YouTube can help you rediscover yourself, believe it or not. How? You can check the list of content creators you follow and have followed. By doing so, you can see how your tastes have changed over time. Also, you may have an interest that you have put at the back of your mind and have forgotten about them. Looking at your Top 10 YouTube views sites and subscription history can remind you of those things. And the chances are you still love those things, and you may have even helped buy them YouTube views.
You can also check your subscriptions if you want to “declutter.” Getting recommended videos from YouTube channels you no longer watch could get annoying. So, you may want to unsubscribe to them.
So, how can you do this? There are many methods to do it. And the steps can also change depending on what device you are using. Let’s look at all of them.
Reviewing your YouTube Subscription History without Leaving YouTube
You can’t see how long you have subscribed to a channel using YouTube’s tools. A third-party app is needed for you to be able to do that. But it can show you your subscription history.
Here is how you do it on the web or mobile app.
On the Web
The first step, of course, is to visit Youtube.com using a web browser and log into your account. Then, on the left-side panel, click on “Subscriptions.”
Finally, click on “Manage.” That should be on the top right corner of the screen, below the “Create” button.
On Mobile
The steps on the mobile app are almost the same as when you do it on the web. You start by launching the YouTube mobile app. If you haven’t logged in yet, do that. Then, tap on “Subscriptions.” That is between the (+) icon and “Library” at the bottom left side of the screen.
There will be a menu at the top of the screen displaying the profile pictures of the channels you are subscribed to. There’s clickable text saying “Manage” on the rightmost side of that menu. Tap on that.
Tapping or clicking “Manage” on mobile and the web will open the YouTube subscription management page. There, you can see the history of your subscriptions.
Please note that YouTube will not list the channels in any particular order. So, because the channel is at the topmost of the list does not mean it was the latest addition to that list.
On this page, you can unsubscribe to channels that you are not interested in anymore. Also, you can set up alerts, so you don’t miss any video from a channel that you really like. That gives you some control over how YouTube presents content to you on your Home screen.
However, keep in mind that you can’t turn the notification bell on for channels labeled as “Made for Kids.”
Reviewing YouTube Subscription History Using My Google Activity Page
Suppose you want to see all the channels you are subscribed to on YouTube. At the same time, you want to learn how long you have been subscribed to that content creator.
As mentioned earlier, no native YouTube tool can give you what you want. But, you can get that using another Google product. Remember, YouTube is a subsidiary of Google.
That product would be My Google Activity. Open an internet browser, go to its webpage, and then sign into the Google account associated with your YouTube channel.
Once logged in, there should be a list of options on the left side of the screen. If it is not there, click or tap on the hamburger menu at the top-left corner of the screen.
Next, select “Other Google Activity.” That will redirect you to the “Activity controls” page. Scroll down until you find “YouTube Channel Subscriptions.”
Click on “View Subscriptions.” If you do this, a new browser tab will open. Click on that tab to see the channels you are subscribed to on the largest video-sharing website in the world.
Unlike the previous method, you can see when you click that subscribe button on each channel. It will show you not just the date but also the exact time when you subscribed. Unfortunately, it will not tell you exactly how many months or days you have been subscribed. If you want to know, you have to do the computation yourself.
You can delete your subscriptions activity on My Google Activity. That will effectively unsubscribe you to the channel that you deleted. However, it may take a few hours before Google can fully remove the data on YouTube.
What you can’t do, though, is activate or deactivate the notification bell. So, you can’t use this method to set alerts. You have to do that on the YouTube app or website.
Using Third-Party Apps to Review Your Subscription History
You can also use third-party apps to review your YouTube subscription history. You have to set your YouTube subscription visibility to “Public” for this to work. Therefore, it’s not for people who see privacy as an issue.
Here’s how you adjust your subscription visibility setting.
Log into YouTube. Then, tap or click on your profile photo. Select “Settings.”
On the Settings page, locate “Privacy” and click on that. Then look for the option that says, “Keep all my subscriptions private.” Toggle that off.
Now, you can use third-party apps/websites. Most of these will only need you to paste your channel’s URL into the textbox. Then, click the “Continue” button or any equivalent of that.
After that, you should see a list of all channels you are subscribed to. And as with My Google Activity, you’ll see the date and time when you subscribed.
Unlike doing it on YouTube, you can’t set or stop alerts. Likewise, unlike dong it on YouTube or My Google Activity, you can’t unsubscribe to any channels through that preview.
So, this method does not offer anything the official methods do not provide. And it also offers less than them. So, there’s really no reason to choose this. You also have to make your subscriptions’ visibility public. It’s best not to do that.
