What a YouTube alert looks like
The preview above is the default alert: a role ping, "has released a new video!" and the video link, which Discord turns into a preview you can play in place. Prefer a card of your own? Turn on the embed: the default one shows the channel name and picture, the video title and its thumbnail, in YouTube red. Every part can be changed, or loaded from a saved template. Variables fill in the upload details for you:
- {channel.title}: the YouTube channel name
- {video.title} and {video.url}: the title and link of the upload
- {video.headline_description}: the first line of the description
- {video.scheduled}: when a scheduled livestream starts, as a relative time such as "in 2 hours"
- {ping.roles}: the roles you chose to ping
One alert, worded for each kind of upload
Each alert covers three kinds of uploads: videos, Shorts and livestreams. Tick the ones you want. The default message then words itself after what was posted, so members see at a glance whether it is a new video or a stream about to start. It opens with the channel name in bold and ends with the link:
What the default alert says for each upload| Upload | The alert says |
|---|
| Video | "has released a new video!" |
|---|
| Short | "has released a new short!" |
|---|
| Livestream, live now | "is now live!" |
|---|
| Livestream, scheduled | "is going live in 2 hours.", with the real start time |
|---|
Koya tells uploads apart by what YouTube reports: a livestream is either live or scheduled, a Short is 65 seconds or less, and anything else is a video. Each upload is announced once, so a scheduled stream gets a single alert with its start time. You can rewrite each wording in the message editor.
Set up YouTube notifications in three steps
No YouTube account or API key is needed.
- Add Koya to your Discord server.
- In the dashboard, open YouTube, paste the channel link or its @handle and pick the Discord channel for the alerts.
- Choose which uploads to announce and the roles to ping, adjust the message and save.
Koya posts through a webhook, so it needs the Manage Webhooks permission in that channel. In a forum channel, each upload opens its own post, titled after the video. Alerts use the name and avatar of your custom bot profile, and Premium can set them per alert, for example to the YouTube channel's own name and picture.
For creators, teams and fan servers
Announcing your own channel? The free plan is enough: 1 YouTube channel with your message and your ping. A team, a network or a fan server can follow 10 channels on Premium, or unlimited on Pro, each with its own Discord channel, roles and message. With Premium, the same YouTube channel can even be added twice, to send videos to one Discord channel and Shorts to another. To ping only the members who want alerts, let members pick the upload ping role.
Free, Premium and Pro for YouTube alerts
What each plan includes for YouTube alerts. Every other limit is on the Premium and Pro limits page.
| Feature | Free | Premium | Pro |
|---|
| YouTube channels | 1 | 10 | unlimited |
|---|
| Videos, Shorts and livestreams | Yes | Yes | Yes |
|---|
| Custom message, embed and role pings | Yes | Yes | Yes |
|---|
| Backup check if a notification is missed | Every 8 hours | Every 15 minutes in fast mode | Every 15 minutes in fast mode |
|---|
| Name and avatar per alert | No | Yes | Yes |
|---|
More than YouTube
The same dashboard posts Twitch and Kick streams, Bluesky posts, Reddit posts, RSS feeds and Spotify releases, each with its own channel and ping. Streaming on Twitch as well? See Twitch alerts, or browse all social alert sources.
