Do I need a YouTube account?

No. Public channel feeds are fetched independently of any YouTube account.

Can I import a channel’s back catalogue?

No. A YouTube channel feed only returns the latest 15 or so videos, so the list builds up from when you subscribe.

Do members-only or private videos show up?

No. Only publicly published feeds are fetched.

How quickly do new videos arrive?

Channel feeds support push updates from YouTube, so they can appear without waiting for the next scheduled fetch. Playlists are polled only.

Following a YouTube channel by RSS

Paste the channel URL as it is. You never need to build the RSS URL yourself.

Paste the channel URL

YouTube channels do publish an RSS feed, but its URL is not shown anywhere on the channel page. What you actually have is the youtube.com/@handle form.

This service works out the feed location from whatever you paste. All of these work directly:

youtube.com/@handle
youtube.com/channel/ followed by a UC… id
youtube.com/c/name and youtube.com/user/name (older forms)
youtube.com/playlist?list=… (a playlist)
A video URL (youtube.com/watch?v=…, youtu.be/…, or a Short) — it resolves to the channel that owns it

What you get

Video titles, publication times and links. Descriptions, view counts and ratings are not included.

A YouTube channel feed only returns the most recent 15 or so videos, so there is no way to backfill an archive. The list builds up from the moment you subscribe.

Channels versus playlists

Subscribing to a channel delivers that channel’s new uploads. Subscribing to a playlist delivers whatever is added to that playlist.

Channel feeds support push notification from YouTube’s side, so they arrive sooner. Playlists are polled on a schedule and lag by that much.

How this differs from YouTube subscriptions

The YouTube subscriptions tab mixes in recommendations and ads, and YouTube decides the ordering. Over RSS you get titles in the order they were posted, and nothing else.

No sign-in is involved, and the videos sit in the same list as your blogs and news. It suits anyone who would rather not lose an hour to the site they only opened to check one thing.

When it does not work

If a channel has never uploaded anything, the feed is empty. That is expected.

If your URL matches none of the forms above, open the channel page and copy the youtube.com/@handle or youtube.com/channel/UC… form instead.

FAQ

Do I need a YouTube account?: No. Public channel feeds are fetched independently of any YouTube account.
Can I import a channel’s back catalogue?: No. A YouTube channel feed only returns the latest 15 or so videos, so the list builds up from when you subscribe.
Do members-only or private videos show up?: No. Only publicly published feeds are fetched.
How quickly do new videos arrive?: Channel feeds support push updates from YouTube, so they can appear without waiting for the next scheduled fetch. Playlists are polled only.