Create OPML feed file from YouTube subscriptions

There used to be a way to directly download an OPML file to import all youtube subscriptions into a RSS reader such as thunderbird but this no longer exists.

But there is another way to access youtube channel updates as a RSS feed. Basically you can query the subscription list as a CSV file and use the contained channel IDs to create an OPML file and import that into thunderbird. Here is how to do it:

• Go to your youtube account
• Select menu entry "Your data in youtube"
• Select "Download youtube data"
• In section "Create a new export" click on "All youtube data included" and select "subscriptions"
• Click on "Next step"
• Select "Export once"
• Download the archive once it's done and extract the csv file

The CSV file contains the channel ID you need for the RSS link and the channel name. You can use this simple python script to convert the CSV file into an OPML file:

create_opml.py (1 kB)

Execute the script with the CSV file as an argument:

./create_opml.py file.csv

and you get file of the same name with the .opml ending.

Import that file into thunderbird to get all channels as RSS subscriptions.