Can I see when I subscribed to a YouTube channel?

Last reviewed: October 20, 2026 · Markdown version

Not anywhere in the YouTube app or website that its help describes, but YouTube does store the date: its developer documentation lists it on every subscription. The viewer help on subscriptions explains how to subscribe, find the list and unsubscribe, and none of its three versions (Android, iPhone, computer) mentions when you subscribed (YouTube Help: Subscribe to YouTube channels (Android), read 20 October 2026). The date turns up only in the YouTube Data API, which is aimed at developers, and possibly in a Takeout export, which this page comes to below.

Where the date is documented: the Data API

In the API's description of a subscription, the field `snippet.publishedAt` is defined as “The date and time that the subscription was created. The value is specified in ISO 8601 format” (YouTube Data API: Subscriptions, read 20 October 2026). An ISO 8601 value starts with the year, month and day, for example `2019-04-12`, followed by the time.

To read your own list, the `subscriptions.list` method takes `mine=true`, which will “retrieve a feed of the authenticated user's subscriptions” (YouTube Data API: Subscriptions: list, read 20 October 2026). That page has a Try it! panel that uses the APIs Explorer “to call this API and see the API request and response”, so you can do it without writing code. Two cautions from the same page:

`mine` “can only be used in a properly authorized request”, so you sign in and grant access to your account. Read what you are approving.
Sorting is by `alphabetical`, `relevance` or `unread` (“order of activity”). Date of subscribing is not one of the orders, so for a long list you scan the `publishedAt` values yourself.

Our reading: the date is when the subscription record was created. If you unsubscribed and came back, expect the later date, not the first one, because a re-subscribe makes a new subscription. The API page does not discuss that case.

Google Takeout: the file exists, the columns are not shown

Takeout's YouTube section offers a subscriptions item, described as “Your channel subscriptions.”, in CSV only (checked 20 October 2026, signed in, in Chrome on a computer). Neither the Takeout screens nor Google's help list that file's columns (Google Account Help: How to download your Google data, read 20 October 2026), so we cannot tell you whether it carries a date. Open the archive and look; the archive's own archive_browser.html is the guide to its formats. What else an export holds is on what is in a YouTube Takeout export.

Places that will not tell you

The channels list. YouTube's help describes a dot for new content and the word “Live” next to channel names, and nothing about dates (YouTube Help: Subscribe to YouTube channels (Android), read 20 October 2026). Seeing every channel you follow covers what that list does show.
Watch history. The settings YouTube documents for what history records are “the YouTube videos you watch”, “your searches on YouTube” and “YouTube voice and audio activity”; subscribing is not on that list (YouTube Help: View, delete, or turn on or off watch history (computer), read 20 October 2026). Your first watched video from a channel is a clue to when you found it, not a record of when you subscribed.

In Adinand Channel Sorter

On iPhone, Adinand Channel Sorter exports your whole channel list as a CSV from Settings, and the file's columns include `subscribed_at` alongside the channel's name, URL and last upload date. The file is made on your phone; nothing is uploaded. Two limits: we have confirmed that column for the iPhone app only, so we do not promise it on Android; and we make no claim that the app shows the date anywhere on screen. It is an independent tool, not affiliated with YouTube.

If the reason you are asking is a list grown too long to remember, counting your subscriptions and finding the ones that went quiet are the usual next steps.