YouTube Focus Feed

A Chrome extension that filters your YouTube home feed using natural language prompts. Describe what you want to see (e.g., "only lofi and coding tutorials, no politics"), and AI classifies each video, hiding non-matching content seamlessly.

Features

• Natural Language Filtering: Describe your preferences in plain English
• Seamless Integration: Native YouTube UI - "My Feed" chip and settings icon
• Smart Caching: Results cached by video ID + prompt hash
• Schedule Support: Include time schedules like "weekdays 9-5"
• Both Themes: Works with YouTube's light and dark modes
• Shorts Support: Filters both regular videos and Shorts

Installation (Developer Mode)

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• An OpenAI API key (Get one here)

Setup

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/ytfeed.git
   cd ytfeed

2. Configure your API key

   cp src/config/secrets.example.ts src/config/secrets.local.ts

   Then edit src/config/secrets.local.ts and add your OpenAI API key.

3. Install dependencies and build

   npm install
   npm run build

4. Load in Chrome

   • Go to chrome://extensions
   • Enable "Developer mode" (top right)
   • Click "Load unpacked"
   • Select the dist folder

5. Visit YouTube

   • Go to youtube.com
   • Click the filter icon (⚙) next to the search bar
   • Enter your preferences and click Save

Usage

Writing Prompts

Be descriptive about what you want to see:

only lofi music and coding tutorials

no politics, no news commentary, no drama

gaming videos, especially Minecraft and indie games

Schedule Support

Include time constraints directly in your prompt:

work stuff only, weekdays 9-5

entertainment only, evenings after 6pm

How It Works

1. The extension injects a "My Feed" chip into YouTube's category bar
2. When enabled, it extracts video titles and channels from the page
3. Videos are batch-sent to GPT-4o-mini for classification
4. Matching videos appear normally; non-matching videos are hidden
5. Results are cached to minimize API calls

Cost

Using GPT-4o-mini, costs are extremely low:

• ~$0.0005 per day with heavy use (500 videos)
• ~$0.015 per month

Development

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build extension
npm run build

# Clean build
npm run clean

File Structure

ytfeed/
├── src/
│   ├── background/     # Service worker (classification, caching)
│   ├── content/        # Content script (DOM manipulation, UI)
│   ├── config/         # API config and secrets
│   ├── styles/         # CSS styles
│   ├── types/          # TypeScript definitions
│   └── utils/          # Shared utilities
├── assets/icons/       # Extension icons
├── dist/               # Built extension (load this in Chrome)
└── scripts/            # Build scripts

Privacy

• Your API key stays on your machine
• Video metadata (titles, channels) is sent to OpenAI for classification
• No data is collected or stored externally
• Classification results are cached locally

License

MIT