As of 2022, it is estimated that on average, 500 hours of videos are uploaded to YouTube every minute. This is a figure that will continue to increase as time goes on. By this metric, to try and watch everything uploaded to YouTube within an hour would take almost 3.5 years of continuous viewing. The exact amount of videos and hours of YouTube's cumulative total uploads have never been publicly disclosed, but a team of researchers estimate that the site is home to over 14 billion videos as of 2024.

It's almost impossible to truly comprehend the sheer quantity of content uploaded and hosted on the site. Over the years much of this content has been seemingly "lost" in a digital abyss, a place in which some refer to as "The YouTube Recycle Bin." This is where videos dating back to the site's inception have gone to linger on, unnoticed and unviewed, buried in search results, only to be found by the most dedicated digital explorers. There are a few methods that can be utilized to enter this abyss, and I will provide a few starting points I have had luck with.

Why Explore the YouTube Abyss in the First Place?

You remember that movie that demonstrated that even the most mentally incapacitated of the baby boomer generation could strike it rich and live the easy life? You know the one, Forrest Gump, with the classic saying "life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get." Exploring The YouTube Abyss is basically the digital equivalent of that saying. It can turn up results and get you down rabbitholes you never could've imagined. It's a break from the curated homepages we are all algorithmically served, and it's a real goldmine if you're into weird/cringe/"so bad it's good" content.

Last Hour Searches

These are quite simple to conduct. Simply enter a broad keyword or phrase to the search bar, then select to filter the upload date by "last hour" (or "last day" if you're first search doesn't turn up any results.) For these, you will want to keep it relatively vague/simple to increase your chances of finding stuff uploaded within the hour. Here are some words and phrases that have yeilded me "interesting" results in the past.The more general your search terms are, the more likely to get some results from te last hour. Feel free to email some suggestions over to me if you have any.

1. Rant
2. Collection
3. Gangstalker
4. Angry
5. Anti-Christ
6. Aliens/UFO
7. Paranormal

Unfortunately the rise of AI/bot generated video content has made the last hour searches a bit more tedious to search through, but there is still a decent chance of stumbling upon something. This method is how I discovered one of the individuals I documented in the HellTube section of my website.

The YouTube Recycle Bin

This is a term coined by MingKasterMK, and this post of his on Twitter is where this image comes from. If you want to see this process in action, MingKasterMK has a series where he goes through it all looking for gems.



To breifly summarize what's going on here, various cameras, smartphones, and video editting software have default file names for exported videos uploaded on YouTube. This is an ever growing list documenting the different types of default file names and their formatting. By following this guide and using boolean operators, you can unearth videos dating back over a decade that never have been seen by others, stuff that would otherwise never turn up in a regular YouTube browsing experience. This can offer anything ranging from slices of life, windows into the past, and a look at uploads ranging from the mundane, to the exciting, to the downright bizzare.


Have fun exploring!