Have you ever gone back through your YouTube history and cringed at some of the videos you‘ve watched? With over a billion hours of YouTube videos viewed every day, those odd cat videos, questionable music videos, and 4am playlists can really add up.
But don‘t worry – it‘s easy to delete your YouTube watch history and search history right from your computer or phone. In this guide, we‘ll walk through the step-by-step process of clearing your YouTube history across devices.
Just How Much of Your History is YouTube Tracking?
YouTube logs every video you watch and every search you conduct when signed into your Google account. According to YouTube, over 1 billion hours of video are watched daily on the platform.
That means if you watch just 30 minutes of YouTube per day, in one year you‘ll have over 18 hours of watch history stored.
Even if you don‘t watch or share a video, if you click on it and exit right away, it‘s still tracked in your history by default.
No wonder some people end up with thousands of videos in their histories!
Here are some reasons you may want to clear that history:
- Privacy – Reduce Google‘s ability to track your interests and habits. In 2018, Google faced lawsuits over data collection practices.
- Save space – Less history takes up less storage on Google‘s servers.
- Fresh recommendations – Clear the slate for YouTube to suggest new videos instead of old ones you‘ve already seen.
- Embarrassing videos – We all have a few questionable videos we‘d rather erase!
Ready to clean up your YouTube history? Let‘s get started.
Step 1: Sign Into Your Account
First, you‘ll need to sign into the Google account that contains the YouTube history you want to delete:
- On a computer, go to YouTube.com and click "Sign In" in the top right corner.
- On mobile, open the YouTube app and ensure you‘re logged into the correct Google account.
You can only clear history for the account that‘s currently signed in.
Step 2: Access Your YouTube History Page
Now it‘s time to open your account‘s search and watch history:
On Desktop:
Once signed in, click on your profile icon in the top right > History
This opens your watch history page, with your most recent videos at the top.
On Mobile:
Tap your profile icon > Settings > History & Privacy
Your watch history will display in chronological order.
Step 3: Delete Your Entire Watch History
Here‘s where we clear out your full history in one click:
On Desktop:
- Under "History type", ensure Watch history is selected.
- Click Clear all watch history.
On Mobile:
- Tap Clear watch history.
Confirm that you want to delete your entire watch history. This will wipe your history from across all devices signed into that account.
And that‘s it – your YouTube watch history has been cleared!
Step 4: Delete Your Search History
Your search history contains all past YouTube searches conducted while signed into your account. Let‘s remove that too:
On Desktop:
- From your History page, change the History type to Search history.
- Click Clear all search history.
Confirm that you want to delete your full search history.
On Mobile:
- From History & Privacy, tap Clear search history.
- Confirm to delete your full search history.
Once deleted, any previous YouTube searches from your account will be gone for good.
Troubleshooting Tips
If you still see old videos appearing in your history after following these steps, here are some troubleshooting tips:
- Double check accounts – Toggle between accounts to ensure you cleared history from the right one.
- Wait for syncing – It may take some time for the cleared history to sync across devices.
- Clear cookies/data – Try clearing your browser cookies and cache to ensure it‘s not pulling old history data.
- Contact support – If all else fails, contact YouTube support to identify any issues.
And that‘s it! You‘ve successfully cleared all traces of your YouTube watch and search history. Enjoy your fresh start with YouTube‘s recommendations.