YouTube RSS Feeds

What Are RSS Feeds?

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is an XML-based format used for content distribution and syndication. Subscribing to RSS feeds allows you to receive custom, up-to-date information from your favorite online content sources without having to regularly check the site for updates.

How to Access RSS Feeds

You can view RSS feeds using news readers that display RSS feeds from the websites you specify. They check the RSS feeds you have subscribed to and display new items from each feed. You can download news reader applications for your computer, and here are also many popular web-based news readers available, such as Google Reader and Bloglines. Some web browsers and email applications also have RSS capabilities built in.

You can see a list of many available news readers at Wikipedia.

How to Subscribe to YouTube RSS Feeds

YouTube offers several RSS feeds for categorized groups of videos, such as recently uploaded or most popular videos. You can also retrieve customized feeds for users, such as a feed of a particular user's favorite videos or uploaded videos.

You can review the content in YouTube RSS feeds using the YouTube API demo, which lets you select different options to generate many different types of YouTube API requests. For example, to see a list of videos uploaded to the GoogleDevelopers channel, you would click the Query link for the Uploads video feed, and then enter GoogleDevelopers as the User ID.

Note: To retrieve an RSS response for any API request URL, you need to set two fields in the demo:

1. 1. Set the Projection field option to Atom/RSS readers.

2. 2. Set the Output format field option to RSS 2.0.

Once you have obtained the feed URL, you can add it in your RSS reader. If your browser has RSS capabilities, then you can also add the feed there. The command varies between browsers, but can usually be found on the 'File' or 'Bookmarks' menus, and will be called something like "Subscribe to this page" or "New Live Bookmark".