How do you unsubscribe from a YouTube channel?

Last reviewed: October 7, 2026 · Markdown version

Open any video from that channel, tap Subscribed under the player, and choose Unsubscribe. That is the one route YouTube's help sets out, and it ends with a confirmation: “At the bottom of the screen, you’ll get a notification confirming you’ve unsubscribed” (YouTube Help: Subscribe to YouTube channels, read 7 October 2026). If you do not see that notice, the subscription is probably still there.

Step by step, by device

In the app on Android or iPhone. Sign in, go to a video from the channel you want to drop, then under the video player tap Subscribed and then Unsubscribe. The iPhone version of the help gives the same four steps as the Android one (YouTube Help: Subscribe to YouTube channels, iPhone version, read 7 October 2026).
On a computer. The computer version starts “On a computer, sign in to YouTube,” then has you open one of the channel's videos and click Subscribed, then Unsubscribe, under the player (YouTube Help: Subscribe to YouTube channels, computer version, read 7 October 2026).
On a TV. The help page comes in an Android version, an Apple version and a computer version, and none of them gives steps for the YouTube app on a television (YouTube Help: Subscribe to YouTube channels, read 7 October 2026). Our suggestion, not YouTube's: if the TV is signed in to the same account as your phone, use the documented phone route instead of hunting through the TV's menus.

What about the channel page?

The same help article says “You can find a Subscribe button under any YouTube video or on a channel's page,” so the button lives in both places. Its unsubscribe steps, though, start from a video every time; the page does not walk through unsubscribing from the channel page itself (YouTube Help: Subscribe to YouTube channels, read 7 October 2026). Nor does it describe unsubscribing from the list of channels you reach through All in the Subscriptions tab. Any recent upload of the channel will do as the starting point.

What changes once you have left

Your Subscriptions feed. The help ties that feed to subscribing: “Once you subscribe to a channel, any new videos it publishes will show up in your Subscriptions feed” (same page). What leaving does to the Home tab is a different question, with its own answer.
Notifications, if you come back. Re-subscribing does not restore the bell you had. The computer version spells it out: your notification settings “will be reset to personalized or no notifications. If you'd like to get a notification for every upload, make sure to turn on all notifications” (YouTube Help: Subscribe to YouTube channels, computer version, read 7 October 2026).
The channel's Subscribers List, if your subscriptions are public. With public subscriptions, YouTube says “Your account is listed in the Subscribers List for any channel you subscribe to” (YouTube Help: Change your subscription privacy settings, read 7 October 2026). Private is the default; making your subscriptions private covers the switch.

If a channel you left turns up again, something with access to your account may have re-added it; why am I subscribed to channels I never subscribed to? goes through that case.

When it is not one channel but forty

YouTube's route is one channel per video, per pass. For a handful that is the right tool and needs nothing else. For a long list, the slow part is choosing, which is what the mass-unsubscribe page is about.

SubSense is built for that larger job. Sign in with Google and it sorts the channels you follow into smart categories, and it shows which have gone quiet or flood your feed. You can then unsubscribe from the ones you no longer watch without leaving the app: you approve every removal, it never removes anything automatically, and it shows you exactly what will be removed first. If you regret one, Undo subscribes you again and returns the channel to the category it came from.

Its limits, plainly. There are 10 free in-app removals to start, and unlimited in-app removal is unlocked with a monthly, yearly or one-time lifetime purchase. The free way never goes away: open any channel in YouTube and do it yourself — unlimited, never metered. A very large run can stop part-way when YouTube's daily API quota runs out, and carry on the next day. SubSense is an independent tool, not affiliated with YouTube, and runs on iPhone and Android.