YouTube has no single universal “sort everything by views” control, but there are two real places you can sort by popularity — and knowing which is which saves a lot of hunting through menus.
Sorting Search Results by View Count
- Search for your topic or a channel name.
- Click Filters below the search bar.
- Under Sort by, select View count.
This reorders results for that specific query from most to least viewed. It’s the fastest way to find the best-known video on any topic — useful when you want the definitive video rather than the newest one.
Note that the filter applies to your current search only. Run a new search and it resets to Relevance.
Sorting a Channel’s Videos by Popularity
- Go to the channel page and open the Videos tab.
- Click the Sort by dropdown — it defaults to Latest.
- Select Popular.
This is effectively a view-count sort of everything that channel has published, and it’s genuinely useful for two things: finding a creator’s best work when you’ve just discovered them, and — if it’s your own channel — seeing at a glance which topics actually landed.
Sorting Playlists
Playlists have their own sort options in playlist settings, but view count isn’t one of them — you get date added, publish date, and manual ordering. If you want a playlist ordered by popularity, you’d need to reorder it manually.
Why There’s No Global View-Count Sort
YouTube’s homepage and recommendations are personalized to you rather than sorted by a fixed metric, so there’s no way to browse all of YouTube ranked by views. The closest equivalent is the Trending page, which surfaces currently popular content by region — though it’s curated by more than raw view count.
For Creators: What This Tells You
Sorting your own channel by Popular is one of the quickest analytics checks available. If your most-viewed videos cluster around a particular topic or format, that’s your audience telling you what they want more of — often more directly than anything in Studio’s analytics dashboard.
It’s also worth checking a competitor’s channel this way before planning content. Their top videos show what genuinely performs in your niche, rather than what they upload most often.
FAQ
Can I sort all of YouTube by views?
No. Only search results and individual channel pages can be sorted by view count — the homepage is personalized rather than ranked.
How do I see a channel’s most viewed videos?
On the channel’s Videos tab, open the Sort by dropdown and choose Popular.
Can I sort a playlist by view count?
No. Playlists only offer date added, publish date, and manual ordering — you’d have to reorder by popularity yourself.
Does the search sort filter stay applied?
No, it applies to your current search only and resets to Relevance on a new search.