May 23, 2009

A Feed for YouTube Subscriptions

Last year I wrote about some feeds offered by YouTube that weren't available in the interface. Since then YouTube added feeds for search results, videos from a channel and even from your subscriptions: just click on the orange icon from the address bar and you should see the feeds.

That means you no longer have to visit YouTube's homepage to find new videos from your subscriptions. You can subscribe to the following feed in Google Reader or another feed reader:

http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/username/newsubscriptionvideos
(replace "username" with your YouTube username)

The great thing is that you can subscribe to other users' feeds. For example, you'll find a lot of interesting videos in Google's subscriptions, which include channels like: Webmaster Help, Google Talks, Google Developers etc.


If not all the videos are interesting to you, use the query parameter to show only the videos that include certain keywords in their titles or descriptions. For example:

http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/google/newsubscriptionvideos?q=mobile

Read more about YouTube's feeds in the Data API reference guide.
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43 comments:

  1. AnonymousMay 24, 2009 at 5:05 AM

    A straight dump of all my subscriptions would be information overload. I have to subscribe to them individually, categorized with folder tags. I use the following subscription URL:

    http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/USERNAME/uploads?max-results=50&orderby=published

    Change USERNAME to choose the feed you want (e.g. googletechtalks).

    ReplyDelete
  2. David Lee KingMay 24, 2009 at 5:07 AM

    That's not really new, is it? I've been subscribing to youtube searches for a couple years (I thought)...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Alex ChituMay 24, 2009 at 5:11 AM

    @David:
    You didn't pay attention, did you?

    ReplyDelete
  4. sdddltMay 24, 2009 at 5:51 AM

    I didn't know about the query parameter for other users' feeds - thanks, that's very helpful to me!

    ReplyDelete
  5. AlbiMay 24, 2009 at 10:43 AM

    I didn't know also.
    Thanks, that is very helpful for me!

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousMay 26, 2009 at 10:34 AM

    Instead of the URL, you can go to the subscription page and use the RSS icon in your browser.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Alex ChituMay 26, 2009 at 12:18 PM

    @Ephilei:
    Definitely, but this change is pretty recent. I remember that YouTube used to send users to a single landing page when clicking on the orange icon:
    www.youtube.com/rssls

    ReplyDelete
  8. Daniel HawkinsMay 26, 2009 at 6:11 PM

    I thought I'd mention a problem I had with this, that I eventually figured out. For some reason, YouTube automatically subscribed me to a feed called, "Subscribe Tags", as if I had clicked on the "Subscribe to Tags" button with a blank field. That resulted in me getting videos that I wasn't actually subscribed to (every video that was uploaded without a tag).

    To fix, just click on the "Subscribe Tags" feed and click unsubscribe. The New Videos feed will now only contain what you want.

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousJune 16, 2009 at 5:26 PM

    This feed is no longer working. Why?

    ReplyDelete
  10. MarioJuly 1, 2009 at 2:39 AM

    The feed now returns a Internal Server Error :(

    ReplyDelete
  11. AniJuly 10, 2009 at 2:13 PM

    The main problem with subscribing YouTube feeds in any reader is that to watch the video you have to ultimately go to the site :/

    ReplyDelete
  12. Sancho MuzaxAugust 17, 2009 at 8:09 AM

    Wow!

    Thank you the Subscriptions feed! :o)

    ReplyDelete
  13. lontheeSeptember 2, 2009 at 9:18 AM

    nice tips

    ReplyDelete
  14. AnonymousNovember 19, 2009 at 11:04 PM

    Does not work

    ReplyDelete
  15. AnonymousNovember 21, 2009 at 5:36 AM

    Yes, it no longer works

    ReplyDelete
  16. HikosaemonDecember 9, 2009 at 3:12 AM

    It worked for me for a few days, but stopped working two days ago... What gives?!

    ReplyDelete
  17. ChrisDecember 21, 2009 at 7:18 PM

    Impossible to find an RSS feed for my subscriptions. Even tried the Yahoo Pipes thing, won't work either.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Leho KraavDecember 24, 2009 at 6:35 AM

    @Ani

    no you don't have to go the site. but you do have to do some feed postprocessing for that http://www.rsshandler.com style (which currently doesn't seem to support subscriptions so you gotta roll your own).

    ReplyDelete
  19. aaJanuary 4, 2010 at 11:55 PM

    Youtube subscriptions show up only on http://www.youtube.com/my_subscriptions ; youtube should provide ability to have "my_subscriptions" feed coming via RSS to my Google Reader, so I dont need to constantly keep checking my youtube subscriptions at above website, but instead I check Google Reader only for my youtube subscriptions updates. Currently, the workaround needed to get RSS feeds of youtube subscriptions is at http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/05/feed-for-youtube-subscriptions.html which is tedious . From http://people20.blogspot.com/2007/10/wrote-to-gmail-yahoomail-hotmail-to.html , http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dthcr25_155gbfdnd

    ReplyDelete
  20. JJanuary 10, 2010 at 1:49 PM

    When I go to that page, using my username, now: "Login required to view this user's new subscription videos." I am logged in to YouTube.

    It's mildly ridiculous that one cannot get one's YouTube subscriptions in Google Reader.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Alex ChituJanuary 10, 2010 at 2:50 PM

    It's not ridiculous at all and this feature continues to work: here's the feed for Google's YouTube channel.

    The explanation why you see the message "Login required to view this user's new subscription videos" is pretty simple, even if it's not obvious. You need to enable activity sharing for your account. Select "Yes, allow a selected set of my activities to be viewable" and enable "Subscribe to a channel" in the list of activities, then click on "Save changes".

    If you choose to make the list of subscriptions private, the feed shows the list of recent videos from your subscriptions only when you're logged in.

    ReplyDelete
  22. MaTr3oFebruary 8, 2010 at 11:27 PM

    Thanks. I deactivated the "Subsribe to a channel" in Activity Sharing and I wasn't receiving my feed any more. Now it works just fine.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Jeffrey BorupFebruary 21, 2010 at 4:13 PM

    Is there a reason I have to update this manually in Google Reader or does it only update once a day?

    ReplyDelete
  24. david lawtonMarch 1, 2010 at 2:52 PM

    this used to work for me but i can no longer find a way to get an rss feed for my subscriptions

    attempting this URL with my username returns a 403 unforbidden
    http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/username/newsubscriptionvideos

    ReplyDelete
  25. UnknownMarch 1, 2010 at 3:06 PM

    Sorry i meant 403 forbidden. Guessing this may have something to do with the recent change to move away from usernames?

    Anyone got a solution? I need to import my subscriptions into an rss reader

    cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  26. Alex ChituMarch 1, 2010 at 3:13 PM

    @david:

    I've already answered your question.

    ReplyDelete
  27. roidMarch 31, 2010 at 12:36 AM

    my RSS page doesn't say ""Login required to view this user's new subscription videos". Nope, it just says "Service Unavailable".
    I've played around with my youtube sharing settings ad infinum. i can disable it to get the "login required" message, but when i fix that it just replaces it with the "Service Unavailable" message again.

    behold:
    http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/roidroid/newsubscriptionvideos

    It's broken. And i'm not the only one.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Mark HarvistonMay 16, 2010 at 7:53 AM

    Same problem as roid

    I'm currently getting email notifications of my subscriptions but getting them in an RSS reader would be more convenient.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Alex ChituMay 16, 2010 at 7:57 AM

    The feed at:

    http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/roidroid/newsubscriptionvideos

    works well. Maybe YouTube has some temporary issues.

    ReplyDelete
  30. roidMay 16, 2010 at 6:07 PM

    Yeah it's intermittent, it tends to go down for around a week at a time. It's currently working.

    ReplyDelete
  31. UnknownMay 26, 2010 at 11:34 AM

    Not all video's are in this feed, some video's are on the homepage, but are not listed here. Other users experiencing the same issue's?

    ReplyDelete
  32. The FoldDecember 13, 2010 at 8:58 AM

    Using the listed subscription pipe doesn't yield any results.

    The code in the Regex needs to be changed to:

    http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/$1/uploads

    ReplyDelete
  33. rcktmanMarch 23, 2011 at 6:29 PM

    The Fold's post IS working for me as of 3/23/11.

    http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/$1/uploads
    Replace "$1" with the username of the user to which you want to subscribe.

    ReplyDelete
  34. JeffMarch 26, 2011 at 9:00 AM

    The Folds links works. If you want new subscription videos go with: http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/$1/newsubscriptionvideos

    Replace $1 with your usename (which may be case sensitive) and make sure your activity settings on YouTube allow sharing of subscriptions. Works for me!

    ReplyDelete
  35. MeApril 25, 2011 at 5:16 PM

    Thx for the info about the "activity sharing". Who'd guess that?

    ReplyDelete
  36. Houston Private DetectiveMay 4, 2011 at 8:11 AM

    Thanks Jeff - that worked for me too..

    ReplyDelete
  37. AnonymousJuly 25, 2011 at 7:43 AM

    Thank you so much for this... I really don't understand why there is no rss button on my subscribtions page.

    ReplyDelete
  38. AnonymousFebruary 4, 2012 at 2:14 PM

    It's better to go to http://www.youtube.com/my_subscriptions and subscribe to the feed found on this page.

    ReplyDelete
  39. AnonymousMarch 15, 2012 at 12:57 PM

    http://www.youtube.com/my_subscriptions feeds is NOT working since March 1st 2012 ;-(

    ReplyDelete
  40. Abhishek M.April 15, 2012 at 8:52 AM

    You can use this simple web app called ‘Youtube RSS Assist’ available at http://lab.designyx.co.in/youtube-rss-assist/ Just enter your youtube username or the link of a channel to get the RSS feed URL.

    ReplyDelete
  41. junpetMay 3, 2012 at 7:05 AM

    Not working, nothing...

    ReplyDelete
  42. Kyle GriebMay 22, 2012 at 11:09 AM

    https://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/default/newsubscriptionvideos?v=2&max-results=50&start-index=100; retrieve more than 100 items from query?

    ReplyDelete
  43. álvaro antonioOctober 15, 2012 at 7:58 PM

    Hey guys,
    in case you are getting this message: Login required to view this user's new subscription videos, here's what I did:

    - turn on activity sharing and check "Subscribe to a channel"
    - use the link feed://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/USERNAME/newsubscriptionvideos?client=ytapi-youtube-user&v=2

    The arguments passed allow you to access the feed without logging in.

    ReplyDelete

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