How It Works

YT Zero uses only public YouTube surfaces — no Google account and no YouTube Data API key.

What is fetched

• Videos are fetched from official RSS feeds:

  https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UC...
  

• Channel IDs are resolved from common YouTube URLs and handles.

• Live and upcoming stream status is detected from channel live pages.

• Video duration, Shorts detection, view counts, likes, channel metadata, avatars, and public playlists are refreshed in the background where available.

See Configuration for the refresh intervals and how lazy duration backfill works.

What is stored locally

Everything user-specific lives locally in SQLite. Most of it is per profile:

• followed channels
• videos and statuses
• queue buckets
• tags and rules
• filter rules
• playlists and playlist rules
• watch history and progress
• display and player settings
• language preference

Channels and videos are stored globally and shared across profiles; per-profile state references them.