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How to Set Up YouTube Custom Feeds After Made on YouTube

Create U.S. YouTube custom homepage feeds with mood prompts on web, mobile, and TV after Made on YouTube 2026.

September 26, 2026 Yum News

YouTube announced Custom Feeds at Made on YouTube on 23 September 2026. The feature lets you add homepage tabs that follow a prompt you write, then refresh those tabs with new recommendations.

YouTube’s viewer-product post says feeds are for U.S. users on web, mobile, and TVs, and that they will arrive soon. The official Creator Roundup says mobile and desktop start later in 2026. Treat this as a rollout, not a switch that is already on every account.

This guide covers what YouTube published, the prompts the company used in demos, and how to use the tabs once they appear next to Home.

What a custom feed is

A custom feed is a saved homepage tab, not a playlist and not a subscription folder. You describe a mood, a routine, or a niche. YouTube fills the tab with videos and Shorts that match that description and keeps the list fresh.

Official example prompts from the YouTube Blog:

“Witty podcasts for my daily 30-minute commute”
“Evening wind down with long documentaries”
“Help me discover new DIY creators”

Johanna Voolich, VP of Product Management for Viewer Products, wrote that you can save multiple feeds and open them from the homepage. The Creator Roundup repeats the same idea: dedicated tabs for interests, moods, or topics.

Custom feeds do not replace subscriptions. They sit beside Home. If a tab starts to drift, rewrite the prompt. Do not expect the old Home algorithm to ignore the new tabs.

Person watching a video on a laptop in a living room

Who gets it and when

YouTube’s viewer post: U.S. accounts, web, mobile, and TVs, soon.

YouTube Creators’ MadeOn 2026 Creator Roundup: custom feeds start on mobile and desktop later this year.

If you are outside the U.S., wait for a later notice. YouTube did not publish a global date in those two posts. Do not use a VPN as a support path. Features gated by country can fail mid-session when the account country and the IP disagree.

TV is listed in the viewer blog, not in the Creator Roundup line about mobile and desktop. When the TV client lags, keep using the phone tab and cast a single video. Do not assume the living-room Home row updates the same week as the phone.

How to create a feed when the control appears

YouTube has not published a pixel-perfect settings path yet. The published behavior is conversational: you type or speak a prompt, save the result as a tab, and return to it from Home.

When the entry point shows up, use this order:

Update the YouTube app or hard-refresh youtube.com while signed into a U.S. account.
Open Home. Look for a feed builder, a “Create feed” control, or a prompt field near the existing tabs.
Write one job per feed. Commute audio is not the same feed as late-night documentaries.
Save the tab with a short name you will recognize on a TV row.
Watch five items. If the mix is wrong, edit the prompt instead of deleting the tab on the first miss.
Repeat for a second routine. YouTube explicitly says you can keep more than one.

Keep the language concrete. “Good videos” is a weak prompt. “New DIY creators, under 20 minutes, no haul vlogs” is closer to the examples YouTube used on stage.

Prompts that match YouTube’s own demos

Borrow the structure YouTube already showed, then swap the niche.

Routines

Witty podcasts for a 30-minute commute
Evening wind-down with long documentaries
Weekend cooking videos with visible recipes on screen

Discovery

Help me discover new DIY creators
Independent game design talks, no trailers
Beginner Android accessibility walkthroughs

Constraints to add after the first save

Prefer long-form over Shorts
Prefer Shorts series I can finish in one sitting
Skip product-haul formats

Shorts series are a separate Made on YouTube feature. Creators can group Shorts into shows with a Watch Series button. A custom feed can surface those shows, but it does not create the series for the channel. That work happens in YouTube Studio.

Television in a living room with a streaming interface on screen

How custom feeds differ from Ask YouTube

Custom Feeds build a standing homepage tab.

Ask YouTube answers a question in the moment. The same Made on YouTube cycle expanded Ask YouTube as a shopping and review guide. You can ask follow-ups on a watch page or use voice on TV. Search results can include comparison tables of product attributes, then drop you onto a review video where the thread continues.

Use Ask YouTube when you are choosing a phone or a skillet today. Use a custom feed when you want that topic waiting on Home tomorrow. The shopping flow is covered in Ask YouTube product reviews and shopping.

Do not paste a full product spec sheet into a feed prompt. Feeds are for a recurring taste. One-off research belongs in Ask YouTube.

What else shipped in the same keynote

Custom feeds sat next to other viewer and creator tools. Knowing the split keeps you from hunting in the wrong app.

Shorts series — creators group Shorts; viewers get a Watch Series control. YouTube Creators said show features for Shorts start later in September 2026.
Ask Music and Podcast Lineup — YouTube Music, not the main Home tab. Podcast Lineup is a weekly spoken preview for Music and Premium subscribers, listed as coming soon worldwide.
Ask Studio — creator-side. Draft feedback, pitches, and later brand-brief replies. Not a viewer Home tool.
Posts on TV — image posts on channel pages on television, listed for early next year in the Creator Roundup.

If a control is missing on youtube.com, check YouTube Music or YouTube Studio before you assume Custom Feeds failed.

The YouTube Creators Roundup above opens with Custom Feeds, then covers Shorts series, Studio tools, and likeness detection. It is the official recap tied to the Made on YouTube blog posts.

Limits to plan around

Country. Published availability is the United States.
Timing. “Soon” and “later this year” are the only dates YouTube gave for viewer feeds.
Not a playlist. Items rotate. Save videos you care about with the normal Save action.
Not subscriptions. A feed will not notify you the way a bell does.
TV lag. The viewer blog includes TV. The Creator Roundup’s first ship window names mobile and desktop. Expect the living-room client last.
Prompt quality. Vague mood words produce a noisy tab. Add format, length, and what to exclude.

YouTube did not publish a cap on how many feeds one account can keep. Start with two. Delete the one you never open.

A simple setup once the tab exists

Create a commute feed with a time limit in the prompt.
Create an evening feed that asks for long documentaries.
Watch each tab for three days without editing.
Tighten only the tab that drifted.
Keep Ask YouTube for one-off shopping questions instead of stuffing those queries into Home.

That split matches how YouTube described the two products on 23 September.

Conclusion

Custom Feeds give U.S. viewers a homepage they can describe in a sentence. Write one prompt per routine, save the tab, and edit the text when the mix slips.

The feature is still rolling out. Update the app, stay on a U.S. account, and use the official Creator Roundup if you need to confirm what shipped beside it.