# The Feed Flood Calculator

*Last reviewed: September 2, 2026 · [HTML version](https://www.subsenseapp.com/tools/feed-flood-calculator/)*

Nobody subscribes to 400 channels on purpose. It happens one tap at a time over ten years, and the pile
builds up quietly — as a feed you scroll past.

The tool on the HTML version of this page estimates how much actually arrives, from two numbers you already
know: how many channels you follow, and roughly what kind they are. **It never touches YouTube, asks for
no sign-in, and sends nothing anywhere.**

## Where the two thresholds come from

They are not invented for the page. They are the same rules SubSense 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, from 30 to 180 days.)
- **High-volume — 21 or more uploads a week.** Three a day, every day. On the typical mix, one such
  channel out-publishes fourteen ordinary ones.

**Both are counts of uploads.** Neither that 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 two, plus a caveat that matters more than either. *"In general, you can
subscribe to a maximum of 2,000 channels"* — but the very next sentence is *"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"*, and *"your exact limits may change over time"*. **So 2,000 is a starting point, not
a ceiling**, and plenty of long-standing accounts sit well above it.

Separately, YouTube 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,
not about any hard stop.

## 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.

## About the app

SubSense signs in with Google, sorts the channels you follow into categories, and shows which have gone
quiet and which are flooding your feed, from their real upload history rather than an estimate. You
approve every removal: nothing is ever removed automatically, and never without showing you exactly what
will go first. Undo re-subscribes you and puts the channel back where it was. A large purge can run into
YouTube's daily API quota and need finishing the next day — the app says so when it happens. 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://www.subsenseapp.com/answers/youtube-subscription-limit/) ·
[how to clean up your YouTube subscriptions](https://www.subsenseapp.com/answers/clean-up-youtube-subscriptions/)