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· By Felix

How to Subscribe to YouTube RSS Feeds

Learn how to get RSS feeds for YouTube channels and how to customize them to get feeds without shorts

YouTube has RSS feeds for every channel and playlist, it is even possible to customize them, but they’re not exactly advertised. So in this article I show you how to find them.

How to Get a YouTube Channel’s RSS Feed

YouTube RSS feeds follow a simple pattern. You just need the channel ID:

Finding the Channel ID

  1. Go to the YouTube channel page
  2. View page source (Ctrl+U or Cmd+U)
  3. Search for "channelId":" or "externalId":"
  4. Copy the ID that follows (usually starts with UC)

There are also a lot of online tools that help you with that.

Creating RSS Feed

Here is the format of a YouTube RSS feed:

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=CHANNEL_ID

Veritasium Feed:

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCHnyfMqiRRG1u-2MsSQLbXA

Customize RSS Feed

YouTube allows you to get more specific feeds by changing the channel ID prefix:

Prefix Contents
UULF Videos
UULP Popular videos
UULV Live streams
UUMF Members-only videos
UUMO Members-only contents (videos, short videos and live streams)
UUMS Members-only short videos
UUMV Members-only live streams
UUPS Popular short videos
UUPV Popular live streams
UUSH Short videos

To use other prefixes you also need to change channel_id to playlist_id.

YouTube RSS Feeds only shorts

For example, to get only short videos from a channel, replace the UC prefix with UUSH:

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=UUSHHnyfMqiRRG1u-2MsSQLbXA

YouTube RSS Feeds without shorts

If you only want videos without shorts or livestreams use the prefix UULF:

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=UULFHnyfMqiRRG1u-2MsSQLbXA

YouTube Playlist RSS Feeds

You can also create RSS feeds for any public YouTube playlist.

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=PLAYLIST_ID

Finding the Playlist ID

To find a playlist ID:

  1. Go to the YouTube playlist page
  2. Look at the URL, it should contain list=PLAYLIST_ID
  3. Copy the ID after list=

For example, if the playlist URL is:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmRdnEQy4Qth5SEAyotl48Kp1LXLt

The playlist ID is PLrAXtmRdnEQy4Qth5SEAyotl48Kp1LXLt, so the RSS feed would be:

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=PLrAXtmRdnEQy4Qth5SEAyotl48Kp1LXLt

Conclusion

Many RSS readers find the normal https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=CHANNEL_ID feed for you. Ivyreader also gives you the option to follow feeds with different prefixes.

Sources