How to Import YouTube Subscriptions from a CSV or Takeout
You have the list — a Takeout file, a spreadsheet, a friend’s recommendations. YouTube just won’t take it. Here’s how to turn it into real subscriptions.
Published 29 September 2026 · 7 min readThere are plenty of reasons to have a list of channels you want to follow: a Takeout export from an old account, a creator list from a course, a colleague’s recommendations for your field, or a spreadsheet you kept yourself. Turning any of them into actual subscriptions means opening each channel and clicking Subscribe — unless you import them.
This guide explains what formats work, how to get your Takeout file, and how to subscribe to a whole list in one pass without duplicates.
Why YouTube has no import button
Google treats Takeout as a way to take your data out, not to bring it back. The YouTube interface has a subscriptions manager but no upload, and the only way to create a subscription is a click on each channel or a call to the YouTube Data API. Tools fill the gap by making those API calls for you — one per channel, paced so YouTube doesn’t reject them.
Which lists and links work
| Format | Example | Works? |
|---|---|---|
| Handle link | youtube.com/@veritasium | Yes |
| Handle | @mkbhd | Yes |
| Channel link | youtube.com/channel/UC… | Yes |
| Channel ID | UC followed by 22 characters | Yes |
| Takeout CSV | subscriptions.csv | Yes |
| Any CSV | A column named url, link, handle or channel id | Yes |
| Legacy custom URL | youtube.com/c/Name or /user/Name | No — use the @handle |
| Video or playlist link | watch?v=…, playlist?list=… | No — not a channel |
Messy lists are fine
Getting your subscriptions.csv from Google Takeout
Open Google Takeout
Select only YouTube
Export and download
If you still have access to the old account, a Subscription Backup gives you the same list in a minute, without waiting for an archive.
The manual way
Open the CSV, click each Channel Url, check whether you already follow it, and click Subscribe. It works, but a few hundred rows is a long evening, and nothing tells you which channels no longer exist until you open them.
Import and bulk subscribe, step by step
Connect the account that should subscribe
Paste or upload
Review the preview
Confirm and let it run
How MyFreshTools helps
What the tool does
Bulk Subscribe turns a list of channel links, @handles, IDs or a CSV into subscriptions on your account — preview first, add-only, with progress and a report.
Who it’s for
- People moving from an old account who only have a Takeout file.
- Teams sharing a list of channels everyone should follow.
- Learners following a course’s or community’s creator list.
How to use it
Connect, paste or upload, review the preview, confirm, and download the report.
Requirements and limits
- A free MyFreshTools account — free credits at signup, no card.
- Permission to manage subscriptions on the connected account.
- Checking your list is free. 1 credit per 2 channels actually added.
- Up to 500 new subscriptions per day; legacy /c/ and /user/ links aren’t resolved.
Examples and use cases
The Takeout file from an old account
You no longer have the password to an old account, but you downloaded a Takeout archive years ago. Its subscriptions.csv is the only copy of that list. Upload it, and every channel that still exists is subscribed on your current account; channels that have since disappeared are listed so you know what’s gone.
A course’s recommended creators
A course hands out a list of 40 channels worth following as @handles and links in a document. Paste the lot — messy formatting and all — into Bulk Subscribe. Handles resolve to channels, duplicates collapse, and a couple of old /c/ links are flagged so you can swap them for the right link.
A team onboarding list
A new hire needs to follow the same industry channels as the rest of the team. The team keeps a CSV with a url column; each new person imports it on day one instead of subscribing one by one.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| “No channel with this @handle” | Typo, or the handle changed. | Open the channel and copy its current @handle link. |
| “Old /c/ or /user/ link” | Legacy custom URL. | Replace it with the channel’s @handle or /channel/ link. |
| “Not a channel link” | It’s a video, Short or playlist URL. | Open the video and use the channel’s link instead. |
| Paused at the daily limit | 500 new subscriptions today. | Resume tomorrow; progress is saved. |
Frequently asked questions
Not with anything built into YouTube — Takeout exports subscriptions.csv but there’s no matching import. A bulk subscribe tool can read that file and subscribe your account to each channel in it.
Paste the channel links, @handles or channel IDs into a bulk subscribe tool, review the preview, and confirm. It subscribes your connected account to every channel you don’t already follow.
Those legacy custom URLs can’t be looked up reliably through the YouTube API without an expensive search, so they’re reported instead of guessed. Open the channel and copy its @handle or /channel/ link.
A YouTube account can follow up to 6,000 channels, and YouTube limits how many subscriptions an app can create per day, so up to 500 are added per day. Bigger lists pause and continue the next day.
No. Channels you already follow are detected in the preview and skipped, and they’re never charged.
The takeaway
YouTube will happily export your subscriptions and never take them back. A bulk subscribe tool closes that loop: any list of channels — Takeout, spreadsheet or pasted links — becomes real subscriptions after one preview and one confirmation.