How to Clear and Delete YouTube Search History

YouTube keeps track of every video you watch and every search you make while logged into your Google account. This allows YouTube to provide personalized recommendations and tailor your experience based on your interests.

However, you may sometimes want to delete your YouTube search history for privacy reasons or to get fresh recommendations. Clearing your search history is easy to do on both desktop and mobile.

Why You May Want to Delete YouTube Search History

Here are some common reasons for deleting your YouTube search history:

  • Privacy – To prevent others who use your device or account from seeing what videos you have watched.
  • Irrelevant recommendations – If your recommendations are no longer relevant because your interests have changed. Deleting search history can help YouTube refresh its recommendations.
  • Embarrassing searches – We all search for some odd or embarrassing things on YouTube sometimes. Clearing history can wipe the slate clean.
  • Data minimization – To limit the amount of personal data Google/YouTube stores about you.

How to Delete Search History on Desktop

Deleting your entire search history on desktop takes just a few clicks:

  1. Go to YouTube.com and make sure you are signed into your account
  2. Click on your profile icon > Settings
  3. Select History & Privacy
  4. Click Clear watch history and Clear search history
  • You can also click Pause watch history and Pause search history to temporarily disable tracking

To delete only a portion of your search history:

  1. Click on your profile icon > Settings > History & Privacy
  2. Click Manage all history
  3. Click Search history
  4. Click the X icon next to individual searches you wish to remove

How to Delete Search History on Mobile

The process is very similar on mobile:

  1. Open the YouTube app and tap on your profile icon
  2. Tap Settings > History & privacy
  3. Tap Clear watch history and Clear search history

You can also pause watch and search history instead of deleting.

To delete only part of your search history:

  1. Tap your profile icon > Settings > History & privacy
  2. Tap Manage all history > Search history
  3. Tap the Delete icon next to searches you want to remove

How to Auto Delete Search History

Instead of manually clearing your YouTube search history, you can set up auto-delete:

  1. Sign into YouTube and click on your profile picture > Settings
  2. Click History & privacy > Manage all history
  3. Scroll down and click Auto-delete
  4. Choose a duration after which your search history will automatically be deleted (3, 18 or 36 months)

Enabling auto-delete ensures your search history does not build up indefinitely over time.

How to Pause Search History

If you want to temporarily stop YouTube from tracking and recording your search history:

  1. Sign in to YouTube and click your profile icon > Settings
  2. Click History & privacy
  3. Toggle Pause watch history and Pause search history to ON
  4. Your history will stop tracking until you toggle these settings OFF again

Pausing history means videos you watch and searches you make during that time will not be used for recommendations.

Conclusion

  • Clearing your YouTube search history helps protect your privacy and gets you fresh video recommendations
  • It’s easy to delete search history on desktop and mobile YouTube
  • For ongoing privacy, set up auto-delete for your search history every few months
  • You can also pause search history tracking for a temporary clean slate

Take control over the data YouTube stores on you by regularly clearing or pausing your search history.