How to See When You Subscribed to a YouTube Channel

Have you ever wondered when you first subscribed to your favorite YouTube channel? As a longtime YouTube user myself, I totally get the curiosity.

YouTube has come a long way since its launch in 2005. Many of us have been watching YouTube for over a decade now. That‘s years of subscribing to creators, following their journeys, and watching them evolve.

But unlike some social platforms, YouTube doesn‘t give you a way to look back on your subscription history. Sure, you can see who you‘re subscribed to now – but not the date you hit that red subscribe button.

YouTube provides no native feature to view your subscriptions sorted by subscribe date. So how can you rediscover your YouTube subscription history?

In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll share 5 methods to see when you subscribed to any YouTube channel as a social media marketing expert. Let‘s dive in!

Why Would You Want to Rediscover Your YouTube Subscription History?

Here are 5 key reasons why you may want to turn back the clock and see the exact dates you subscribed to channels on YouTube:

1. Nostalgia

YouTube has been around for generations of internet users now. Longtime YouTube fans often feel nostalgic thinking back to the first channels they discovered and subscribed to years ago.

Finding your original subscriptions can take you on a pleasant trip down memory lane – especially if those channels are still active today!

2. Appreciating Loyalty

When you look back and realize you were one of the first to subscribe to a channel, it represents your loyalty as an early supporter.

You may have helped kickstart a channel by being one of their first subscribers, which fueled their initial growth. Rediscovering this can make you appreciate your longtime connection.

3. Gaining Context

YouTube subscriptions can provide context on your changing interests and tastes over the years.

Maybe you went through a phase of subscribing to lots of beauty gurus. Or you had a period of obsessively following gaming channels. Seeing your old subscriptions may give you insights into what you were into during different times in your life.

4. Decluttering Your Feed

If your current subscription feed has gotten cluttered, analyzing your history can help you identify channels you may want to unsubscribe from if you haven‘t watched them in years.

5. Super Fandom

YouTube super fans often enjoy showing off how early they subscribed to their favorite creator‘s channel. It demonstrates their dedication and longevity as a supporter.

6. Channel Analytics

YouTube creators may want to study their subscription history to analyze their channel‘s growth. Seeing which users subscribed first and when growth took off can provide valuable insights.

YouTube Itself Doesn‘t Allow You to Sort Subscriptions by Date

While YouTube provides a list of all your current subscriptions, there is no built-in feature to view them organized chronologically.

To find your main subscription list on desktop, click on Subscriptions in the left sidebar menu. On mobile, tap your profile picture and select Subscriptions.

However, the only ways to sort this list are:

Most relevant
New activity
A-Z

There is no option to sort your subscriptions by date joined. You cannot view your list with your oldest subscriptions first and newest ones last.

Many users have requested the ability to sort subscriptions by date, but YouTube has not added this native feature.

So to get your detailed YouTube subscription history, you‘ll need to turn to third-party tools and workarounds. Let‘s explore 5 methods!

Method #1: Use a Subscription History Tool

The easiest and most direct way to see your full YouTube subscription timeline is to use a third-party subscription history tool.

Several websites and apps have been created that can connect to your YouTube account and extract your subscription data with dates.

Here are 3 of the best YouTube subscription history tools to use:

xxluke

xxluke is one of the most popular and reliable options. It‘s free to use and easy to set up.

To get your subscription history:

Go to xxluke.de/subscription-history
Click Authorize to connect your YouTube account
Click your profile picture and select Subscriptions

This will display your full subscription list organized chronologically, with newest subs at the top and oldest at the bottom.

xxluke does not make any changes to your YouTube account – it simply pulls your subscription data for viewing. According to SimilarWeb, the site gets over 400k visits per month, so many YouTubers find it useful.

Social Blade Subscription Export

The Social Blade YouTube analytics site also offers a subscription history export feature.

To use it:

Go to SocialBlade.com and login with your Google account.
Hover over your profile picture and click Subscriptions.
Scroll down and click Export Subscriptions.
View and analyze your subscription history spreadsheet.

This exports your full history into a .csv file which you can sort and analyze.

YouTube Subscription Exporter

Another good tool is YouTube Subscription Exporter created by Jakub-G.

It‘s a Python script you run locally to export your subscription history into a .csv file. Slightly more technical to set up, but still free and useful if you want the data as a spreadsheet.

There are a couple other tools like SubFeed and ChannelFollower too, but may require paid memberships.

Method #2: Check Your Email Inbox

If you don‘t want to use any external tools, another option is to manually check your email inbox for past YouTube subscription notifications.

When you subscribe to a YouTube channel, you get a confirmation email like this:

So by digging through your inbox and searching for from:youtube subject:subscribed, you can find many of your past subscription dates.

In Gmail, click the search bar and enter:

from:youtube subject:subscribed

This will surface YouTube subscription emails going back as far as Gmail‘s history, depending on how long you‘ve used that address.

The limitation is it will only show fairly recent subscriptions, as old emails eventually get archived. But you may uncover some of your oldest still-intact subscriptions using this method.

Method #3: Analyze Your YouTube Watch History

While not exact, you can make reasonable estimates of when you subscribed to channels by looking at your YouTube watch history.

Your watch history shows the videos you‘ve watched and when. So you can gauge roughly when you started frequently watching and engaging with a channel‘s new content.

To view your YouTube watch history:

On mobile, tap your profile picture > Watch history
On desktop, click History in the left sidebar

Scroll through your history and make notes of the publish dates of the first videos you watched from channels. This gives you a ballpark of when you likely subscribed and began following them more closely.

Of course, this won‘t show the exact subscribe date. But combining it with your email search can help you triangulate a reasonable estimate.

Method #4: Check Your Social Media Activity

Similar to watch history, your social media activity can provide clues about when you subscribed to channels you actively followed.

Scan through your historical posts, likes, and comments on platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Look for your earliest interactions with YouTube creators you still follow today.

Maybe your first likes of a channel‘s Instagram posts were in early 2019. Or you replied to their tweets since 2017. This provides approximates of when you started engaging with their brand and likely subscribed on YouTube.

Tools like Facebook Memories and Twitter Analytics make it easy to analyze your historic social media activity as well.

Method #5: Reach Out to YouTube Creators

If you want to know exactly when you subscribed to a specific channel, you can try reaching out to the creators directly. Many YouTubers have access to their subscriber analytics and lists.

Find and contact the channel through social media or email. Explain you are a longtime fan trying to figure out your subscribe date. Some creators may be willing to comb through their data and let you know when you first joined.

How likely they are to respond and share the info may depend on the size of the channel. But for smaller channels especially, creators often appreciate dedicated longtime fans and may oblige if possible.

Why Hasn‘t YouTube Added native Date Sorting for Subscriptions?

With so many user requests over the years, why hasn‘t YouTube added the ability to view your subscriptions sorted by join date natively?

A few reasons the feature still doesn‘t exist:

Development Priorities – It‘s likely low on YouTube‘s priority list relative to other product roadmap features. Which makes sense, given the external tools meet the user need without requiring YouTube‘s engineering resources.
Server Infrastructure – Sorting subscriptions chronologically may put strain on their servers and data architecture, especially with billions of users. Maintaining basic subscriptions at scale is already hugely complex.
Feature Creep – YouTube avoids overcomplicating interfaces with too many sort options and filters. Another sort mechanism could add clutter and confusion.
Promoting Active Channels – YouTube understands users are most interested in active channels. So "Most relevant" and "New activity" make more sense as defaults based on their data.
Privacy Concerns – Some users may not like exposing their full subscription history. Letting external tools meet the need reduces privacy issues.

So in summary, it‘s likely just not worth the effort for YouTube compared to other priorities. And the third-party tools satisfy users who still want the historical data.

Should You Make Your YouTube Subscriptions Public or Private?

To enable third-party subscription history tools to access your data, you need to make sure your YouTube subscriptions are public, not private.

Private is the default setting, so you may need to change it:

On Desktop:

Go to your YouTube Account Settings
Click Privacy Settings
Uncheck ‘Keep all my subscriptions private‘

On Mobile:

Tap your profile picture
Tap Settings
Toggle ‘Keep subscriptions private‘ to off

The advantage of public subscriptions is allowing tools to access your history. The downside is it exposes the list to anyone visiting your channel.

I recommend keeping them public only while using the tools, then turning privacy back on after you‘re done. This gives you access when needed without long term exposure.

Can You Retrieve Old Subscription Data After Unsubscribing?

Unfortunately, once you unsubscribe from a channel, your past subscribe date and subscription history is permanently erased.

Neither YouTube nor third-party tools can show subscription history from channels you have since unsubscribed from.

So if you want to preserve records of your YouTube subscriptions, occasionally export your full list. That way you‘ll have a snapshot even if you unsubscribe later on.

Key Takeaways and Next Steps

Let‘s summarize the key points:

YouTube provides no native way to view your subscriptions sorted by subscribe date. You need third-party tools.
Options like xxluke and Social Blade‘s exporter make accessing your full history easy.
Searching your email inbox can help uncover your oldest intact YouTube subscription confirmations.
Analyzing your YouTube watch history and social media activity provides estimates of when you likely subscribed.
Make sure subscriptions are public to enable tools to access your data.

Now you‘re armed with a toolbox to uncover your unique YouTube subscription journey!

It can be eye-opening and nostalgic to rediscover the channels you‘ve supported over the years. Let me know in the comments if you find any long lost or forgotten subscriptions using these techniques!