# Detect and tag Shorts in Youtube feeds **URL:** \ **Category:** idea\ **Created:** [November 14, 2022, 5:48pm UTC](https://forum.newsblur.com/t/detect-and-tag-shorts-in-youtube-feeds/9711 "2022-11-14T17:48:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![leonick](https://forum.newsblur.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/db5fbb/32.png) [@leonick](https://forum.newsblur.com/u/leonick)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2022, 5:48pm UTC](https://forum.newsblur.com/t/detect-and-tag-shorts-in-youtube-feeds/9711/1 "2022-11-14T17:48:36Z")
Some creators are good about tagging their shorts with #Shorts, but many aren’t, and for many I just do not care about their shorts as they are just clips of the longer videos. Would be nice if, and seemingly an easy edition, if Newsblur added a Short tag for any Youtube feed item with a duration less than or equal to 60 seconds. Then one could use intelligence training to hide all shorts. ---
**Author:** ![huWkffKNBo](https://forum.newsblur.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/ebca7d/32.png) [@huWkffKNBo](https://forum.newsblur.com/u/huWkffKNBo)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2026, 8:47pm UTC](https://forum.newsblur.com/t/detect-and-tag-shorts-in-youtube-feeds/9711/2 "2026-01-06T20:47:20Z")
100% this — it would instantly bring a huge improvement to my feed, and it’s probably the main thing that would make me switch reader services. Related threads: - about filtering shorts globally: [Global filters and ability to filter YouTube Shorts](https://forum.newsblur.com/t/global-filters-and-ability-to-filter-youtube-shorts/10237) - about the `/videos` feeds including shorts (which is an upstream issue as YouTube are trying to force shorts down everyone’s throats): [Youtube link adds shorts instead of videos - #2 by sy8224](https://forum.newsblur.com/t/youtube-link-adds-shorts-instead-of-videos/10926/2) But, as a technical solution, the existence of the shorts-only feed is interesting. In the thread above @samuelclay was unsure whether account-wide filters would be too computationally expensive, but potentially it would be lighter to do something like the following: 1. if the feed domain is `youtube.com`, it’s recognised as a YouTube feed - potentially with an exception list for things like the YouTube blog 2. for YouTube feeds, offer an additional option for ‘exclude shorts’ - in my opinion, this should default to true 3. when that setting is enabled, also fetch the `/shorts` feed for the same channel (since the URL is predictable) and filter out any matching entries from the general feed (and the `entry.id` values in each feed match so that would be pretty trivial) Having a site-specific setting might go against some design principles, but I would think for a platform as pervasive as YouTube and content as feed-polluting as shorts it would be worth making an exception in this case, ---
**Author:** ![samuelclay](https://forum.newsblur.com/user_avatar/forum.newsblur.com/samuelclay/32/857_2.png) [@samuelclay](https://forum.newsblur.com/u/samuelclay)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2026, 2:59am UTC](https://forum.newsblur.com/t/detect-and-tag-shorts-in-youtube-feeds/9711/3 "2026-01-18T02:59:52Z")
Question is is there a tag for shorts in the api than I can add as a tag so you can filter it on your side. I love the idea of YouTube specific hacks, esp. as I build out a new add and discover sites feature that already has a bunch of YouTube feeds built in. ---
**Author:** ![MikeC](https://forum.newsblur.com/user_avatar/forum.newsblur.com/mikec/32/734_2.png) [@MikeC](https://forum.newsblur.com/u/MikeC)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2026, 4:40am UTC](https://forum.newsblur.com/t/detect-and-tag-shorts-in-youtube-feeds/9711/4 "2026-01-18T04:40:17Z")
Not sure if there is a tag in the API … but the RSS does seem to have a differentiation eg from my Formula 1 feed: Maybe this would work for what you need? ---
**Author:** ![samuelclay](https://forum.newsblur.com/user_avatar/forum.newsblur.com/samuelclay/32/857_2.png) [@samuelclay](https://forum.newsblur.com/u/samuelclay)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2026, 4:37pm UTC](https://forum.newsblur.com/t/detect-and-tag-shorts-in-youtube-feeds/9711/5 "2026-01-18T16:37:15Z")
I don’t see any code or a url that has shorts in it. Can you post something I can take a look at to distinguish? ---
**Author:** ![MikeC](https://forum.newsblur.com/user_avatar/forum.newsblur.com/mikec/32/734_2.png) [@MikeC](https://forum.newsblur.com/u/MikeC)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2026, 4:02am UTC](https://forum.newsblur.com/t/detect-and-tag-shorts-in-youtube-feeds/9711/6 "2026-01-19T04:02:04Z")
weird never got posted … sorry about that … I saw this and thoght it could help (just a random example from the F1 Youtube feed) > curl --silent “[https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel\_id=UCB\_qr75-ydFVKSF9Dmo6izg”](https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCB_qr75-ydFVKSF9Dmo6izg%E2%80%9D) | grep “link rel” shows for example: ```auto ``` ---
**Author:** ![samuelclay](https://forum.newsblur.com/user_avatar/forum.newsblur.com/samuelclay/32/857_2.png) [@samuelclay](https://forum.newsblur.com/u/samuelclay)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2026, 8:58pm UTC](https://forum.newsblur.com/t/detect-and-tag-shorts-in-youtube-feeds/9711/7 "2026-01-19T20:58:15Z")
So is a YT feed 100% shorts or it has a mix of shorts and full length videos? I need an example of a feed with both. I looked at that channel but it shows as a normal feed. ---
**Author:** ![leonick](https://forum.newsblur.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/db5fbb/32.png) [@leonick](https://forum.newsblur.com/u/leonick)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2026, 9:13pm UTC](https://forum.newsblur.com/t/detect-and-tag-shorts-in-youtube-feeds/9711/8 "2026-01-19T21:13:08Z")
Mixed when you add a profile/channel to Newsblur at least. Here are two that contain a mix: > **[NewsBlur](http://newsblur.com/site/9591850)** > **[NewsBlur](http://newsblur.com/site/8887039)** The first is fairly mixed, the latter is frustratingly very heavy on shorts. ---
**Author:** ![steanne](https://forum.newsblur.com/user_avatar/forum.newsblur.com/steanne/32/20_2.png) [@steanne](https://forum.newsblur.com/u/steanne)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2026, 9:29pm UTC](https://forum.newsblur.com/t/detect-and-tag-shorts-in-youtube-feeds/9711/9 "2026-01-19T21:29:08Z")
also [NewsBlur](https://www.newsblur.com/site/7848386/charismatic-voice) had a short in november for black friday ---
**Author:** ![samuelclay](https://forum.newsblur.com/user_avatar/forum.newsblur.com/samuelclay/32/857_2.png) [@samuelclay](https://forum.newsblur.com/u/samuelclay)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2026, 11:46pm UTC](https://forum.newsblur.com/t/detect-and-tag-shorts-in-youtube-feeds/9711/10 "2026-01-19T23:46:57Z")
Here’s the problem since we use the YouTube API: > ⏺ Based on my research, the YouTube Data API v3 **does not have a field to identify Shorts**. This is a known gap - there’s an [Google Issue Tracker](https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/232112727) asking for this. > > The API returns contentDetails, snippet, and statistics but none contain a “isShort” indicator. > > **Available options:** > > 1. **Duration-based** (≤60 seconds) - you said you don’t like this > > 2. **RSS feed URL pattern** - requires fetching the RSS feed (you don’t want extra fe > > 3. **URL probing** - hit [youtube.com/shorts/{VIDEO\_ID}](http://youtube.com/shorts/%7BVIDEO_ID%7D) for each video and check for 200 vs 303 redirect (even more fetches) > > The YouTube API simply doesn’t expose this information. ---
**Author:** ![MikeC](https://forum.newsblur.com/user_avatar/forum.newsblur.com/mikec/32/734_2.png) [@MikeC](https://forum.newsblur.com/u/MikeC)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 3:59am UTC](https://forum.newsblur.com/t/detect-and-tag-shorts-in-youtube-feeds/9711/11 "2026-01-20T03:59:23Z")
Right with you, so as I understand it, we add a Youtube URL as a feed but NB then uses the API to fetch stories vs the RSS feed itself and the API as you said doesn’t have the shorts option. I can’t help further then with any ideas. ---
**Author:** ![leonick](https://forum.newsblur.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/db5fbb/32.png) [@leonick](https://forum.newsblur.com/u/leonick)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 6:29am UTC](https://forum.newsblur.com/t/detect-and-tag-shorts-in-youtube-feeds/9711/12 "2026-01-20T06:29:48Z")
Personally I’d be perfectly happy going of the length as long as not better option is available. Doesn’t matter if it’s a proper “short” or not, if the video is under 90 seconds I’d rather not see it. I’d use [https://openrss.org/feeds/youtube](https://openrss.org/feeds/youtube) which I assume base their feed of youtube’s feed rather than using the API since limited history is a noted limitation, however these can’t be added to Newsblur, they are overridden to Newsblurs built in API solution. ---
**Author:** ![samuelclay](https://forum.newsblur.com/user_avatar/forum.newsblur.com/samuelclay/32/857_2.png) [@samuelclay](https://forum.newsblur.com/u/samuelclay)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 10:54am UTC](https://forum.newsblur.com/t/detect-and-tag-shorts-in-youtube-feeds/9711/13 "2026-01-20T10:54:25Z")
I can certainly add a tag for various durations ---
**Author:** ![huWkffKNBo](https://forum.newsblur.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/ebca7d/32.png) [@huWkffKNBo](https://forum.newsblur.com/u/huWkffKNBo)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2026, 3:12pm UTC](https://forum.newsblur.com/t/detect-and-tag-shorts-in-youtube-feeds/9711/14 "2026-06-02T15:12:42Z")
I’ve found another potential solution to splitting out shorts and real videos [here](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48032508).