The YouTube comments section is as old as the site itself and is one of the few major pillars of YouTube as a whole.
Unfortunately, YouTube has begun to look less and less like its older self, as the company keeps removing highly praised features from the site throughout the years.
Nowadays there is more bad than good to say about YouTube, from certain perspectives.
Today’s topic at hand is – How to sort youtube comments by oldest. Which used to be a native feature that was seemingly removed by YouTube a few versions back.
In this article, we will be discussing the benefits of sorting comments by the oldest and how to get the feature back (sort of).
Why Sort Comments By Oldest?
There are a couple of good reasons why one might want to sort YouTube comments by the date. These are:
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Historical Context
Sorting YouTube comments by the oldest can be quite helpful when trying to understand what people were like on the site 5-10 years ago.
It’s rather interesting to look back at what people’s initial reactions to videos were and to read the discussions and opinions that were formed during.
Tracking Discussions
Users can use the sort comments by the oldest feature to pinpoint specific discussions that took place after a video was released initially and to see where those discussions have been led throughout the years.
How To Sort YouTube Comments By Oldest
To be completely honest, there isn’t a way to get the sort by oldest comment button natively back onto the site itself.
But fret not as there is an alternative method you can use to view older YouTube comments, using a third-party site which I think uses the youtube API.
Plus, it’s a multi-platform solution meaning you can use this method on any device be it PC, Mac, Android, or iOS.
- Step 1: Open www.youtube.com and search for a video you wish to view older comments on.
- Step 2: Copy the video link.
- Step 3: Open a new tab in a web browser and go to www.hadzy.com
- Step 4: In the text box which says ‘Enter video url’ paste the video link you copied previously and click on the search at the end of the text box.
- Step 5: Click on the ‘Load Data’ button and wait a few seconds.
- Step 6: Afterwards, click on the ‘View Comments’ button.
After that, the site will automatically sort Youtube comments by oldest.
If this isn’t the case for you, there should be a red arrow pointing down on the top-right of the window with ‘Newest first’ to the right of it.
Click on the arrow to change the sorting option to ‘Oldest first’ which will cause the arrow to point upwards.
Frequently Asked Questions
How are YouTube Comments Currently Sorted?
In recent versions, Youtube (on all platforms) can only sort comments by:
- Top – Comments which are the most liked or are most frequently interacted with (doesn’t always sort by likes or replies)
- Newest – Comments which have been posted the latest.
How Does Youtube Sort Top Comments?
You may have already noticed that Youtube doesn’t always sort top comments by likes.
This is because it’s just ONE of the ranking factors. And believe it or not, the comment ranking system is pretty complex too.
Youtube comment sort uses the number of likes and dislikes, the number of replies to the comment, the time it was posted, and the user who posted it along with their Youtube commenting history.
How To Sort Youtube Comments By Likes?
As I said, comment thumbs-ups are just one factor, so you can’t sort by like natively on Youtube. So, you’d have to use a third-party tool to do it. Youtube™ Actual Top Comments Chrome extension works great for this.
Why Did Youtube Remove Sort By Oldest Video?
Just like the comments, Youtube also removed the sort by oldest video feature back in April 2022. The official response from Youtube for this was “To enable users to find content easier” by implementing a new filter by video type option.
But the good news is, in June 2023, Youtube brought back the sort by oldest video option.
