How to get your YouTube History deleted automatically

[harlan4096]

The video streaming site YouTube keeps track of every video that a user watches on the site and every search that is made. It uses the information for its recommendation engine that suggests videos to users based on past activity.

YouTube users had two options up until now to deal with the accumulation of data: delete the data manually regularly or pause the data collecting. You can check out our guide on clearing and disabling the search and watch history on YouTube as it explains both options in detail.

Google announced recently that it would integrate new functionality that would allow users to have the activity history deleted automatically. The new functionality is now available but it is likely that most YouTube users don't know about it.

The main reason for that is that Google did not implement the functionality on the YouTube website but on the company's My Activity website instead. If you check the options on YouTube, you will get the old "pause" or "clear manually" options only. If you check My Activity, you get the option to configure automatic processes to delete the history and to configure the watch history better as well.

Here is how that is done:

Visit the My Activity website on the Google website. Either click on the link in the previous sentence to go there or open the main Google website, click on your profile icon and select Google Account > Manage your data & personalization > YouTube History > Manage Activity (under YouTube History).

The page lists two main options to configure the history on YouTube. The left widget displays the current state of history recording, e.g. paused, and options to manage the settings.

A click on change setting displays options to enable the watch history or search history exclusively on YouTube. Note that this will enable history recording again on the site.

The second widget controls an automated process that will delete the history based on your preferences. The default is set to "keeping activity until you delete it manually". Click on "choose to delete automatically" to configure auto-delete for the YouTube history.
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