A little better.
Every update.

This update retires the separate Retube page, adds caching for faster feed revisits, and makes browsing your feeds feel more responsive.

One place for your feeds

All feed viewing and management now happens inside YouTube. Your existing feeds and channel selections stay intact.

Maintaining the separate Retube page meant building and testing many of the same features twice. Focusing on feeds inside YouTube only reduces that duplication and gives us more time to improve them.

The popup now follows YouTube’s theme automatically. You can find About Retube, Help & support, and Privacy policy in the feed menu and popup.

Faster feed revisits

Recently loaded channel results are cached for up to five minutes. Feeds that share channels reuse those results, and cached content stays available after a tab reload.

To check for new videos without waiting for the cache to expire, use Refresh feed in the feed menu.

Smoother browsing

Move between YouTube and your feeds without interrupting your browsing flow. Switching feeds feels quicker, with less waiting between selections.

Videos and Shorts appear together, with fewer flashes and less shifting as content loads. Loading placeholders keep the page steady while you wait.

Retube now supports native YouTube video cards, including Watch Later, queue, and watch progress.

Video controls

• Watch Later saves videos to your YouTube Watch Later playlist.
• Add to queue adds videos to YouTube’s playback queue from the card menu.
• Watch progress appears on thumbnails.
• Videos play a preview on hover, except Shorts.
• Card tooltips display the video title.

Shorts layouts

Mixed feeds use consistent thumbnail heights for videos and Shorts. Shorts-only views use a dedicated portrait layout.

Account switching

Retube uses your active YouTube session to load videos. Watch Later and watch progress follow the selected YouTube account. Your Retube feeds remain shared across accounts.

Release notes

A new release notes drawer shows highlights when Retube receives a major update. Open What’s new to revisit the highlights or read the full changelog.

New installs now include a guided setup for creating your first feed. Choose channels from your YouTube subscriptions or add them using channel links.

First-feed setup

Open Set up Retube from YouTube’s sidebar, name your feed, and choose its channels. The feed opens when setup is complete. Setup is also available on the dedicated Retube page, including when you aren’t signed in to YouTube.

The extension popup offers feed creation when your library is empty. A one-time cue points out your new feed in the sidebar.

Feed refresh and loading

• Failed refreshes keep the videos already displayed and show an error.
• Successful refreshes remove videos that YouTube has taken down.
• Errors loading older videos appear beside Load more, with an option to retry.
• Missing channels and stalled requests show clearer error messages.
• Feed creation waits until pasted channel links finish loading.

Navigation and accessibility

• Arrow keys switch between Videos, Shorts, and Live filters.
• Keyboard focus moves to each new setup step.
• Long feed names fit narrow layouts.
• Thumbnails use video titles as accessible names.
• Popup buttons identify where they open.

Appearance and permissions

New installs follow your device’s appearance. Existing Light and Dark preferences are preserved.

Retube requests the scripting permission to read subscriptions from a signed-in YouTube tab and add its sidebar shortcut to tabs already open at installation.

Uninstalling opens an optional feedback page. No library data is sent.

A new Manage channels page lets you review your channels and change which feeds they belong to.

Channel management and navigation

Switch feeds from the channel-management page and edit a channel’s feed memberships in one place. YouTube’s compact sidebar also includes a Retube hover menu for switching feeds.

The dedicated Retube page has a fixed header, collapsible sidebar, and responsive video grids. About, Help & support, and Privacy use the same page layout. Returning from an information page preserves your loaded videos and scroll position.

Backups and library storage

This release updates the backup format and migrates existing feeds, channels, and settings automatically. Feed names and channel assignments are preserved.

• Importing a backup frees video-cache space when needed. If the replacement library cannot be saved, your existing library is preserved.
• Resetting or importing your library prevents older cache writes from restoring discarded data.
• Cache failures no longer block access to fetched videos or prevent library changes from being saved.
• Reset and import report success when the library is saved, even if cache cleanup fails afterward.

Error handling

• Invalid channel links show an error beside the input without reloading the page.
• Stalled requests time out and offer a retry.
• Recovery options appear when the extension does not respond at startup.
• The selected feed is restored if YouTube removes its URL fragment during startup.

Appearance

The System appearance option follows your device’s theme. This release also updates Retube’s icon and wordmark, controls, and modal backdrops. Navigation transitions respect reduced-motion preferences.

Removed features

Retube’s separate local Watch later and watched tracking have been removed, including their video menus and stored activity.

Existing subscriptions links migrate to shorter feed IDs without changing channel assignments. Older custom-path and query-based feed URLs are no longer supported.