8 Secret YouTube URL Hacks

There are 8 secret URLs on your YouTube channel, but YouTube won’t tell you about them. So I’m going to tell you instead.

Over the years of managing YouTube channels, I’ve discovered some secret YouTube URLs that every channel has. And while it’s cool to poke around and find new stuff on your own channel and other people’s channels, these can also help you send your viewers to your content in fun new ways, and this helps you build more loyal viewers and customers.

HERE’S THE PROBLEM

Because here’s the problem: Let’s say you want to get more subscribers by putting a special link in your description that will get people to automatically subscribe if they click it. But you have to get the URL just right or it won’t work at all.

Because guess what – these hacks are going to work for all channels and public videos on YouTube. And some of these hacks are great for spying on other people’s channels, too!

8 SECRET YOUTUBE URL HACKS

1. The Subscription Link HackThis is one you may have seen, the Subscription Link Hack, where the viewer just clicks a link and if they confirm they’ll be automatically subscribed to your YouTube channel. But a lot of people think they’re doing it right but they’re not. So if you click on your link while on your computer and you don’t get a prompt, you’re not doing it right.First, get your Channel ID.Note: Channel IDs have become hidden since we started using “subscribe handles” instead. However, you can still get your channel ID on any “watch page” (the page where the video shows up) by doing a “view source” and searching for this text: “channelId” … The Channel ID will show up right after it, beginning with “UC”…
2. Now to do this hack right, and a few others, you’re going to need your channel ID – or the Channel ID of the channel you’re trying to spy on. This ID is 24 characters long and starts with “UC”. To find a Channel ID:
   1. Go to a video on the channel.
   2. Click the channel name or icon that appears under the video.
   3. Now the URL will look like this:
   4. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZqeW7PNrsKTp-bSYQE1Bew
   5. (So it’s YouTube.com/channel/UC-something)
      What does “UC” stand for? I don’t know. Maybe “Utube Channel?”
   6. Save this Channel ID somewhere because you’re going to use it later.Then:
   7. In the URL below replace the Custom ID with the new Custom ID, but keep the “https://www.youtube.com/channel/” that is before it and the “?sub_confirmation=1” that is after it:
      https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZqeW7PNrsKTp-bSYQE1Bew?sub_confirmation=1
   8. You can test the link above (my channel) to see if the subscribe box pops up. Then check your own link to see if it works the same way. You should see the popup whether you’ve already subscribed or not.NOTE: A common problem with this hack is that people make a URL that has the word “user” in the URL, like this:
      https://www.youtube.com/user/customURL?sub_confirmation=1
      These sometimes work, but if you’re not seeing the popup when you click on it, use the first method instead.
3. Put Every Video in a Playlist
   Who doesn’t want a playlist of all their videos, with the most recent ones first? Nerd Alert! I do. Here’s what you do:
   
   1. Get that Channel ID again that starts with “UC”
   2. Remove the “UC”. This will now be 22 characters long random code and look like this with no “UC”:
      ZqeW7PNrsKTp-bSYQE1Bew
   3. Save this somewhere. We’re going to call this the:
      “Channel ID Without the UC”
      We’re going to need this for several hacks.
   4. Next, take this URL: http://youtube.com/playlist?list=UU
      What does UU stand for? I don’t know.
   5. Add your “Channel ID Without the UC” to the end.
   6. You get this playlist of all the public videos on this channel:
      http://youtube.com/playlist?list=UUZqeW7PNrsKTp-bSYQE1Bew

      UPDATE: Here’s what you do if you just want a playlist of all your YouTube “Long Form” videos, or videos that are not YouTube Shorts and not YouTube Livestreams. Use UULF before your channel ID (maybe LF means “Long Form”?). So the URL for a playlist of all my Long Form videos would be: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UULFZqeW7PNrsKTp-bSYQE1Bew

4. Put Every YouTube Short in a Playlist
   
   Here’s how you get a playlist of just your YouTube Shorts:
   
   1. Take this URL: http://youtube.com/playlist?list=UUSH
      NOTE: This is the same as the playlist of all the videos except you add that SH which stands for “Shorts.”
   2. Add your “Channel ID Without the UC” to the end.
   3. You get this playlist of all the public shorts on this channel:
      http://youtube.com/playlist?list=UUSHZqeW7PNrsKTp-bSYQE1Bew
      
5. Put Every YouTube Livestream in a Playlist
   
   1. Take this URL: http://youtube.com/playlist?list=UULV
      NOTE: This is the same as the playlist of all the videos except you add that LV which stands for “Live.”
   2. Add your “Channel ID Without the UC” to the end.
   3. You get this playlist of all the public livestreams on this channel:
      http://youtube.com/playlist?list=UULVZqeW7PNrsKTp-bSYQE1Bew
6. Change YouTube Short URL to “Regular” URL
   
   YouTube shorts URLs come up in a special shorts format now on desktop, but let’s say you wanted to link directly to one the “old” way.
   1. Go to the new Shorts URL which looks like this:
      https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3CRJ0SfgWnA
   2. Take that last part, which is the video ID, usually 11 characters long. In for this video it looks like this:
      3CRJ0SfgWnA
   3. Plug that in to the old-school URL format, which looks like this:

      d. So you get
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CRJ0SfgWnA
      which appears in the “old” URL style.

7. Get the URL for a Channel’s Livestream
   
   This URL only works if a channel is having a livestream right at this moment, but you can bookmark it for when you know your favorite channel starts streaming.
   1. Go to the channel ID which we talked about earlier, it looks like this:
   2. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZqeW7PNrsKTp-bSYQE1Bew
   3. Add this at the end:
      /live
      c. It will look like this:
      https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZqeW7PNrsKTp-bSYQE1Bew/live
   4. If the channel is currently livestreaming or scheduled for a future livestream, this URL will take you to that video.
      
8. Get a YouTube Channel’s RSSIf you’re old school like me, you might want to watch videos in an RSS reader like Feedly. It’s actually really handy for quickly looking through a channel’s videos, or keeping up to date on specific channels you follow. Here’s how to get the RSS:
   
   1. Get the Channel ID.
   2. Paste it at the end of this URL:
      https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=
      so it looks like this:
      https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCZqeW7PNrsKTp-bSYQE1Bew
   3. Now import it to your RSS Reader.NOTE: For a lot of RSS Readers, you can just paste the Channel URL and it will work, you don’t need the RSS.
      
      
9. Link to Your Latest VideoThere’s a service that helps you link to your latest URL, and this is pretty cool. It’s called MyLatest.Video and that’s the URL for the website, too. Now I don’t know if it works for every channel, but give it a try and see if it works for yours.
   1. Go to: https://mylatest.video/
   2. Add your Custom URL, but just the unique part of that URL
      So you can use either of these formats:
      https://www.youtube.com/user/Cisco
      https://www.youtube.com/c/CiscoSystems
      but just the part after the last slash.
   3. So it will look like this:
      https://mylatest.video/@VidActionTV
      https://mylatest.video/Cisco
      https://mylatest.video/CiscoSystems
   4. Click on the URL to make sure it works.
   5. Click the back button and copy the URL.
   6. Right click to “Copy Link Address.”