YouTube still publishes an RSS feed for every channel and playlist. The address isn't shown anywhere on the page, but it follows a fixed pattern, so once you have the channel ID, the feed takes seconds to set up.
Quick answer: a YouTube RSS feed is the Atom feed at https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=CHANNEL_ID, which lists a channel's 15 most recent uploads. Replace CHANNEL_ID with the channel's ID (it starts with UC), or use ?playlist_id=PLAYLIST_ID for a playlist. Paste the URL into any RSS reader to follow the channel.
YouTube RSS feed URLs for channels and playlists
There are two feed endpoints, and every variation below is built from them.
| What you want to follow | Feed URL |
|---|---|
| All uploads from a channel | https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UC… |
| A playlist | https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=PL… |
| A channel's long-form videos only | https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=UULF… |
| A channel's Shorts only | https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=UUSH… |
| A channel by legacy username | https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?user=USERNAME |
The last three rows rely on how YouTube names its automatic playlists. Every channel has an uploads playlist whose ID is the channel ID with UC swapped for UU. YouTube also keeps two filtered versions of it: UULF for long-form videos and UUSH for Shorts. As of October 2026, Marques Brownlee's channel (UCBJycsmduvYEL83R_U4JriQ) shows how this plays out: the standard channel feed mixes three Shorts into its 15 entries, while the UULF feed holds 15 regular videos and the UUSH feed holds 15 Shorts.
The ?user= form only works for older channels that still have a legacy username, so the channel ID version is the one to rely on.
How to find a YouTube channel ID
Most channels now show an @handle in the address bar, not the ID. Three ways to get the ID:
- From the channel URL. If the address looks like
youtube.com/channel/UC…, everything after/channel/is the ID. - From the page source. Open the channel page (the @handle URL is fine), view the page source, and find
channel_id=. YouTube embeds the complete feed link in the page head as<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" …>, so you can copy the whole feed URL from there. - For your own channel. Sign in, click your profile picture, open Settings, then Advanced settings. Per YouTube Help, your user ID and channel ID appear there, and you need to be signed in as the channel's primary owner to see them.
For a playlist, the ID is the value after list= in the playlist URL, for example youtube.com/playlist?list=PL….
How to add the feed to an RSS reader
Paste the feed URL into the "add feed" or "subscribe" box of your reader: Feedly, Inoreader, NetNewsWire, Thunderbird and most others accept it. Several readers also take a plain channel link such as youtube.com/@handle and find the feed for you, because of the rel="alternate" link in the page head.
A good habit is to put YouTube feeds in their own folder. Video channels publish less often than news sites, and a separate folder keeps a weekly upload from getting buried under daily headlines.
When a YouTube channel RSS feed won't load
Most broken feeds come down to the ID in the URL. A YouTube channel RSS feed loads only with the real channel ID, so check these in order:
- A handle in place of the ID.
channel_id=@mkbhdandchannel_id=mkbhdboth return a 404 error. Handles and custom names belong in the channel URL, and the feed needs theUC…ID. - A clipped ID. Channel IDs are 24 characters long, starting with
UC. Copying one character short also returns a 404, which is easy to miss when the ID is copied out of a long page source. - Shorts flooding the reader. Switch from
channel_id=UC…toplaylist_id=UULF…with the same remaining characters to keep only regular videos.
A YouTube RSS feed generator does the ID lookup for you, which helps when you add many channels at once. For one or two channels, the page-source method above gives the same URL.
What a YouTube RSS feed includes
The feed is Atom XML, the format standardized in RFC 4287, with YouTube's media extensions on top. Each entry carries:
- the video title and a link to the watch page (Shorts link to
youtube.com/shorts/…) - the published and updated timestamps
- the full video description
- a thumbnail URL (480×360)
- the view count and rating count at the time the feed was generated
A YouTube RSS feed shows the 15 most recent entries. That makes it a tool for following channels from now on: a reader that polls the feed regularly builds up its own history, but the feed itself won't hand you a channel's older videos.
Two things the feed leaves out: the video itself and its words. Entries point back to YouTube, and the description is whatever the creator wrote, which for many channels is a list of links and sponsors. To know what a video actually says, the YouTube Transcript Generator turns a video link into the full transcript.
From a feed to a daily summary
An RSS reader tells you that a video exists. With more than a handful of channels, the harder part is deciding which uploads deserve 20 minutes of your day.
That is the gap sipsip.ai's Daily Brief covers. You add a public YouTube channel (an @handle or /channel/ link works) or a podcast RSS feed on the Channels page. sipsip checks those sources for new uploads, transcribes and summarizes them, and sends one digest each morning (paid plans pick the delivery time). Each entry has the title, the source, a short AI summary, key takeaways and a link back to the original video.
The free plan includes 3 subscription slots and a 5-day brief trial. Paid plans hold 10, 30 or 60 channels and shows, and slots can be swapped between sources at any time. The setup walkthrough in how to set up an AI daily brief from YouTube and podcasts covers choosing sources and delivery times.
For a single video that turns up in your feed, the YouTube video summarizer gives a summary and key points from the link alone.
Conclusion
A YouTube RSS feed needs nothing more than the channel ID: youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UC… for a channel, ?playlist_id= for a playlist, and the UULF playlist trick when you want long-form videos without Shorts. Each feed lists the latest 15 uploads and works in any RSS reader.
To read what those channels said instead of scrolling titles, create a free sipsip.ai account, add the channels to Daily Brief, and get one summary of every new upload each morning (free for 5 days, then on any paid plan).
Frequently asked questions
I'm a software developer from Seoul improving my English through technical YouTube content. Converting videos to text lets me study at reading speed instead of listening speed.
