youtube-rss-server

README

youtube-rss-server

Provides RSS feeds for YouTube channels and playlists using the YouTube API.

Supported URLs

• http://localhost:8080/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=CHANNEL_ID
• http://localhost:8080/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=PLAYLIST_ID
• http://localhost:8080/feeds/videos.xml?user=USER

Why?

YouTube provides equivalent RSS feeds at the following URLs:

• https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=CHANNEL_ID
• https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=PLAYLIST_ID
• https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?user=USER

However, these URLs have been returning 404 and 500 errors intermittently for several months, often for several hours at a time:

• https://community.n8n.io/t/youtube-rss-feed-endpoint-returns-404-errors/241692
• https://discuss.ai.google.dev/t/youtube-rss-feed-endpoint-returns-404-errors/113379
• https://www.reddit.com/r/rss/comments/1sowhwl/youtube_rss_again/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1r61jpo/all_youtube_channel_rss_feeds_are_down_return_404/

Running youtube-rss-server locally provides a drop-in replacement for these RSS feeds without the reliability issues.

Configuration

Environment Variable	Description	Default
API_KEY	API key for YouTube API requests	""
ITEMS_CACHE_TTL	Cache TTL for channel/playlist items (e.g. videos)	15m
LISTEN_ADDR	Address and port to listen on for RSS requests	:8080
MAX_RESULTS	Maximum number of items to return	15
METADATA_CACHE_TTL	Cache TTL for channel/playlist metadata (e.g. channel titles)	12h
TIMEOUT	Timeout for YouTube API requests	30s

If API_KEY is not provided, then Application Default Credentials must be provided:

• https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/getting-started
• https://docs.cloud.google.com/docs/authentication/application-default-credentials

Running Using Go

go install github.com/telnet23/youtube-rss-server@latest
API_KEY=... youtube-rss-server

Running Using Docker

docker build git@github.com:telnet23/youtube-rss-server -t youtube-rss-server
docker run -e API_KEY=... youtube-rss-server