How to find, edit, and clear your YouTube viewing history

YouTube viewing history: Control your viewing data

You may already know that if you are logged into your Google account, YouTube will track your viewing history. This helps you watch your favorite videos again and improves the recommended quality provided by the YouTube algorithm.

But you don't need to accept this default setting. You can view viewing history, delete items in it (for example, don't want your child's YouTube preferences to affect your recommendations), and even clear the records completely.

We will take you through all the options available so that you can customize how YouTube history works and understand exactly what YouTube has recorded over time.

Find viewing history

To find viewing history on the YouTube website, open the left navigation panel (if not already opened) by clicking on the three horizontal lines in the upper left corner and selecting History. In the Android app, click on the profile picture in the lower right corner, and then click on "View All" next to "History"; in iOS, click on the "Repository" icon in the lower right corner, and then click on "View" next to "History" all".

If viewing history is enabled, you will see everything you have recently watched on YouTube, with the most recent videos on top. There may be some videos you've forgotten; if you want to re-watch excellent or useful content you've seen recently, you can find it here.

If you can't find the video you want, you will see a search box for searching for viewing history. As far as we know, this search feature searches not only for video titles but also for video descriptions, but it is not as comprehensive as YouTube's main search features (for example, you can't use any filters to narrow down the results).

If you view history on a web page, there is a "Pause view history" button: Click this button to temporarily stop recording videos you watch on any device or platform on YouTube. When this feature is enabled, the option will change to Turn on View History, which you can select to restart recording of views.

There are many reasons to pause viewing history, especially if you share a computer with others: For example, your child may want to watch something, or you need to search for sensitive medical information, or a friend wants to borrow you briefly account. During the pause of viewing history, the number of video views will not be recorded and your YouTube recommendations will not be affected.

Edit viewing history

If you are using a web interface, you can delete a single video from the viewing history by hovering over the video and clicking on the "X" that appears on the right. If you want to delete everything you’ve watched on YouTube and start from scratch, click the “Clear All Viewing History” link on the right and confirm your selection.

Click on the three dots next to any video in the list to find more options: Here you can add the video to the current queue, save it to the playlist, or share it with others. On mobile devices, the option to delete videos from viewing history is also included in this menu – just click three dots to view.

On the YouTube website, you will see some extra options to view your history of comments, community chats and live chat replies – click any link to see the details. You can also select Manage All History to see a detailed breakdown of all actions you perform on YouTube, including the videos you watch and the search you run.

Similarly, you can click the "X" button to delete something from YouTube history—using the calendar or search button at the top of the list to narrow the results. Using the Delete button, you can delete all actions you performed on YouTube today, all actions you performed on YouTube, or all actions you performed on YouTube within a specific date range.

Like some other data types stored by Google (including web searches and location history), you can have your YouTube activity automatically deleted after a certain amount of time, without any manual action: click "Auto Delete" and then from " Select from 3 months, 18 months, or 36 months if you want to enable this feature.

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