Why can’t I see my subscriptions on YouTube?

Last reviewed: September 23, 2026 · Markdown version

Start by deciding which thing is missing, because there are two and they have different answers. This page is about the list of channels you follow — the one that will not load, or loads with the wrong names in it. If what you are missing is videos, and the list of channels is fine, you want the other page: YouTube Subscriptions feed not showing videos? — that one is about the feed.

Where the list is supposed to be

On a computer, signed in, youtube.com/feed/channels opens a page YouTube titles “All subscriptions” (checked 23 September 2026). YouTube's desktop help gives a sidebar route to your Subscriptions — “In the Guide, click Subscriptions” (YouTube Help: Subscribe to YouTube channels (computer), read 23 September 2026) — which opens the feed of recent videos rather than the list itself. On a phone, YouTube describes the route from inside the Subscriptions tab: “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, read 23 September 2026). Either way, the list of your channels is the screen you want.

1. You are signed out, or in Incognito

Signed out, there is no list to show. Incognito is the version that catches people, because you still look signed in: YouTube says “Incognito mode lets you stay signed in, but acts like you're signed out,” and that while it is on, your account activity, “like your subscriptions or watch history, won't influence your YouTube experience” (YouTube Help: Browse YouTube while incognito on mobile devices, read 23 September 2026). It is a feature of the YouTube mobile app, turned on from your profile picture.

2. You are using a different channel

YouTube is explicit: “On YouTube, you can only use one channel at a time,” and “You can manage up to 100 channels from one Google Account.” YouTube's steps: in the top right corner of youtube.com, click your profile picture, click Switch account, then click the account you want to use (YouTube Help: Switch between channels on a Google Account, read 23 September 2026). Work through the accounts listed there before concluding anything has gone wrong — a device that more than one person uses is where this tends to happen.

3. The privacy setting is not the cause — and it is the one everyone tries

YouTube has a setting called Keep all my subscriptions private, reached by signing in on a computer, clicking your profile picture, then Settings, then Privacy. It governs what other people can see, not what you can. YouTube's own description of the two states is about other users: when set to private, “no other users can see what channels you subscribe to”; when public, “other users can see what channels you subscribe to” (YouTube Help: Change your subscription privacy settings, read 23 September 2026). Turning it off will not make your own missing list appear, and turning it on will not remove anything from it.

4. You are looking at Home, or at the feed, rather than the list

Three different screens get called “my subscriptions”: the Home tab, the Subscriptions feed of recent videos, and the channels list. Only the third is a list of channels. If the screen in front of you is full of video thumbnails, you are on one of the first two, and the question you actually have is probably about the feed — again, that is YouTube Subscriptions feed not showing videos?

What YouTube does not document

The help pages cited here offer no troubleshooting list for a channels list that will not load — no enumerated causes, no official fix sequence. So the honest shape of this page is: rule out the four documented things above, and then treat what is left as a general app problem rather than a subscriptions problem. Observation rather than documentation: a reload, a fresh sign-in, or checking the same account from a browser instead of the app will tell you within a minute whether the list exists and the app is failing to draw it.

When the list loads and that is the problem

There is a version of this question where nothing is broken at all: the list opens, all several hundred names are there, and it is useless. The channels list shows names and not much else — not when a channel last uploaded, not how often it uploads — so the names that stopped mattering look exactly like the names that still do. What that list gives and what it withholds is set out in how to see all the channels you're subscribed to, and if some of the names are ones you do not recognise at all, that has its own answer: why am I subscribed to channels I never subscribed to?

Where SubSense fits

The four causes above are yours to sort out in a minute, with no app. SubSense is for the last section: once the list does load, it reads those same subscriptions on your device and shows the facts the list leaves out — which channels have gone quiet, which are flooding your feed — and organises them into smart categories so a few hundred names become something you can actually work through. SubSense holds YouTube's write permission — it has to, or it could not unsubscribe anything. Nothing is removed automatically: you review, you select, you confirm, and Undo re-subscribes you.