YouTube Channels

You can subscribe to YouTube channels and listen to them like podcasts. Pinepods downloads each new video's audio with yt-dlp, so videos play in the normal audio player and work offline.

Subscribing

• Search: pick YouTube as the search source, search for a channel, and open it. Click Subscribe on the channel page. The mobile apps' search has the same YouTube option.
• By URL: paste the channel address (https://www.youtube.com/@channelname or https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC…) under Settings → Add Custom Feed, or in the Custom Feed form on the Podcasts page, and click Add Channel.

The channel's videos from the last 30 days are added in the background, so they take a moment to appear. After that, new videos are picked up as the channel refreshes; see Feed updates for how often and how.

Channel settings

Open the channel and its settings:

Setting	What it does
Youtube Download Episode Limit (days)	Only keep videos from the last this-many days. Older ones are removed, except ones you've played, saved, queued, downloaded, or added to a playlist or collection. 0 keeps every video the channel lists.
Only add new videos that match	Filters for new videos: Shortest (minutes), Longest (minutes) and Title contains. Leave a field empty for no limit. For example, a minimum of 45 minutes keeps a channel's full episodes and skips its clips. Videos already added stay.

Each subscriber has their own limit and filters.

Keeping yt-dlp working (admins)

YouTube changes often break yt-dlp until a new yt-dlp comes out, so the copy inside Pinepods updates itself. Settings → Admin → YouTube (yt-dlp) shows:

Setting
Current version and Last update	The yt-dlp Pinepods is using.
Update channel	Nightly gets YouTube fixes fastest, usually the same day. Stable (the default) waits for a stable yt-dlp release.
Automatic updates	On by default. Checks for a newer yt-dlp on startup and once a day.
Update now	Updates straight away.

If YouTube videos stop downloading, try Update now first.