Privacy to do: Delete your YouTube watch history
More than 2 billion people visit YouTube monthly, and more than 500 hours of content are posted every minute. It’s not always easy to find precisely what you want to watch, but that’s what we’re here for. Tap or click here for five tricks to search YouTube like a pro.
It’s a well-known fact that every YouTube video you’ve ever watched is stored in your account’s watch history. That means everything you’ve streamed between 2005 and that funny cat video you watched this afternoon.
We’re not ones to judge, but it’s no one’s business what you watch. Here are a few ways to clear out your YouTube watch history.
How to delete YouTube watch history
Here’s how to delete your YouTube history from your computer.
- Go to the YouTube homepage at youtube.com.
- Click History in the left sidebar.
- Click Clear all watch history on the right side of the screen to erase your history. Here are more options:
- You can select Pause watch history to stop videos showing in your watch history from then on.
- Select Manage all history to be taken to a Google page where you can remove individual videos from the list by clicking the X button next to each entry.
- Click the Delete dropdown menu and choose between Delete today, Delete custom range or Delete all time.
You can also pause YouTube search records and even arrange to auto-delete searches after a certain amount of time. The two sections at the top of the Google page allow you to toggle saved search history on and off and clear your search cache, respectively. Select them to see each of these options laid out.
Removing items individually is another way to clean your search history out, much like the manner described above for your watch history.
It’s worth noting that this data will still be recorded in each video’s total view count tally and the data recorded by YouTube and Google. The platform will remind you of this constantly as you do anything outlined here, which is why we urge you to exercise caution when browsing the web.
Keep reading
8 ways Google constantly invades your privacy — and how to fix it
How to start your own YouTube channel: 5 tips for success
Tags: browsing, computer, delete, Google, privacy, Search, tips and tricks, video, videos, YouTube