The Feed Flood Calculator
Last reviewed: September 23, 2026 · Markdown version
Nobody subscribes to 400 channels on purpose. It tends to happen one tap at a time, over years, and the pile builds up quietly — as a feed you scroll past.
This works out how much actually arrives. Not by looking at your account — it never touches YouTube, asks for no sign-in and sends nothing anywhere — but from two numbers you already know.
Every percentage above is this page's assumption — not a measurement and not survey data — and it is written down on purpose, so you can disagree with the assumptions rather than the answer. The arithmetic is nothing more than these bands multiplied out.
Your estimate — worked out from the two answers above, not read from your account.
would arrive in your subscriptions feed each week, on these assumptions
The hours figure assumes a 12-minute average video — this page's assumption, not a measurement of your feed.
would be dormant on these assumptions — no upload in the last 60 days. They cost you nothing and give you nothing; they are just length in the list.
Where the two thresholds come from
They are not invented for this page. They are the same rules Adinand Channel Sorter applies inside the app:
- Dormant — no upload in 60 days. A channel that has published nothing in two months is not contributing to your feed. (In the iPhone app you can move this line yourself, anywhere from 30 to 180 days.)
- High-volume — 21 or more uploads a week. Three a day, every day. On the typical mix above, one such channel out-publishes fourteen ordinary ones.
Both are counts of uploads. Neither this page nor the app measures your viewing — not what, not how long, not whether at all. Upload activity is a property of the channel, and it is the only thing being counted.
YouTube's own numbers, for scale
YouTube's help page publishes three numbers, and a caveat that matters more than any of them. There is a daily cap — “You can only subscribe to 75 channels per day.” Then “In general, you can subscribe to a maximum of 2,000 channels.” — but the very next sentence is “But, your subscription limit grows as your YouTube channel does—it’s tied to the number of subscribers your channel has or how long your account has existed.”, followed by “Your exact limits may change over time.” (Subscribe to YouTube channels, YouTube Help, read 23 September 2026). So 2,000 is a starting point, not a ceiling.
Separately, the same page recommends capping an account at 5,000 channel subscriptions “to make sure the subscriptions feed and channel list give the best experience”. That one is about the feed working well rather than about any hard stop — which is the thing the number above is actually describing. More in is there a limit on YouTube subscriptions?
What to actually do about it
The useful move is not unsubscribing from everything. It is finding the small number of channels producing most of the volume, and the large number producing none — and deciding about those two groups only. That is how to clean up your YouTube subscriptions, and it is what Adinand Channel Sorter is for.
Or see your real numbers instead of these ones.
Adinand Channel Sorter signs in with Google, sorts the channels you follow into categories, and shows you which have gone quiet and which are flooding your feed — from their real upload history, not an estimate. You approve every removal: nothing is ever removed automatically, and never without showing you exactly what will go first. Changed your mind? Undo re-subscribes you and puts the channel back in its category. A large purge can run into the daily quota Google puts on the YouTube Data API (YouTube Data API Overview, Google for Developers, read 23 September 2026) and need finishing the next day — the app tells you when that happens rather than pretending otherwise. And the free way is always there: open any channel in YouTube and unsubscribe yourself, unlimited and never metered. iPhone and Android.