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How to Sort Your YouTube Search by Oldest Videos: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide

In this article, you'll learn how to sort your YouTube search by oldest videos to uncover hidden treasures from the platform's early days. Explore how to find oldest videos on YouTube and understand the sorting features available to enhance your viewing experience. Follow our tips to make the most out of YouTube's search functionality.

May 13, 2025

The Importance of Sorting by Upload Date

Why Sort YouTube Search by Oldest Video
Why Sort YouTube Search by Oldest Video

Sorting YouTube videos by upload date is a valuable tool for discovering older content and exploring the history of various topics. This feature allows you to delve into archives, find rare or forgotten videos, and trace the evolution of trends and ideas over time.

When you sort videos by upload date, you can see how a particular topic or trend has developed over time. This can be especially helpful for studying historical events, analyzing the evolution of technology, or exploring the changing landscape of popular culture.

Additionally, sorting by upload date can help you discover older videos that may have been overlooked or forgotten. These videos can often offer unique perspectives, historical context, or simply a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

Steps to Sort YouTube Videos by Upload Date

To sort YouTube videos by upload date, follow these simple steps:

1. Access YouTube: Open your web browser and navigate to YouTube.com.

2. Search for Your Topic: In the search bar, enter the keywords or phrases related to the topic you want to explore. For example, if you're interested in the history of video games, you might search for "vintage video games" or "retro gaming."

3. Sort by Upload Date: Click on the "Filters", in the pop-up new window, click on "Upload date" under the " Sort by" tab. This will arrange the search results from newest to oldest.

Search Video by Date

Effective Search Techniques on How to Find Oldest Videos on YouTube

While sorting by upload date is a helpful starting point, you may need to refine your search to find the oldest videos on YouTube. Here are some effective techniques:

☑️ Use Specific Keywords: Employ precise keywords that narrow down your search to older content. For example, instead of searching for "cat videos," try "vintage cat videos" or "1990s cat videos."

☑️ Explore Channels with Old Content: Look for channels that specialize in archiving old videos or preserving historical content. These channels often have extensive libraries of older videos.

☑️ Utilize Search Operators: Use advanced search operators like "before:" or "after:" to specify a date range for your search. For instance, searching for "cat videos before:2010" will show videos uploaded before 2010.

☑️ Search in One Channel: If you remember the channel, you can open that channel to find the oldest video: click the "Videos" tab > tap on the "Oldest" button. This is the quickest solution on how to sort YouTube videos by oldest.

Find Old YouTube Videos in a Channel
Find Old YouTube Videos in a Channel

Analyze Search Results and Options

Once you've sorted the search results by upload date, take time to analyze the results and explore different options. Consider the following:

  • Relevance: Evaluate whether the videos are relevant to your topic and match your search criteria.
  • Channel Credibility: Check the channel's reputation and credibility to ensure the content is reliable and accurate.
  • Video Length: If you're looking for in-depth information, consider longer videos.
  • View Count: While view count isn't always a reliable indicator, it can sometimes suggest popularity or relevance.

Bonus Tip: Download Videos from YouTube to the Local or Cloud

This article addresses the question "How to sort your YouTube search by oldest videos?" If you’re considering downloading YouTube videos or shorts, MultCloud can be extremely useful. Trusted by over 3 million users, MultCloud is a multi-cloud management tool that facilitates the transfer or synchronization of files between various cloud services. The process is quite simple. Just copy the Instagram URL of the desired content, paste it into MultCloud's input field, and download it in high quality.

For instance, you can save YouTube content to your computer or cloud drives, such as Google Drive, OneDrive, or Dropbox. MultCloud also enables you to transfer files between two different cloud services, like Dropbox to Google Drive. it supports more than 30 different cloud services, including Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, Box, Google Photos, iCloud Photos, FTP, WebDAV, and more.

  • Cloud Transfer: MultCloud can transfer files from one cloud service to another directly without downloading and re-uploading.
  • Cloud Sync: With MultCloud, you can easily sync two folders between different cloud services in real-time.
  • Cloud Backup: You can back up and restore data between different cloud services automatically.
  • Instagram Downloader: MultCloud can help you download Instagram videos, photos, reels, and stories to local device or remotely upload them to your clouds.
  • Video Download: Download videos from TikTok, YouTube, X, Vimeo, or more than 1000 video services to the local or cloud with various formats and resolution options.
  • Email Migration: You can directly back up and save Gmail emails as PDFs to your computer or cloud drive in bulk. 
  • Manage all cloud accounts in one place: Connect all your clouds to MultCloud and you'll find it so easy to access and manage multiple cloud storage files with a single login.

Quickly transfer, sync or backup files from one cloud to another.

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