Delete Your YouTube Watch History
Everything you've ever watched on YouTube is recorded on your account with a date next to it. Your watch history is what YouTube uses to offer you recommended channels and videos, among other things. Not only does your watch history affect your recommendation algorithm, it also acts as a digital diary recording everything you've ever watched. With Redact, you can clear your entire watch history going back years. Alternatively, take advantage of our search filters to find and remove specific videos that match keywords and/or date-ranges.
Free for your last 30 days of comments & history.
Available on
Plan
Watch History
Clear the record of what you have played
The past month is free
A thirty day window of viewing comes off at no charge. Everything before it sits behind Premium.
Why clear your watch history?
This list decides what you get shown
Your watch history isn't just a digital log of what you've been watching on YouTube. It's the main input to YouTube's recommendation engine, and it's the longest continuous record your account holds about you. Take control of your recommendation algo and your watch history at the same time with Redact.
It's the feed's memory
Recommendations lean on what you've watched more heavily than on anything else you do. One strange fortnight keeps pulling the home page back toward it for months afterwards.
It reads like a diary
Every entry is timestamped, so read top to bottom the record shows what you were dealing with and roughly when, in far more detail than any other part of your account holds about you.
It follows the account, not the device
History shows up in the sidebar of every phone, laptop and television signed in to your Google account. Cast something once and it is up on the living room screen for everyone.
Clearing it by hand is per row
YouTube gives you a Remove button on each entry and a Clear that takes everything. There's no way to lift out a period, or a subject, without working down the list one row at a time.
What this feature does
Your entire history, a date-range, or just a specific subject
Select Watch History and Redact works back through your records on the Google account you connect, deleting each entry as it goes. Leave the filters alone and Redact will delete your entire history.
Date range does what it says. Put in a start date, an end date, or both, and Redact only deletes what you watched in between. Anything outside those dates stays where it is.
Video title contains is a keyword box. Type a word and Redact only deletes videos with that word in the title, so if you want everything you watched about one thing gone, that's how you do it. It doesn't work on your searches, because a search is just something you typed, not a video with a title.
- Whole record
- Date range
- Real watch dates
- Title keywords
- Preview first
Try Redact for YouTube. Free for your last 30 days of comments & history.
Things to delete *
Select what you want to delete
Date range
Only delete entries from this window
Video title contains
Only delete items whose video title matches these words
Narrowing it down
Two filters, and you can use both
Use one, the other, or both together. Whichever you pick, the preview shows you exactly what's about to go before anything is deleted.
Date range
Put in a start date, an end date, or both. The date is the day you watched the video, so the dates you type are the dates you get.
Video title contains
Type a word and Redact only deletes videos with that word in the title. It's how you get rid of everything you watched about one thing in a single go.
Nothing at all
Leave both boxes empty and Redact deletes everything, which is what most people want the first time round.
Run it your way
Use "preview mode" first to be sure, then do your deletion run after
Preview Mode
Redact shows you everything the filters picked up and deletes none of it. It's the quickest way to find out how far back your history actually goes.
Select and Delete
Clear entries individually, sparing whatever you would still like your recommendations to hold on to.
Scheduled cleanups
Set it to repeat and Redact clears anything older than a cut-off you choose, so your history never gets long again. Repeat runs need a paid plan.
Step-by-step guide
How to delete your YouTube watch history with Redact
One tick, an optional filter or two, and a preview. On an old account the run itself is the long part.
- 1
Download Redact for free
Download for your device →Install Redact on your computer and create a free account. YouTube cleanups run in the desktop app on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
- 2
Connect your Google account
Open Redact, choose YouTube, and sign in. The login goes straight to Google in a browser window Redact opens for you, and your password never touches a Redact server.
- 3
Tick Watch History and set the scope
Select Watch History under Content Types, then decide how much of the record to take.
- Date range: counted from the day you actually watched.
- Video title contains: narrows to videos whose titles carry your words.
- Nothing set: Redact works back through the entire record.
Good to know: a month's worth costs you nothing. Anything older needs Premium, which on an account you've had for years is nearly all of it.
- 4
Preview what it caught
Preview it and study the range. Meant to hang on to a stretch of it? Shift the dates and look again. The record stays untouched until you commit.
- 5
Clear it, then keep it short
Set it running. Each entry is struck off against your Google account with a tally as it works. If you would rather the record never grew long again, tell it to repeat on a schedule.
The record is read and cleared on your device
Your history is opened and emptied by the app on your own desk, which sends each deletion straight to Google. What you watched, and how far back it went, is never transmitted to Redact. Pull the connection whenever you feel like it. Redact is a separate company from YouTube and from Google.
Try Redact for Free
We are frequently adding support to other social network services. You can receive direct updates from us in Redact's Discord Channel.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, and for most people that's the point. Watch history is the biggest input to what YouTube suggests, so clearing it resets the feed toward generic suggestions until you build a new record.
Yes. Set a start and end date around the stretch you want gone and Redact only queues entries inside it. Watch entries carry the real day you played the video, so the window means what it looks like it means.
Yes, through the title filter. Give Redact whole words and only entries whose video titles carry them are queued, so a subject you spent a month on comes out without touching the rest of the record.
No. Pausing stops new entries being written and leaves everything already there in place. This clears what's already there. Doing both is what gets you an actually clean slate.
No. Search History is a separate tick and a separate run, covered on the search history page. Clearing what you watched while leaving what you typed behind only removes half the record, so most people take both.
More YouTube features
Delete Your YouTube Playlists
Tick the playlists you're done with and Redact deletes the ones you made and unsaves the ones you'd only added to your library.
Clear Out Your Watch Later Queue
Empty a queue that's hundreds deep in one run, or clear only part of it by matching words in the video titles.
Delete Your Liked Videos
Un-like your whole liked videos list in one run, or aim it at a topic with a title keyword.
Delete All Your YouTube Comments
Clear your whole comment history, or aim at it with a date range, the words in the comment, or the video it sits under.
Delete Your YouTube Search History
Wipe every phrase you've typed into the YouTube search box, or just the ones from a period you name.
Mass Unsubscribe From Channels
Reset a subscription list built over years in one run, instead of unsubscribing channel by channel.
Delete Your Uploaded Videos
Pick old uploads out of your channel's own list and delete them in bulk. Permanent, so preview it first.