YouTube has become the premier entertainment destination for tens of millions of people around the globe. When one consumes hours of video playback on the platform daily, at some point he/she might wish to clear the watch and search history, for whatever reason. We will be guiding you through the simple process of deleting your YouTube watch and search history, on PC, Mac, Android and iOS.
Delete YouTube watch and search history on desktop: Step-by-step
Let’s first tackle watch history.
- Go to YouTube’s website
- Sign in to your account
- Click on the hamburger menu located in the top left-hand corner
- Click on history
- From the menu located on the right end, select ‘Watch history’
- From the same menu, click on ‘Clear All Watch History’
Before proceeding with the above, it is worth noting here that should you clear all your watch history, your recommendation preferences will be rest as well, meaning that it will take some time before YouTube’s algorithm properly adjusts to your personal flavors again.
Alternatively, you can select ‘Pause watch history’, which will stop including any new videos you watch in the watch history. You can resume watch history any time you want. One can also erase specific items from the watch history:
- Click on the hamburger menu located in the top left-hand corner
- Click on history
- From the menu located on the right end, select ‘Watch history’
- Find the video that you wish to remove from the list
- Hover the mouse near the top right-hand corner next to the video’s title
- An ‘X’ option should appear, click on it
- Done
Search history wise:
- Go to YouTube’s website
- Sign in to your account
- Click on the hamburger menu located in the top left-hand corner
- Click on history
- From the menu located on the right end, select ‘Search history’
- From the same menu, click on ‘Clear All Search History’
The ‘Pause history’ option is available here too, as well as erasing a specific search term. The images included below illustrate all the options you have.
Delete YouTube watch and search history on Android and iOS: Step-by-step
The process on mobile is similar to the one on desktop.
- Open the YouTube app
- Select ‘Library’ from the options below
- Select ‘History’
- Tap on the three-dot menu located in the top right hand corner
- There you will find all the aforementioned options; clear or pause Search history and clear or pause watch history.
You can erase a specific search history item by opening the search bar, find the specific term you wish to erase and keep your finger on it for a couple of seconds. The ‘remove from history’ option will then emerge.
Similarly, you can erase a specific video from the watch history, by opening history and tapping on the three-dot menu that’s next to the said video.
If you encounter any problems while trying out the above or have a recommendation to make, feel free to shoot a comment down below.