I consistently hear people on YouTube complain that the subscribe button doesn’t do anything for viewers, now that channel notifications are controlled by the bell. But it does do something: it puts the videos from that channel in your subscription feed, which is readily accessible on all versions of YouTube. So why do people act like it doesn’t exist? I think it’s super convenient, especially if you’re subscribed to a ton of channels and don’t want your notifications feed flooded with new videos.
I use an RSS feed. I never miss a video and it always keeps my backlog in tact for me to comb through later.
This is the way. While YouTube has a subscription feed it is very basic. It has no organization, no way to filter watched videos and of course it only has videos from YouTube. Using the RSS feeds I get a much better interface and can follow all of my video sources in one place even if they are on different sites.
That sounds very interesting! Where do I start if I want to build my own RSS feed? Can you recommend any software (foss would be nice)? How do I add a subscription into the Feed?
You are looking for an “RSS Reader”. This is a tool to read RSS feeds (every channel on YouTube has a feed) and present the updates to you. There are many options including many open-source options.
Personally I run my own service which emails me new entries (I like email, I’m weird like that) and they get sorted into a folder for me to go through when I want to watch videos. But there are many other types of readers such as standalone apps, web services and other options. If you Google “feed reader” or “RSS reader” you should find many results.
Once you have selected a reader to try (don’t worry, you can use OMPL import + export if you want to try another one) then just paste the YouTube channel URLs into the reader and it should discover the feed for your. Of course the best thing about RSS is that it isn’t restricted to YouTube. PeerTube, Odysee, Nebula, most blogs, Reddit, Lemmy and many other sites support it. So you can subscribe to basically whatever you want to.
Thank you! With this information I found ‘Nextcloud News’, which seems to be a RSS reader I can use on my nextcloud server.
The amount of RSS reader on F-Droid is overwhelming and some look better than Nextcloud News. But having everything accessible on every device beats design.
I’ve heard good things about Nextcloud News but never used it myself. The most important thing is to pick one and get started. Once you have some experience reading feeds you will have a better idea what you are looking for and re-evaluate the options. With OPML import and export being widely supported switching readers is easy.
I use Feedbin. It can be self hosted or paid for at $5 month. It runs embeds for sites that aren’t RSS friendly. For YouTube, I prefer to run unlock origin and sponsorblock as Firefox extensions.
It’s completely changed how I use the internet, having everything in one place.
Thanks, if my nextcloud solution isn’t working well I will check out Feedbin.
Everything in one place, controled by me, no algorithm, that sounds perfect!
I am subbed to a channel that has some series that I don’t like. feedbin let’s me filter those out of my feed via title keywords. Its a godsend
This sounds like a great idea. What feed reader do you use? Are there ones specially for this or better suited to it or will any do?
Feedbin is my favorite. It even has a progressive web app. Can be self hosted or paid for $5/month