A YouTube RSS feed is the address https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id= followed by the channel’s ID, which starts with UC. Add it to any RSS reader to follow the channel’s 15 latest uploads. YouTube shows no RSS button, but channel pages linked their feed in their code when we checked on 13 October 2026. The tool above builds it from a channel link.
YouTube RSS feed URL formats
Every YouTube feed lives at https://www.youtube.com/feeds/, followed by videos.xml and a channel ID or a playlist ID. A channel’s uploads also exist as playlists, named by swapping the UC at the start of its ID for UU, UULF, UUSH, or UULV. We checked every address below against live feeds on 13 October 2026.
| Feed | Address | What it holds |
|---|---|---|
| Channel | videos.xml?channel_id=UC… |
The 15 latest uploads, Shorts and live streams included |
| Playlist | videos.xml?playlist_id=PL… |
Up to 15 videos from the playlist |
| Uploads | videos.xml?playlist_id=UU… |
The same entries as the channel feed |
| Videos only | videos.xml?playlist_id=UULF… |
The 15 latest uploads without Shorts or live streams |
| Shorts only | videos.xml?playlist_id=UUSH… |
The 15 latest Shorts |
| Live | videos.xml?playlist_id=UULV… |
Live streams, or a 404 for a channel that has never streamed |
| Legacy user | videos.xml?user=name |
Old YouTube usernames only, not @handles. The tool above asks for the channel ID instead, to give both feeds |
YouTube Help documents none of these addresses. Its RSS article covers podcast creators sending their feed to YouTube. The UU forms could change without notice, so keep the channel feed as your fallback.
How to find a YouTube channel ID
A channel ID starts with UC, as in Veritasium’s UCHnyfMqiRRG1u-2MsSQLbXA. Links with an @handle, such as youtube.com/@name, don’t contain it, and a feed address with a handle in place of the ID returns 404. YouTube’s own menus copy the ID for you.
On a computer, in our check on 13 October 2026:
- Open the channel on YouTube. From a video, select the channel’s name under the player.
- Select ...more in the description under the channel’s name.
- Scroll to the bottom of the box and select Share channel.
- Select Copy channel ID, then paste it into the tool above.
A link with /channel/UC… in it already holds the ID, and the tool reads it straight from the link. For your own channel, YouTube Help lists the ID under Settings, then Advanced settings.
How to add a YouTube feed to an RSS reader
Copy the feed address and paste it wherever your reader adds a new feed or subscription. The reader then checks the feed for new uploads on its own schedule. In our check on 13 October 2026, channel pages listed their feed in a <link rel="alternate"> tag, so readers that look for that tag accept the plain channel link too.
The same address works in any tool that watches a feed for new items, such as a script or a service that posts new uploads to a team chat.
To add many channels at once, import an OPML file. OPML is the list format readers use to import and export feeds, and each entry in it holds one feed address. The Takeout section above writes one from your subscriptions.
What a YouTube RSS feed includes
Each YouTube feed lists a channel’s 15 latest uploads, newest first, with each video’s title, link, thumbnail, description, publish date, view count, and like count. In our check on 13 October 2026, Shorts and live streams appeared in the channel feed too. Shorts made up 11 of the 15 latest entries for both Veritasium and Kurzgesagt.
- 15 entries at most. The feed has no further pages, so older videos never appear in it. Your reader keeps the entries it has already fetched.
- Shorts and live streams. Shorts link to
youtube.com/shorts/, so a reader with filter rules can hide entries whose link contains/shorts/. Live streams show up as well: 13 of NASA’s 15 entries were also in its live playlist. - Up to 15 minutes behind. YouTube serves each feed with a 15-minute cache (
max-age=900), so a new upload can take that long to appear, plus the time your reader waits between checks. - Nothing about your account. The feed is public and needs no sign-in, so it can’t tell which videos you’ve watched. Your reader tracks what you’ve read.
How to get a YouTube RSS feed without Shorts
Swap the UC at the start of the channel ID for UULF and use the playlist form, videos.xml?playlist_id=UULF…. In our check on 13 October 2026, these feeds held each channel’s 15 latest videos, with 0 Shorts and 0 live streams. The tool above gives this feed next to the full one for any channel you paste.
YouTube doesn’t document UULF, so it may change or stop working. Keep the channel feed as a fallback. A channel that posts only Shorts or live streams probably has no UULF feed and returns 404, the way UULV did for channels that had never streamed.
Each of these feeds is titled Videos, with the channel as its author, so several of them can look alike in a reader. The OPML file from this page names every feed after its channel. To write the UULF feed for every subscription at once, tick Leave out Shorts and live streams in the Takeout section.
Why a YouTube RSS feed returns 404
A YouTube feed returns 404 when YouTube finds no channel or playlist for the ID in the address. An @handle or a mistyped ID in the address causes it. In our check on 13 October 2026, each of these returned 404 while the same channels’ correct feeds loaded:
- A handle in place of the ID, as in
channel_id=@name. Copy the channel ID instead, using the steps above. - A wrong or cut-off ID. Changing the last character of a working ID was enough.
- A live feed for a channel that never streamed. UULV returned 404 for Veritasium and Kurzgesagt. UULF and UUSH probably do the same for a channel with no long videos or no Shorts.
If the feed loads but a new video is missing, give it 15 minutes, the length of YouTube’s cache, and refresh your reader.
How to export all your YouTube subscriptions to RSS
Export your subscriptions from Google Takeout, then turn them into an OPML file for your reader. Takeout saves them as subscriptions.csv, a spreadsheet of each channel’s ID, link, and name, while RSS readers import OPML. Load the file into the tool above and download an OPML file with one feed per channel, inside a folder named YouTube.
- In Google Takeout, export YouTube and YouTube Music with subscriptions ticked, plus history for the watch counts below. The steps above the tool walk through each screen.
- Google emails you a link when the export is ready. Google Help explains how long the link lasts and how often you can use it.
- Unzip the export and open
Takeout/YouTube and YouTube Music/subscriptions/subscriptions.csv. The folder and file names change with your Google language, as the Invidious docs note. The tool reads the file by its rows, so a translated name loads too. - Load the file above, choose whether to leave out Shorts and live streams, and select Download OPML. Then import the file in your reader.
The file has no subscription dates, so the page can’t tell when you followed each channel.
Before you import, you can find the channels you no longer watch. Load watch-history.json from the export’s history folder as well, the same file the watch history search reads. Each subscription then shows how many times you watched its videos and when you last did. Filter to Watched to keep the channels you open, or to Never watched to review the rest. The OPML file includes only the channels in the filtered list.
When Retube fits better than an RSS reader
An RSS reader suits you if you already follow the web in one app and want YouTube uploads there too. Retube, our free browser extension, suits you if you’d rather stay on YouTube. It groups the channels you pick into feeds inside YouTube, such as Science or Cooking, and each feed shows only their uploads, newest first.
Each Retube feed filters by Videos, Shorts, or Live, and the videos play in YouTube’s own player. Retube needs no account. To start from the channels you actually watch, load your watch history above and select Download Retube backup. It saves the channels you’ve watched as one feed, named Channels I watch. Import it in Retube from Help & support → Backup & local data. Importing replaces any feeds you already have, so it suits a fresh install best.
To sort channels into topic feeds yourself, read how to organize YouTube subscriptions.