How to Delete YouTube Search History on Your Phone (iPhone and Android)

To delete your YouTube search history on your phone, open the YouTube app, tap You, tap the gear icon, then tap Manage all history. From there, you can delete your searches from the last hour, the last day, or all time. To remove just one search, tap the search bar, press and hold the search you want gone, and tap Remove.

The steps are almost the same on iPhone and Android. Below, you will learn how to delete one search, clear everything, stop YouTube from saving searches, and set your history to delete on its own.

Why delete your YouTube search history?

There are a few good reasons:

• Privacy. Anyone who picks up your phone or shares your TV can see what you searched.
• Better suggestions. Old searches can fill your recommendations with videos you no longer want.
• Gift surprises. Searching for a gift idea on a shared account can spoil the surprise.
• A fresh start. Clearing history is an easy way to reset what YouTube shows you.

Your search history is saved to your Google account, not just your phone. So when you delete it on one device, it goes away on all your signed-in devices.

How to delete one YouTube search

This is the fastest option if you only want to hide one or two searches.

1. Open the YouTube app.
2. Tap the search icon at the top.
3. Your past searches show up in a list. Find the one you want to remove.
4. Press and hold the search.
5. Tap Remove to confirm.

On some phones, you may see a small X or arrow next to each search instead. Tapping that also removes it.

How to clear all your YouTube search history

1. Open the YouTube app.
2. Tap You at the bottom right.
3. Tap the gear icon at the top right to open Settings.
4. Tap Manage all history. This opens your YouTube history in your Google account.
5. Tap Delete.
6. Choose Delete today, Delete custom range, or Delete all time.
7. Confirm your choice.

This clears your search history and your watch history together. If you only want to remove searches, you can scroll through the list and delete single items by tapping the X next to each one.

How to pause YouTube search history

If you do not want YouTube to save your searches at all, you can pause it.

1. Go to Settings and tap Manage all history, as shown above.
2. Tap the Controls tab at the top.
3. Find YouTube History and turn it off.
4. Confirm by tapping Pause or Turn off.

You can also choose to keep saving what you watch but not what you search. Look for the options to include the videos you watch and include your searches, and uncheck the one you do not want.

Keep in mind that pausing history makes your recommendations less personal. You can turn it back on at any time.

How to set YouTube history to delete on its own

If you do not want to remember to clear your history, let YouTube do it for you.

1. Go to Settings, then Manage all history.
2. Tap the Controls tab.
3. Tap Auto-delete.
4. Choose to delete activity older than 3 months, 18 months, or 36 months.
5. Tap Next, then Confirm.

YouTube will keep recent history for good suggestions and remove the old history for you.

Use Incognito mode for private searches

If you want to search without saving anything just once, try Incognito mode in the YouTube app on many phones.

1. Tap your profile picture or You.
2. Tap Turn on Incognito.

While it is on, YouTube does not save your searches or the videos you watch. Tap the Incognito icon and turn it off when you are done. Incognito mode turns off on its own after a while if you stop using the app.

Delete YouTube history from a web browser

You can also manage everything from any browser on your phone or computer.

1. Go to myactivity.google.com and sign in.
2. Tap YouTube History.
3. Tap Delete and choose a time range, or delete single searches from the list.

If you also want to clear the history in your web browser, not just YouTube, clearing browser data can help. It can even speed things up. See our tips on making Google Chrome faster.

Quick reference

What about YouTube on a shared TV or tablet?

If your whole family uses one YouTube account, everyone sees the same history. A few ideas can help:

• Add separate accounts. Each person can sign in with their own Google account on the TV or tablet.
• Use YouTube Kids for young children. It has its own settings.
• Pause history on the shared account so searches are not saved.

Free up space while you are at it

Clearing your history does not free up much space on your phone. But the YouTube app's cache and downloaded videos can take up a lot. On Android, go to Settings, then Apps, then YouTube, then Storage, and tap Clear cache. In the YouTube app, you can also delete downloaded videos from the Downloads section. Our guide on fixing a full phone storage has more ideas.

Want to find videos on another app? Here is how to find the Reels you saved on Facebook.

The bottom line

To delete your YouTube search history on your phone, go to You, then Settings, then Manage all history, and tap Delete. To remove one search, press and hold it in the search bar and tap Remove. You can also pause your history or set it to delete on its own after 3, 18, or 36 months. Since your history is saved to your Google account, the change applies to all your devices.