FINDING WHAT YOU NEED / 6 MIN READ
The first comment on a video — and how to actually reach it.
There is no “oldest first” anywhere in YouTube’s comment section. The first comment on a video is still findable — it just takes a detour away from the interface, and a timestamp check to be sure you have the real one.
People ask for the first comment for practical reasons: crediting the earliest supporters, verifying a “first!” claim, or reading how a conversation started before it found its tone. The interface has no tool for any of that — its two orders point the other way, at what is popular and at what is new.
Why there is no oldest-first sort
YouTube’s comment section offers two orders: Top comments, a relevance ranking built around engagement, and Newest first, which is strictly reverse-chronological. Neither points at the past — Newest puts you as far from the first comment as the interface can, and Top has no reason to surface a comment with no engagement. The mirror-image problem, sorting by likes, is covered by the most-liked page.
The manual workaround — setting Newest and scrolling to the very bottom — is the one everyone tries first and nobody finishes. Big threads never finish loading by hand, switching the sort resets what is loaded, and there is no way to tell whether the last comment you reached is really the earliest one. It is not a method; it is a hope.
Reaching it — and proving it
All three work on any public video. The first two get you the order; the third is what turns “this looks like the first” into a time you can quote.
- Sort the thread from the oldest side in a toolA reader that loads the full public thread can offer the order YouTube does not: Oldest. The first row is then the earliest comment still public, and you can read the opening of the conversation in order.What to do: Open the video in the viewer, choose Oldest in the sort control, and take the first row.
- Pull the exact timestamp from an exportThe interface shows relative dates — “6 years ago” — but an export carries the precise published_at timestamp for every comment. Sorting the file by that column gives you the earliest comment with a time you can quote.What to do: Export as CSV, sort by published_at ascending, and read the first row. The exact time is in the file, not on the page.
- Compare the first timestamp against the upload dateThe earliest comment you can see is the earliest one still public — not necessarily the first one ever posted. If the first visible comment arrives minutes after upload it is the genuine opener; a gap of weeks or months means earlier comments may have been removed since.What to do: Subtract the video's upload date from the oldest comment's timestamp. A large gap is not proof that something was deleted, but it is the signal worth checking.
Checking the timestamp
“Oldest” needs a time, and the page does not give you one — it shows relative dates that change every time you look. An export is the only version of the thread where the first comment comes with a fixed timestamp: sort by published_at ascending and the top row is the earliest, to the second.
- One level of nesting only. “First comment” means the earliest top-level comment. The earliest reply inside someone else’s thread is a different record, with its own timestamp.
- Upload date is the baseline. The video’s own publish time is the earliest moment a comment could exist — the gap between the two is what makes a first comment checkable.
- Zero engagement is normal at the start. A first comment was written before anyone was watching, so it can carry no likes and no replies and still be genuine.
A deleted first comment cannot be recovered or read back — no tool sees it. If the first comment matters to you (a credit, a claim, a record), the safe move is to write it into an export as soon as you confirm it: a file is the only copy that survives the next deletion.
Streams, deleted firsts, and other edges
Three wrinkles are worth knowing before you hunt in the wrong place.
Live chat is not comments. Messages sent during a stream or a premiere live in the chat, not in the comment thread — they never appear there, and comment tools do not read them. Cutting a clip, reading the guest list, finding the earliest message on a stream: these are separate problems from the first comment, and this page does not cover them.
First visible is not first ever. Early comments can be deleted after the fact — by their author, by the creator, or by moderation. When the oldest visible comment sits months after the upload date, the original first may simply no longer exist. That lifecycle is covered on the where-did-they-go page.
Check the account when a claim hinges on it. If a “first!” claim matters — a giveaway, a credit, a record — the account behind the comment is part of the fact. The signals worth checking are on the fake and bot comments page.
Reaching the earliest comment
Sorting from the oldest side takes one control; proving the timestamp takes one export. Do both and you can name the first comment with a time attached — which is the difference between “this looks like the first” and knowing it.
- Read the thread from the oldest side — The full public thread with the Oldest sort — the earliest comment at the top, in order.
- Export the exact timestamps — CSV or JSON with published_at on every row — precise enough to quote and compare.
- Read the whole thread, not just the ends — How to load everything from first comment to last, outside the watch page.
Want the other end of the thread?
Sorting by likes is the mirror problem — neither order exists in YouTube’s own interface.