would work. I wonder if part of the perceived ills of social media are due to the sheer scale of it all? It's impossible to be "caught up" with anything anymore, there's always another trillion gallons pouring out of the firehose. Perhaps that's partly why HN endures, it stays small?
- noman-land 3y ago
  During the Small Web days it was possible to get "caught up" because the web was mostly niche. Now that the web encompasses most of society it's not possible to get "caught up" in the same way. You simply can't know about everything. The Overwhelming Web requires the opposite strategy from FOMO. It requires aggressive pruning, unsubscribing, and careful curation of attention. The niche underground nerdery has turned into a tidal wave of mainstream bullshit and trying to get "caught up" on that is the trap of the generation.
  - rafabulsing 3y ago
    I like the phrasing of "The Overwhelming Web"! Quick Googling shows no other similar uses, did you just come up with it?
    - noman-land 3y ago
      Yeah, it seemed like a more apt description of what we have than "large web".
- mbirth 3y ago
  I remember some TED talk or some other tech talk where the presenter mentioned a Flickr stream of all newly uploaded photos. As you could only set the permissions after uploading photos, often, some private photos and scanned documents would appear in that stream for a few minutes.
bbstats 3y ago
How is this better than subscriptions? (Genuinely asking)
browningstreet 3y ago
My YouTube process must be very corner case. I usually keep an eye on subscriptions during the day and add the videos I want to watch to watch later and then order them a special way. House and trailers first, entertainment, fitness and then music. I have a separate watch later for the gym that I curate in a similar order for long treadmill runs. And that gets downloaded to the phone. I do this every day. YouTube’s changing interface designs usually make this harder and harder. Being able to order by channel groups would actually help this but I usually watch via AppleTV app in the evening. Apparently very few people use watch later and order intentionally. Just two actions to corner case myself.
- catlover76 3y ago
  [dead]
- vallode 3y ago
  How many minutes/hours a day do you spend curating your subscriptions? This sounds fairly exhausting looking at it throughout the day, every day. Surely you'd be able to achieve the same effect curating your subscriptions at the end of the day, or even end of the week.
  - browningstreet 3y ago
    It's literally minutes, not a big deal, but I also curate content for my child around shared interests. Youtube has channels and playlists and barely wants you to use them.
- geerlingguy 3y ago
  I do the exact same thing and couldn't imagine using YouTube another way. YouTube sometimes hides the watch later option, which is getting annoying (it only shows up at certain screen widths now on non-app), but I can usually find a way (even if I have to resort to emailing the URL, then later dropping it in a wider browser window on my desktop. (Only difference is I actually drag longer videos towards the top of the list since they can sit there a while until I get a few minutes to actually watch them).
aqme28 3y ago
Reminds me of the Unhook extension, which I use and love. It disables all youtube recommendations, leaving only channels you've subscribed to,

115 points by porjo 3y ago

I use it almost daily and thought others might find it useful. I submitted this to HN 6 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14409019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14409019

nobrains 3y ago

How is it different from YouTube subscriptions page? As I understand it will hide any old ones since last refresh compared to the YT subs page which will show all. (I need something like this for Hacker News)

pgorczak 3y ago
The subscriptions page can’t be filtered to show some subset/group of channels. I use PocketTube as a plugin-based alternative.
- thanksgiving 3y ago
  I am not a fan of the “upcoming” or scheduled videos. I wish there was a way to remove shorts and upcoming videos from my subscription page on YouTube.
  - ithinkso 3y ago
    I forgot shorts exist, there are ublock origin filters that work beautifully. I haven't blocked the upcoming ones because there are very rare in my feed and I just unsubscribed from the few notorious offenders
  - browningstreet 3y ago
    There are plugins available that do this on desktop.
ireadmevs 3y ago
For HN I like to use https://hckrnews.com/ https://hckrnews.com/ It doesn’t hide old entries, but clearly divide them.

Oras 3y ago

Is there a way to see newly uploaded videos by topic instead of channels?

thomashabets2 3y ago

I wrote https://github.com/ThomasHabets/yurate https://github.com/ThomasHabets/yurate and use it daily to triage new videos from channels I subscribe to. It uses a playlist (to triage into) and google drive's application specific storage (so not access to other google drive files) for state, so is entirely client side. Usable here: https://cement.retrofitta.se/tmp/yt/yt.html https://cement.retrofitta.se/tmp/yt/yt.html

manuelmoreale 3y ago

Not the same but since YouTube still has RSS support you can add your favorite channels to an rss reader and get notified about new videos (and unfortunately also shorts)

dewey 3y ago
Having no way to filter shorts is such a weird behavior. Especially on the TV apps…where portrait format video makes even less sense.
- nntwozz 3y ago
  You can filter out shorts with Yattee https://github.com/yattee/yattee https://github.com/yattee/yattee and Invidious https://github.com/iv-org/invidious https://github.com/iv-org/invidious.
  - dewey 3y ago
    Thanks but all these alternative front ends are not really a solution most of the time as I still rely on native YouTube features a lot (playlists, recommendations, notifications, etc.)
- throw7 3y ago
  for shorts i use youtube-shorts block. the key thing is it plays it as a normal video, but you can also block/hide shorts.
jraph 3y ago
Yep! That's what Invidious uses. That's what I use to subscribe to channels. The main view does not separate shorts from normal videos neither though. I guess some could implement this in the future.

stevethomas 3y ago

Slightly tangential to this but I also use https://getstarmaker.com/spark https://getstarmaker.com/spark to discover really fresh videos with low subscriber count.

JoshTriplett 3y ago
Interesting metric. What are some videos that you found that way and consider worth watching?

punkspider 3y ago

For a similar reason I've been using https://pockettube.io/ https://pockettube.io/ for the past year, to manage my YT subscriptions, and it is one of the most impactful extensions I've installed. Features I really like: + Subscription groups: When subscribing to channels you choose in what subscription group to put them. In your left sidebar you can see all your subscription groups and total the number of new videos they published. - When you click on a subscription group from your left sidebar, it doesn't take you away from the current YT URL you're on. It just opens a well-integrated modal window from which you can see what's new. There you can also filter whether the videos watched/unwatched/shorts/uploads/live/. + Notifications when a new video video is published in a certain subscription group. For example last year I wanted to keep up with the latest Stable Diffusion developments, so I had a group for this, with high quality channels only, and wanted to be notified when a new video is published. It feels like more people should know about this extension. Somehow I feel I've found it pretty late in the game, when I realized YT's default subscription management was very painful to me.

bambax 3y ago
Interesting, but most features seem to be reserved to Patreon sponsors.
- punkspider 3y ago
  I never felt like I needed the premium features. It seems like they offer a higher level of granularity when organizing your subscriptions. For me, the features offered by the free version are perfect and I often wonder why YouTube doesn't have something like these features built-in.
okasaki 3y ago
You can subscribe to youtube channels through an RSS reader and get features like this.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

Escapade5160 3y ago

I'll try this out. Currently I use PipePipe (NewPipe fork) and have subscription groups I use to pull the latest videos for a specific set of channels.

hiccuphippo 3y ago
Same here. Extra points because NewPipe subscriptions are independent of YouTube subscriptions. You don't even need to be logged in.

gillyb 3y ago

I created TubeMail.io to get an email digest of new videos from a list of YouTube channels u define. It's not open source, but free to use (with no ads or catches)

pcf 3y ago
I tried logging in using my Google account, but I got this: "Access blocked: tubemail.io has not completed the Google verification process p.c.frankplads@gmail.com tubemail.io has not completed the Google verification process. The app is currently being tested, and can only be accessed by developer-approved testers. If you think you should have access, contact the developer. If you are a developer of tubemail.io, see error details. Error 403: access_denied"

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Decabytes 3y ago

My strategy is just to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/blocksite/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/blocksite/ with the regex R:^https://www.youtube.com/$ https://www.youtube.com/$ and redirect that to https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions With this strategy, I've often seen videos from my favorite YouTubers within minutes of them posting a new video. It also allows me to "finish" watching YouTube for the day.

nullandvoid 3y ago
My version of this is news feed eradicator extension (to block any algorithmic sections on YT), plus ublock origin to block shorts element shown in subscriptions.
figgyc 3y ago
I think you've linked the wrong "Block Site" extension, at least I couldn't find regex blocking or redirecting in that one, but this one has it: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/block-website/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/block-website...

justinl33 3y ago

This is definitive proof that YouTube subscriptions is dead

collsni 3y ago

We've come full circle. Honestly I hate 'AI' or predicted recommendations in my personal feed.this type of stuff is fine in a explore category. I actually feel as if the recommendations make it harder to find videos I enjoy

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

throw0101b 3y ago

Reminder that YouTube provides feeds for channels: * https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=[ID] https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=[ID]

bloopernova 3y ago

Mostly offtopic: This reminds me of the LiveJournal page where you could view all the latest images uploaded to that site. It was a mix of everything from news to porn and gave a small insight into the zeitgeist. It was also voyeuristic, and to this almost 50 year old it seems similar to the endless-refresh consumption of tiktok. The web was definitely much, much smaller back then. You couldn't do something similar with any of the large social media sites, although maybe a small random sampling would work. I wonder if part of the perceived ills of social media are due to the sheer scale of it all? It's impossible to be "caught up" with anything anymore, there's always another trillion gallons pouring out of the firehose. Perhaps that's partly why HN endures, it stays small?

noman-land 3y ago
During the Small Web days it was possible to get "caught up" because the web was mostly niche. Now that the web encompasses most of society it's not possible to get "caught up" in the same way. You simply can't know about everything. The Overwhelming Web requires the opposite strategy from FOMO. It requires aggressive pruning, unsubscribing, and careful curation of attention. The niche underground nerdery has turned into a tidal wave of mainstream bullshit and trying to get "caught up" on that is the trap of the generation.
- rafabulsing 3y ago
  I like the phrasing of "The Overwhelming Web"! Quick Googling shows no other similar uses, did you just come up with it?
  - noman-land 3y ago
    Yeah, it seemed like a more apt description of what we have than "large web".
mbirth 3y ago
I remember some TED talk or some other tech talk where the presenter mentioned a Flickr stream of all newly uploaded photos. As you could only set the permissions after uploading photos, often, some private photos and scanned documents would appear in that stream for a few minutes.

bbstats 3y ago

How is this better than subscriptions? (Genuinely asking)

browningstreet 3y ago

My YouTube process must be very corner case. I usually keep an eye on subscriptions during the day and add the videos I want to watch to watch later and then order them a special way. House and trailers first, entertainment, fitness and then music. I have a separate watch later for the gym that I curate in a similar order for long treadmill runs. And that gets downloaded to the phone. I do this every day. YouTube’s changing interface designs usually make this harder and harder. Being able to order by channel groups would actually help this but I usually watch via AppleTV app in the evening. Apparently very few people use watch later and order intentionally. Just two actions to corner case myself.

catlover76 3y ago
[dead]
vallode 3y ago
How many minutes/hours a day do you spend curating your subscriptions? This sounds fairly exhausting looking at it throughout the day, every day. Surely you'd be able to achieve the same effect curating your subscriptions at the end of the day, or even end of the week.
- browningstreet 3y ago
  It's literally minutes, not a big deal, but I also curate content for my child around shared interests. Youtube has channels and playlists and barely wants you to use them.
geerlingguy 3y ago
I do the exact same thing and couldn't imagine using YouTube another way. YouTube sometimes hides the watch later option, which is getting annoying (it only shows up at certain screen widths now on non-app), but I can usually find a way (even if I have to resort to emailing the URL, then later dropping it in a wider browser window on my desktop. (Only difference is I actually drag longer videos towards the top of the list since they can sit there a while until I get a few minutes to actually watch them).

aqme28 3y ago

Reminds me of the Unhook extension, which I use and love. It disables all youtube recommendations, leaving only channels you've subscribed to,