Can I put my YouTube subscriptions in alphabetical order?

Last reviewed: October 15, 2026 · Markdown version

On a computer, yes: the channel list at youtube.com/feed/channels has a sort menu, and A-Z is one of its three choices. Signed in, that page is headed “All subscriptions”, and the button above the list reads Most relevant until you change it; clicking it offered Most relevant, New activity and A-Z (checked 15 October 2026, in Chrome on a computer). YouTube's help does not describe that menu. The computer version of its subscriptions article only says to click Subscriptions in the Guide, and names no sort order at all (YouTube Help: Subscribe to YouTube channels (computer), read 15 October 2026). So the steps below come from the live site, and they can change without notice.

On a computer, step by step

Sign in to YouTube in a browser and open youtube.com/feed/channels.
Click Most relevant, the button just under the “All subscriptions” heading.
Choose A-Z. The list reorders by channel name.

The help page has nothing on whether your choice is kept (YouTube Help: Subscribe to YouTube channels (computer), read 15 October 2026). If you come back later and the button says Most relevant again, pick A-Z once more.

In the YouTube app on a phone

YouTube's phone help gets you to the list but stops short of naming an order. On Android: “You can go to a list of your channels by tapping All, and filter your results using the drop-down arrow at the top” (YouTube Help: Subscribe to YouTube channels (Android), read 15 October 2026). The iPhone page has the same sentence, opening with “You can see a list” instead (YouTube Help: Subscribe to YouTube channels (iPhone), read 15 October 2026). Neither page lists what that drop-down contains, so neither says whether A-Z is in it, and we checked only the computer page today.

So in the app: open the Subscriptions tab, tap All, and open the drop-down at the top. If A-Z is there, use it. If it is not, the browser route above is the one we have seen working.

What the three orders mean

YouTube's viewer help defines none of them. Its developer documentation, written for apps that read subscriptions through the API, does describe three sort orders for a subscription list: “alphabetical – Sort alphabetically”, “relevance – Sort by relevance” and “unread – Sort by order of activity”, with relevance as the default (YouTube Data API: Subscriptions: list, read 15 October 2026).

Our reading, not YouTube's wording: the three choices on the web page line up with those three, and the default is the same, but no YouTube page we read says they are the same thing. Taken one at a time:

A-Z is the plain one: channel names in alphabetical order.
New activity probably brings channels with recent uploads up. The nearest thing the help documents is a marker: “When a channel you subscribe to has new content, you’ll see a dot next to the channel name” (YouTube Help: Subscribe to YouTube channels (Android), read 15 October 2026).
Most relevant is YouTube's own ranking, and that is why the list seems to have no order at all when you first open it. Nothing we read explains what goes into it.

How are YouTube subscriptions ordered if you never choose?

By Most relevant, on the web page we checked, and by relevance in the API documentation above. Neither source says what relevance is made of (the YouTube Data API: Subscriptions: list page gives only “Sort by relevance”), and the Android help page is silent on it too (YouTube Help: Subscribe to YouTube channels (Android), read 15 October 2026). Our reading: a list that looks shuffled is most likely just showing that default.

The Subscriptions feed is a different list

Sorting the channel list does nothing to the videos. YouTube separates the two: the Subscriptions feed “will show any recently uploaded videos from your subscriptions” (YouTube Help: Subscribe to YouTube channels (Android), read 15 October 2026). That is a stream of uploads, and A-Z is not an option for it. Ordering videos is its own question, covered in how to sort YouTube videos by date.

What A-Z will and won't do for a long list

Alphabetical order is good for one job: finding a channel whose name you remember, or checking whether you already follow one. An alphabetical list cannot show which channels still post, and it puts a cooking channel next to a coding one because their names start with the same letter. If what you are after is groups rather than letters, organising and sorting your subscriptions goes through what YouTube does and does not offer, and seeing every channel you follow covers the list itself.

Grouping instead of alphabetising

Grouping is where Adinand Channel Sorter is a real alternative. Sign in with Google and it organises the channels you follow into smart categories. You can also make your own tags: label channels, filter the subscription list by a tag, and open a tag as a group to review it. Tags are managed in Settings on iPhone and under Smart Groups › Manage tags on Android, and they survive every sync and the 30-day purge of cached data.

Its limits for this question: it groups your channels, it does not reorder YouTube's own list, and the A-Z choice on youtube.com stays the way to alphabetise that list. Adinand Channel Sorter is an independent tool, not affiliated with YouTube, available for iPhone and Android.