How to Watch YouTube Without Any Recommendations

One of the most famous features of YouTube is the ability to watch recommended videos. The website comes up with these suggestions according to your watch history and your subscriptions. But in some cases, the suggestions don’t portray your tastes accurately, especially if you tend to click videos accidentally. Fortunately, you can do many things to manage YouTube’s recommendations and avoid further hassle.

In this entry, we’ll get to the nuts and bolts of YouTube’s recommendations and provide ways you can modify your suggested videos.

How to Watch YouTube Without Any Recommendations?

Here’s what to do if you want to prevent YouTube from recommending you videos:

1. Go to YouTube’s website on your PC or start YouTube on your phone.
   
2. Navigate to your user picture in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. If you can’t find your profile, it means that you haven’t logged in. If so, enter your credentials to access your account.
   
3. Choose “Settings” from the drop-down menu.
   
4. Press the “Notifications” tab in the left-hand corner.
   
5. Find the “Recommended videos” in the “Your Preferences” section and move the switch so that it turns grey. From now on, YouTube will no longer notify you about recommendations.
   

How to Reset YouTube Recommendations?

An easy method to reset your YouTube recommendations is to clear the search history:

1. Open YouTube’s webpage.
   
2. Press the three horizontal lines next to the YouTube logo.
   
3. Click the “History” option from the list.
   
4. Press “Search History.”
5. Click the “Clear All Search History” and the “Pause Search History” option. Consequently, YouTube won’t remember the videos you viewed on your devices, such as Androids, iPhones, Roku, and Smart TVs. However, you need to be logged into YouTube for this change to apply to all your devices.
   

How to Delete Your YouTube Search History?

YouTube keeps track of the videos you watch when you’re logged into your account. This history is used for recommendations, meaning that you can adjust your recommended videos by modifying your search history. More specifically, you can do so by deleting it:

1. Launch your browser and go to YouTube’s website.
   
2. Navigate to the menu in the upper left part of the screen, represented by the three horizontal lines.
   
3. Press “History.”
   
4. Choose “Search History” to access all the searches performed on your account.
5. Hit the “X” button next to a search, and it will be deleted.

Another great option is to remove individual items from the watch history on the desktop version of the website:

1. Go to YouTube and press the three horizontal lines in the upper left-hand corner.
   
2. Click “History.”
   
3. Start removing individual items from the search history by pressing the “X” button next to an item. Hover over each video to reveal the “X” symbol.
   

The process works pretty much the same if you’re using YouTube on an Android, iPad, or iPhone:

1. Open the YouTube app.
   
2. Press “Library” from the toolbar.
   
3. Tap “History.”
   
4. Hit the three vertical dots next to a video and choose “Remove from Watch History.”
   

The Android version also has the so-called Incognito Mode. It allows you to temporarily prevent YouTube from gathering search history:

1. Start the app and tap the account icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.
   
2. Tap the “Turn on Incognito” option.
   
3. If you’re activating the mode for the first time, press “Got it” on the subsequent screen. Your profile icon will be changed to the incognito symbol, and the bottom of your display will say, “You’re incognito.”
   
4. To disable this mode, press the account icon again and choose “Turn off Incognito” from the bottom of the app.
   

How to Delete Your YouTube Watch History?

Instead of deleting watched videos one by one, you can also clear the entire history from your Google account. But bear in mind that this will result in much worse recommendations since YouTube won’t be able to gauge your interest and come up with videos you may like. Taking this risk into account, this is how to clear your YouTube watch history on your computer:

1. Go to YouTube’s website and hit the three horizontal lines to your left.
   
2. Choose “History,” followed by “Clear All Watch History” in the right part of the screen.
   
3. In the following dialog box, confirm your decision by pressing “Clear Watch History.”

Completing the task on the mobile version is also straightforward:

1. Start the app and navigate to “Library.”
   
2. Choose “History” and hit the three vertical dots in the upper part of the screen.
   
3. Press “History Controls.”
   
4. Go down and press “Clear Watch History.”
   

How to Remove YouTube Recommendations?

If you want to get rid of a recommended video you’re not interested in, YouTube allows you to remove it from your suggestions:

1. Log in to your channel.
2. Locate the video you’ll remove.
   
3. Hit the three vertical dots under the video.
   
4. In the next menu, choose the “Not interested” option to remove the clip.
   

The same can be done for entire channels:

1. Log in to your channel.
2. Go to a video of the channel you’ll get rid of.
   
3. Click the “Don’t recommend channel” option in the next window, and the videos of that channel will no longer be recommended to you.
   

Additional FAQs

Keep reading to find out more cool details about YouTube and your watching preferences.

How Do You Watch Age Restricted Videos on YouTube?

YouTube’s age restriction keeps NSFW content inaccessible to users who aren’t old enough to make informed viewing decisions. Consequently, the restrictions are based on the users’ age entered on their Google account. Therefore, you can modify your personal information so that Google and YouTube deem you an adult:

1. Go to this page and press the “Go to Google Account” button in the upper right-hand corner. If you’ve already logged in, this will take you straight to your account. If not, enter your login information.

2. Navigate to the left-hand panel and press the “Personal Info” section.

3. Find your “Birthday” information in the Basic info part of the screen.

4. Press “Birthday” and update your information. After entering a date of birth, press “Save” to apply the changes.

5. Restart your browser and go to YouTube to start watching age-restricted videos.

Alternatively, users can disable the safety mode to access age-restricted videos:

1. Open YouTube’s homepage and press your profile picture in the upper part of your screen.

2. Scroll through the menu and find the “Restricted Mode” option.

3. If the “Restricted Mode Activated” button is blue, deactivate it by pressing it. It will turn grey, and safety mode will be disabled.

How Can I Watch YouTube Videos Without a YouTube Channel?

Actually, you don’t need to start a YouTube channel to watch YouTube videos. All you need is an internet browser:

1. Open your browser.

2. Type in youtube.com in the search box.

3. Start watching.

You also don’t need a channel to obtain video links. However, a channel is required for the following activities:

• Uploading your videos

• Commenting on other users’ videos

• Saving video links

• Subscribing to other channels

How Do YouTube Recommendations Work?

YouTube’s recommendations consist of a two-fold algorithm process. The program assigns each video a score according to various performance analytics information and ranks them afterward. It also matches a video to users based on the previously watched videos and similar people’s watch history.

The algorithm doesn’t aim to identify quality videos. Instead, its purpose is to match you with videos you wish to watch so that you spend more time on YouTube.

How Do I Disable Recommended Videos?

Disabling recommended videos is a simple task:

1. Log in to your channel.

2. Navigate to a recommended video you wish to remove.

3. Press the three vertical dots right under the video.

4. Choose the “Not interested” option in the next menu to remove the recommended video.

Polish Your YouTube Homepage

While watching YouTube videos is a great source of both fun and educational content, the recommendations can sometimes get out of control and clutter your homepage with irrelevant videos. Luckily, now you know how to control your recommendations, whether you’re using the app on your desktop or cell phone. With just a few clicks or taps, you can get rid of unwanted videos and improve the overall content of your YouTube profile.

Have you managed to get rid of irrelevant videos from your YouTube from the homepage? What method did you use? Tell us in the comments section below.

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