xExtension-ShortsOmitter

A FreshRSS extension that automatically rewrites YouTube channel RSS feed URLs so that YouTube Shorts (and Live streams) are excluded from your feed — you only get regular long-form video uploads.

How it works

Every YouTube channel automatically gets a hidden "Videos" playlist that mirrors its long-form uploads only. Shorts live in a separate "Shorts" playlist, and livestreams in a "Live" playlist. This extension rewrites the standard channel feed URL — for example, for the Veritasium channel:

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCHnyfMqiRRG1u-2MsSQLbXA

into the URL of that hidden "Videos" playlist feed:

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=UULFHnyfMqiRRG1u-2MsSQLbXA

The transform is a simple substitution: channel_id=UC → playlist_id=UULF (the 22-character channel ID itself is unchanged). Since Shorts and Live streams are never part of that playlist, they will no longer appear in FreshRSS.

• If a feed's URL is already fixed (i.e. it already uses playlist_id=), it is left untouched.
• If a feed's URL is not a YouTube channel feed, it is left untouched.
• The fix is applied both when you add a new feed and every time an existing feed is refreshed, so it also fixes feeds you subscribed to before installing this extension.

YouTube occasionally still lists a Short inside that "Videos" playlist feed anyway. As a safety net, this extension also discards any new entry whose link points to https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_ID, so such entries never get imported into FreshRSS.

Installation

1. Download/clone this repository into the extensions directory of your FreshRSS installation, so that you end up with ./extensions/xExtension-ShortsOmitter/extension.php. (If THIRDPARTY_EXTENSIONS_PATH is configured, use that directory instead.)
2. In FreshRSS, go to Configuration → Extensions and enable Shorts Omitter.
3. That's it — no configuration needed. New and existing YouTube channel subscriptions will have their feed URL corrected automatically.