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If you are a YouTube user you are probably familiar with YouTube recommendations. Videos that appear as suggestions on your home page for you to watch later.
How does this work? YouTube's algorithm analyzes billions of signals daily, including watch history, search behavior and engagement rate, to personalize video recommendations and over 70% of watch time on the platform is driven by its recommendation algorithm.
So what happens when these suggestions aren't working for you as a viewer anymore? Don’t worry there’s a way to erase your watch history so YouTube doesn’t use it for suggesting more videos. How?
To reset your YouTube recommendations go to your account settings and then click on “Manage All History”, then select the “Delete all time” option to completely reset your recommendations.
We’ll show you more details in this article. Let’s dive in!
YouTube's recommendation algorithm is constantly checking user behavior to evolve and being able to suggest videos that really match your interests. How does it work?
Every like, comment, share and video you watch on YouTube goes into a database that stores every move you make on the platform. YouTube analyzes all of it in order to find what type of content is really engaging to you. The key factors that influence your daily recommendations include:
YouTube’s algorithm also considers your real-time behavior on the platform.
YouTube is constantly updating its algorithm so the recommendations you see today may be different from yesterday or the day before.
With all this information gathered, then the platform makes suggestions based on your watch time and search history. This aim is to present viewers with videos they are most interested in to make a better user experience and also guarantee a higher engagement rate and you spending more time on the platform.
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Resetting your recommendations is really easy to do! Here is a simple step by step guide in case your suggestions are getting less and less interesting with time.
This guide works both on desktop and mobile devices, meaning you can do it on the website or your YouTube app.
On desktop or mobile, just log in into your YouTube account. Then click on your profile picture to access your own data.
Go to the “Settings” or the “gear icon” and a menu will be displayed. Select the option that says “Manage all history”.
Once there, you’ll see a “Delete” option. Click on it and a menu will appear showing different time periods. The best choice to completely reset your recommendations is “Delete all time”.
Local data stored on your device can also influence YouTube’s recommendations, even after you reset your history:
Once you do this, YouTube no longer holds information about your previous moves on the platform. Therefore you’ll be back to default recommendations based only on some general factors, like the region you are in and past subscriptions.
This is great if you wanted your whole history deleted. But what if, for instance, let's say you were moving and looking for the best mattress for your new bed and decided to search for reviews on YouTube. While you were searching the market, the platform recommendations were probably really helpful in finding the best mattress. However, once you’ve purchased the mattress you are done with mattress videos. Here’s what you can do to show YouTube you are not interested in that topic anymore without having to delete all your watch history.
Once you successfully reset your recommendations, it’s important to be aware of the data that shapes them: your watch history and Engagement.
Your watch history includes every video you ever watched on the platform. You can choose to reset all of it or choose a specific time span. To do this, simply go to your YouTube settings, select "History & Privacy," and choose either to clear all history or select a specific range (e.g., last 24 hours, last 7 days).
Every interaction with videos and channels, such as likes, comments, shares and subscriptions, also influence what YouTube is going to recommend to you. For a more tailored reset, you might want to review these interactions. Consider clearing likes or comments if they are skewing your recommendations toward unwanted topics.
If you want to delete recommendations in specific topics or categories without losing relevant content follow these steps.
Log in to your YouTube account. Go to your profile picture, click on the “settings” option and then “Manage all history”.
You'll see the videos you’ve watched displayed on a list. If there are lots of videos and you struggle to find them or just don’t feel like scrolling, you can use the search bar to locate the ones you don’t need on your watch list anymore.
Every video has a little “x” next to it, you can press on it or on the three-dot menu and select the “remove from watch history” option to permanently delete them from your watch history.
This way your personalized recommendations based on your daily regular content don’t get affected by some temporary need for specific content.
To reset your recommendations using your mobile device you have to open your YouTube app. It doesn’t matter if it is iOS or Android, this step by step guide will help you!
Open the YouTube app and log into your account. Tap on your profile picture to access your account settings.
Click on "Your data in YouTube". Scroll down and click on “Manage all history”. This will open another menu where you can see all your watch history controls.
Select the “Delete” option, and from the displayed menu choose “Delete all time” to clear your entire watch history and reset your recommendations.
If you are more of a YouTube on your computer kind of person, here's how you can reset your recommendations on Desktop or Web mode.
Head over to youtube.com and log in. Click on your profile picture and select “Your data in YouTube”.
Scroll down to find “Manage all history” and click on it. This opens up a whole other menu with all your watch history settings.
Select “Delete” and then choose “Delete all time” to remove your entire watch history and reset your recommendations.
If you keep finding bad recommendations on YouTube, there are two more things you can do in order to have a better content experience.
You can pause your watch history if you don’t want YouTube tracking your moves any longer.
Log in to your YouTube account. Go to your profile picture, click on the “settings” option and then "Manage all history”.
Click on the “Pause Watch History” option to stop YouTube from using your past and future video history to influence your suggestions.
YouTube will display a warning that pausing history limits personalization. Confirm by tapping "Pause".
This option can be really helpful if you have a shared account and many people use it to access content. By doing this, YouTube no longer can use past videos in order to recommend new ones.
You can also manually refine YouTube recommendations if you don´t want to delete them 100%.
Navigate your homepage on your YouTube account until you find a recommendation that doesn’t interest you.
Click the three dot menu option on the video and select “not interested”. This will show YouTube that this kind of content is not good for you.
If you consume a specific channel for a while and you are no longer interested or change your mind about the creator, you can go to the same three dot menu and select the option "Don’t Recommend Channel" to keep YouTube from showing you that particular creator content.
This option is the best way to go whenever you keep seeing bad recommendations and how to change something specific without risking the good suggestions related to the topics you do enjoy.
If deleting your watch history is too much for you or you want to see more videos for specific topics or content creators, you can manually adjust some settings to improve YouTube’s suggestions.
Find creators you enjoy watching and click on the “Subscribe” option on their channel. This way you are not only supporting their job but also telling YouTube you like that particular content and chances are that the algorithm is going to pick on that and make similar content recommendations in the future.
You can also click on the “notification bell” for those creators that really fit your content type to ensure more like that appears in your recommendations feed.
Liking videos, participating in comments or adding videos to your playlist signals YouTube your interest in that particular type of content. This helps the algorithm better understand your preferences.
YouTube Recommendations are intended to make the best user experience possible.
The moment they don’t work anymore by providing suggestions you don’t really need or like, feel free to act the way you prefer to change the situation. Your watch history is supposed to recollect all your moves and with that information suggest you the best videos.
If YouTube does it right, great. If not, change it! Always keep in mind that the goal is for you to have the best time while navigating the platform. The best time you have, the more videos you watch for entertainment or information. A win - win scenario for YouTube, creators and yourself.
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