How to Announce YouTube Videos on Discord Automatically

You upload videos and want your server to see them right away? With the YouTube entry of Social Alerts, Kage announces every new video of a channel automatically in a Discord channel.

Quick answer: In the dashboard under Social Alerts open YouTube, enter the channel's YouTube feed URL, choose an announcement channel, adjust the template if you like and click Add.

Finding the feed URL

Kage reads the public feed of a YouTube channel. It has the form:

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=YOUR-CHANNEL-ID

The channel ID starts with "UC" and is not the @name of the channel. You can find it, for example, in YouTube Studio under Settings › Channel › Advanced settings. Insert it into the address above and test the address in a browser: you will see a list of the latest videos as text.

Setting it up

1. Open Social Alerts › YouTube and use the Add creator form.
2. Enter a display name, for example the channel name. It appears in the message through the {creator} placeholder.
3. Paste the YouTube feed URL.
4. Choose the channel where it is announced.
5. Optional: a role that is pinged with every announcement (otherwise No mention).
6. Adjust the message template. Available are {creator}, {title}, {url} and {platform}.
7. Click Add.

Example template: 📺 {creator} has a new video: {title} {url}

How the announcement behaves

• Kage checks about every five minutes. Expect a short delay.
• On the first check after you add the entry, the current latest video is only remembered, not announced. Only the next new video triggers a message.
• Kage looks at the newest entry each time. If several videos appear between two checks, only the newest is announced.
• What shows up in the feed is decided by YouTube.

Tips

• A separate channel such as #new-videos lets members mute or subscribe selectively.
• A role to subscribe to instead of a constant ping. Offer the ping role through self-assignable roles.
• YouTube livestreams are not reported separately by this entry. For those there is automatic stream detection.

If it does not work

• Nothing arrives. Is the feed URL correct, and did a video appear only after adding the entry? An administrator can have all entries checked immediately with /social test.
• The bot does not post. Check the permissions in the target channel to view, write and embed links. Monitoring reports missing permissions.
• Wrong name in the message. The display name is free to choose; adjust it in the entry.
• The limit is reached. The number of entries per platform depends on the plan.

FAQ

Can I add several YouTube channels?

Yes, each channel is its own entry with its own target channel and template.

Does Kage need access to my YouTube account?

No. Only the public feed is read.