# The Feed Flood Calculator

*Last reviewed: September 23, 2026 · [HTML version](https://channelsorter.com/tools/feed-flood-calculator/)*

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: how many channels
you follow, and roughly what kind they are.

## What you give it

- **How many channels you are subscribed to** — presets 50 · 200 · 500 · "No idea, a lot" (900).
- **What kind of channels, mostly?**
  - Small creators & hobby channels — 60% dormant · 37% at about 1 upload a fortnight · 3% high-volume at 21/week
  - A typical mix — 40% dormant · 55% at about 1–2 uploads a week · 5% high-volume at 21/week
  - News, gaming, shorts & podcasts — 20% dormant · 65% at about 3 uploads a week · 15% high-volume at 25/week

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. The hours figure assumes a 12-minute average video —
this page's assumption, not a measurement of your feed.

## 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 —
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/4489286?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid). **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?](https://channelsorter.com/answers/youtube-subscription-limit/)

## 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](https://channelsorter.com/answers/clean-up-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 — https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/getting-started) 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.

Related: [is there a limit on YouTube subscriptions?](https://channelsorter.com/answers/youtube-subscription-limit/) ·
[how to clean up your YouTube subscriptions](https://channelsorter.com/answers/clean-up-youtube-subscriptions/)