How to Delete Your History from YouTube

Delete Your History from YouTube

YouTube’s search history can be a very useful tool if you’re a forgetful person. It can help you find videos if you can’t remember their titles. However, your watch and search history can be used by the site for many things as well. The first thing that comes to mind are perhaps the recommendations on the homepage, but what you probably don’t know is that your YouTube history is also used to profile you and sell you ads that adjust to the things you like on every site of the Google ecosystem.

You may have several reasons to want to delete your search history. Maybe you don’t want to be profiled or maybe someone watched a lot of videos using your account and now you’re getting recommendations all wrong. Whatever it is, you have the right to act for your privacy and YouTube allows you to do it by letting you erase your watch and search history.

Here’s how to do it whether you’re on mobile or desktop platforms:

From the YouTube App

Follow these steps if you want to delete your YouTube search history from the mobile app:

  1. Launch YouTube: Tap the YouTube app on your device to open it. It has a symbol that looks like a red rectangle with a smaller white triangle inside it. It will be necessary that you log in before continuing so be sure to do it.
  2. Tap your Profile Icon: If you have a profile picture, you’ll see it in the top right corner of the app, otherwise, you’ll see an icon resembling a person’s head and shoulders if you’re on iPhone, or a colored circle with your initials on it if you’re using Android.
  3. Tap “Settings”: The button should be easy to spot. It’s in the middle of the drop-down menu.
  4. Tap the Next Option: If you’re on iOS, scroll down and hit the button that says “clear watch history” of the group with “Privacy” on the title. If you’re on Android, first tap on the button that says Privacy & History, and then hit “clear watch history”. Both platforms will ask you to confirm, be sure to do so.
  5. Clear Your Search History: You might also want to clear your search history. To do this hit the button that says “clear watch history” below the one you just hit and confirm just like before.
  6. Pause Your Watch or Search History (Optional): On that same menu, you should see two switches that let you pause the recording of your watched videos and the searches you make. You can turn these on if you consider it appropriate.

From a Browser

If you’re using your PC, then use these steps to delete your history:

  1. Open the Site: Go to youtube.com using you’ll be greeted at the website’s homepage. Sign in if you haven’t, otherwise, you won’t be able to access your history. You can find the ‘Sign In’ button at the top right corner of the website.
  2. Go to ‘History’: Click the tab that says ‘History’ on the drop-down menu on the left side of the website. If you don’t see it, then hit your profile icon and then click ‘Settings’ (or the little gear icon). Scroll until you see the ‘History’ button and click it.
  3. Clear Your Watch History: Click the button that says ‘Clear all watch history’ below the search bar. You’ll be asked to confirm your choice, be sure to agree.
  4. Clear Your Search History: Above the button to clear your watch history you’ll see a tab that says “Search History”. Click it and you’ll be taken to a page with all your recent searches. Just repeat the process from the last step by hitting the button that says ‘Clear all search history’ and confirms.
  5. Pause Your Watch or Search History (Optional): Next, to each of the buttons you used to clear your history you’ll also see an option to pause the recording of said histories. You can do this if you don’t want to be recorded at all.

Alternative Ways to Keep It Private on YouTube

How to Delete Your History from YouTube

Deleting your history and pausing the recording of it doesn’t guarantee that YouTube will stop tracking the videos you watch. Even if you’re not signed in, they associate your watched videos with your device’s IP address instead of your Google account. This address is, in short words, the number assigned by your ISP to differentiate your connection from the others. Hence all the recommendations on the homepage even when you haven’t logged in for weeks.

There are a couple ways you can get around this tracking activity, though. With the right tools and knowledge, you can enjoy all the video s you want without leaving a trace. Let’s go through some of them so you get a clearer idea of what we mean:

VPN

Virtual Private Networks or VPNs are services designed to protect your privacy online. VPN providers have lots of computers networked together and the idea is that all your internet activity goes through one of these computers or ‘servers’ before they connect to any websites. This fools website into thinking it is the server that’s connecting to them and, like with proxies, they start tracking the servers instead of you.

VPNs are fairly simple to use, all you need is to hire a subscription for the best VPN like TorGuard and download the software they provide. After that, it’s a matter of pushing a button to start the VPN connection any start watching YouTube videos. Each session will be as if it’s the first time you visit the website.

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Tor

The Tor Project is a non-profit organization that has developed a web browser that protects its users’ identity at all times. You can check their website for the details, their browser is free to download and using it for YouTube is just as intuitive as it would be in any other browser.

The main issue with it is that the techniques they use to prevent websites from tracking their users are very complex and take a lot of resources, resulting in slower internet connections. However, your history won’t be tracked as long as you don’t sign in and, even if you do, you already know how to erase it.

Proxy Site

These sites are, more or less, websites that connect to the sites you want to visit for you and then send the data back to you. You may be wondering how this helps you and the thing is that when you do this, websites like YouTube end up tracking the proxy instead of your device. This lets you watch any videos you like without worrying about your history being recorded.

To use a proxy site all you have to do is google ‘free proxy site’ and click any of the first results. You’ll be asked to input an address, this is where you should write www.youtube.com and you’ll then be redirected to YouTube using a proxy connection.

Private Browsing

This one’s not really the most secure option you may go for. This basically consists in opening a private window from your web browser. Chrome calls it Incognito mode and Firefox refers to it as private browsing. You can activate it in the browser’s options and when you’re in one of these windows, your online activity won’t be recorded.

This means that information about your browsing session, which is usually kept in your browser for tracking purposes, will be deleted as soon as you close the tab. The reason this is not secure is that your IP address will still be visible and, as we said, YouTube also uses this to track you. It is, however, a partially effective option if you want to hide your trace online.

Passion for Cyber Security and Technology.

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