Friday, April 3, 2015

How to clear your YouTube history

YouTube is a great website for watching videos, and countless people use the site every day.  What some people may not realize is that if you are signed in to YouTube while you watch videos, a list of all of your viewing history is saved on the site.  This history may not bother some people, but for privacy's sake others may want to clear it out.  This article will guide you through clearing your YouTube history.

In order to clear your history, you have to be logged in.  Go to YouTube.com and click on the blue "Sign in" button in the upper right corner.  Enter your YouTube username or email address and your password, then click the "Sign in" button.  Once you are logged in, click on the settings button (the one with the three horizontal lines) in the upper left corner of the screen.

A sidebar menu will appear along the left side of the screen.  Click on History.  Your viewing history will now be displayed on the screen.  You can see what videos you've watched, starting with the most recent.  If you want to watch a specific video again, just click on it.

To remove a specific video from your history, click on the X to the right of the video.  That video will be removed from the history list.

If you just want to clear your entire YouTube history, click on the "Clear all watch history" button above the list of videos.  A window will pop up asking if you're sure you want to erase your history; click on "Clear all watch history" again.  All videos in your history will be erased.

YouTube offers another option that you can use to manage your viewing history, called "pause watch history."  By pausing your history, you can prevent videos that you watch from appearing in your history.  To pause your history, click on the "Pause watch history" button on your history screen.  To resume having your history recorded, go back to that screen at any time and click on the "Resume watch history" button.

(Originally published on Helium.com, November 2012; updated March 2015.)

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