Here is how to automatically delete watch history and search on YouTube so that you can share your devices like tab, laptops and phone to another person.
YouTube is the top video streaming platform in the world, and billions of users use it daily to watch videos. If you regularly watch videos on YouTube, then you may know that all the videos that you search and watch are stored on your account so that you can check them later on. This feature is convenient if you watch a movie or video on YouTube and want to pause and watch it later on.
If you share your phone or tablet to another person with your YouTube account logged in, they can also see your watch history and searches. Some people do not want this, and they want either their watch history to not be stored or want to auto delete it so that they can be sure all old data and search is cleared.
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YouTube provides such options which makes your life easier. There are various time periods you can set for your YouTube watch history and search to be cleared. It ranges from 3 months to 3 years. By setting this, you can be sure that your old search terms and watch history is cleared after the period is complete. Following are the steps to be followed. Watch history and search can be turned off or set to automatically delete from Web and Mobile version of YouTube.
How to automatically delete watch history and search on YouTube Web
- Open YouTube in any web browser on your Laptop or PC.
- Login as the account that you primarily use to watch videos on YouTube.
- In the home screen, click on the Hamburger menu (button with 3 lines) at the top left.
- A sidebar will appear showing a list of Subscriptions and other options including “History” button.
- Click on “History” button, and you will be taken to a history page where you will see the “Watch History”.
- On the right side, there will be various options to control the watch history.
- Here, you can clear your old watch history by clicking “Clear all watch history” or pause the watch history so that if you watch any more videos, they are not listed.
- To set auto clear watch history and search, click on “Manage all history” button.
- You will be redirected to “YouTube history” page.
- To completely turn off YouTube Watch history, click on the “Saving your watch history” button and in the next page turn it OFF.
- Once you have done it all, further videos that you watch won’t be listed on “Watch History”.
- To auto delete watch history, click on the “Auto Delete” button on the “YouTube History” main page.
- A new popover will appear, showing options like “Auto-delete activity older than”.
- There will be options ranging from 3 months to 36 months. Select the needed duration and click “Next” button.
- In the next page, it will show all the videos on your watch history that are older than 3 months. If 3 months is selected.
- Click “Confirm” and watch history older than 3 months will be deleted if you have selected that option.
- This process will happen automatically from now, and all videos after the set duration will be deleted automatically.
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How to delete watch and search history on YouTube mobile app.
The process of doing it in mobile is similar in mobile app. Follow the steps below
- Open YouTube app on mobile phone.
- Click on your profile picture and click on “Settings” button on the page shown.
- In the resulting page, click on “Manage all history” button.
- In the next page, you will see all options as you saw on the web version.
- Follow the same steps as mentioned in the “YouTube web” section and confirm the changes.
One thing to note here is that once the history is cleared, you may not be able to recover it back. This change will help you increase privacy levels, as other using your phone or tablet will not see what you have watched before. Also, this change reflects on the TV version of YouTube as well, which is an added advantage.
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