Every YouTube channel has an RSS feed at https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id= followed by the channel's ID, which starts with UC. You rarely need to build it yourself: paste the channel's address into an RSS reader like Feeder, and it finds the feed. Playlists have feeds too.
How do I get the RSS feed for a YouTube channel?
The easy way: copy the channel's address, like https://www.youtube.com/@kurzgesagt, and paste it into Feeder's Add feed. Feeder looks up the channel ID and adds the feed. A video's address works too: Feeder follows the channel that posted it.
By hand:
- Open the channel page in your browser.
- Right-click the page, choose View Page Source and search for
rss. - You'll find a line like the one below. The address in
hrefis the channel's feed.
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCsXVk37bltHxD1rDPwtNM8Q">That one belongs to Kurzgesagt. A channel feed lists the channel's 15 newest videos, and your reader keeps the older ones it has already collected.
YouTube RSS feed URLs
Swap in the channel or playlist ID you want.
| What you want | Feed address |
|---|---|
| A channel | https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=CHANNEL_ID |
| A playlist | https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=PLAYLIST_ID |
| A channel's videos, without Shorts | https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=UULF followed by the channel ID without its first two letters, UC |
| A channel's Shorts only | https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=UUSH followed by the channel ID without UC |
The last two use playlists that YouTube keeps for each channel. YouTube doesn't document them, so they could change, but they worked on the channels we tried in September 2026.
How do I get a YouTube feed without Shorts?
A channel's main feed includes its Shorts. To follow only the full-length videos, take the channel ID, replace the UC at the start with UULF and use it as a playlist ID. For Kurzgesagt, UCsXVk37bltHxD1rDPwtNM8Q becomes UULFsXVk37bltHxD1rDPwtNM8Q. Use UUSH instead to get only the Shorts.
| Feed | What you get | Feed URL |
|---|---|---|
| Kurzgesagt: all videos | Every new upload, Shorts included. | https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCsXVk37bltHxD1rDPwtNM8Q |
| Kurzgesagt: videos without Shorts | Only the full-length videos. | https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=UULFsXVk37bltHxD1rDPwtNM8Q |
How do I get the RSS feed for a YouTube playlist?
Open the playlist and copy the ID after list= in the address. In https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFs4vir_WsTzcfD7ZE8uO3yX-GCKUk9xZ, the ID is PLFs4vir_WsTzcfD7ZE8uO3yX-GCKUk9xZ. Put it after playlist_id=, and you have the feed. Or paste the playlist's address into Feeder, which does this for you. Like channel feeds, playlist feeds show 15 videos.
How do I move my YouTube subscriptions to an RSS reader?
YouTube no longer lets you export subscriptions as an OPML file. Google Takeout gives you the list as a spreadsheet file instead:
- Go to
takeout.google.comand click Deselect all. - Select YouTube and YouTube Music, click All YouTube data included, keep only subscriptions and confirm.
- Click Next step, then Create export. Google e-mails you a download link when the file is ready, which can take a while.
- In the download, open
subscriptions.csvin theYouTube and YouTube Music/subscriptionsfolder. Each row has a channel's ID, address and title. - Paste each channel address into Feeder's Add feed. For a long list, turn each ID into a feed address and put them in an OPML file, which Feeder can import in one go.
How do I add YouTube videos to my website?
On WordPress, you have two good options:
- A YouTube plugin. Feeds for YouTube, Embed Plus for YouTube and YotuWP show your channel or playlists as a video gallery. To use them, you connect a YouTube account or add an API key from Google.
- An RSS plugin. WordPress's RSS block or an RSS aggregator plugin can show a channel's feed as a list of videos, with no API key.
On other website builders, paste the channel feed into the site's RSS or feed widget, if it has one.
Common questions
Does YouTube still have RSS feeds?
Yes. Every channel and playlist has one. YouTube doesn't show a feed button, but every channel page links to its feed in the page source.
How many videos are in a YouTube RSS feed?
The 15 newest for a channel. Your reader keeps older videos once it has collected them.
How often does Feeder check YouTube feeds?
At your feed's update speed, but at most every 15 minutes for YouTube. How often Feeder checks your feeds explains the details.
Try Feeder
Feeder shows each new video with a player right in the post, so you can watch without leaving your feeds. Feeder is an RSS reader for the web, iOS and Android, with extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Edge. The free plan follows up to 200 feeds with no ads, and feeds update as often as every 30 minutes. Plus is $7.99 a month, billed yearly, for 2,500 feeds, updates as often as every 5 minutes and e-mail summaries.
Get started with Feeder for free