How to get RSS URLs from YouTube channels and playlists

3 September 2025

Much like former prime minister David Cameron pledging his government to embrace the Open Document Format (ODF), I too wish to push the agenda of open standards.

Despite YouTube’s continued enshitification, it is still possible to get an RSS feed from YouTube channels and playlists, this page will provide you with the necessary details. I’ve also made a demonstration video for this.

In order to find your RSS URL you need two parts, the first part, which is the common URL for channels and playlists and the second part, which is the ID of the channel or playlist The ID is the final string of numbers and letters at the end of a channel or playlist URL.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyga2RDU50AO0gtBXwk3c_2aEI5hMUvbc

Some channels can also use a username as a suffix here. This only applies to older channels that have username based channel URLs. Whereas not all channels have username based URLs, all channels have a channel ID, just make sure not to confuse the username with the channel ID.

The first part

The channel ID prefix URL for RSS:

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=

The username prefix URL for RSS:

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?user=

The playlist prefix URL for RSS:

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=

The second part

Simply add your relevant channel ID (in this example it’s UCAPR27YUyxmgwm3Wc2WSHLw), playlist ID (in this example it’s PLyga2RDU50AODdcN9aIkg4rXwxS-174uW), or username (in this example it’s ChrisWereDigital) to the correct prefix above and you should have the RSS URL for your YouTube channel or playlist. Most people will want to use the channel ID as the username suffix is from legacy usernames and not the current system of TikTok style @handles. Examples:

The channel ID URL:

youtube.com/channel/UCAPR27YUyxmgwm3Wc2WSHLw

The channel ID URL for RSS:

youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCAPR27YUyxmgwm3Wc2WSHLw

The username URL:

youtube.com/user/ChrisWereDigital

The username URL for RSS:

youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?user=ChrisWereDigital

The playlist URL:

youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyga2RDU50AODdcN9aIkg4rXwxS-174uW

The playlist URL for RSS:

youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=PLyga2RDU50AODdcN9aIkg4rXwxS-174uW