Do you want to stop YouTube from recommending videos in your profile? If so, this post will show you how to stop YouTube Recommendations.
YouTube is arguably one of the most popular video streaming service in the world. YouTube has allowed content creators to make a name for themselves and create new businesses. Amidst all the positive stuff, YouTube has been ridiculed for tracking users privacy and preferences. Some of the features rely on your usage pattern, and this might seem intrusive to many.
Why are YouTube recommendations so random?
YouTube seems to be working hard to make things relevant to the users. In the recent past, they have been working on improving content discovery, and YouTube Recommendations is an integral part. While the recommendations might help you stumble upon new and interesting content, it is also intrusive, to say the least.
YouTube recommendations have their advantages. The feature has helped me discover some new and exciting content. But I have also run into trouble with YouTube Recommendations many times. The suggestions are often ludicrous and show uninteresting content. Furthermore, this will also spoil the user experience. In this article, we will help you deduce and deal with YouTube recommendations.
How to stop YouTube Recommendations
If you want to stop YouTube from recommending videos in your profile, you can use any one of these methods to turn off suggested YouTube videos:
- Reset YouTube Recommendations
- Delete YouTube Watch History
- Remove YouTube Recommendations completely
- Tips for a clutter-free YouTube experience.
Stop YouTube from recommending videos
1] Delete YouTube search history
Deleting the search history won’t remove recommendations, but it will set it all back to default. Once that is done, the system will start over again to recommend the right videos based on the ones you’ve searched for before.
To delete the history, click on your username, and from the menu, select Your Data In YouTube. After that, click on Manage your YouTube Search History, All Time, then Delete.
You may click on this link to go there directly
Once you have paused the search history, the algorithm will stop basing the suggestions on the search. After clearing the search history and pausing the search history, you will notice that YouTube will start suggesting trending content. The new recommendations/suggestions are usually spot on and will help you with content discovery. You can simply toggle on the “search history” to get back the feature.
Since you have already deleted the watch history, YouTube will not have access to your watching habit. In other words, it’s like starting a new YouTube account with a clean slate!
2] Delete YouTube Watch History
The next thing to do here is to delete the Watch history.
To get this done, simply click on your username, then Your Data In YouTube, Manage your YouTube Watch History.
Over at the left-pane, click on Delete Activity By, select All Time from the drop-down menu, and finally, click on Delete.
You may click on this link to go there directly.
Deleting the watch history is very important because it does not contain a range cap at all. It means if you had created your YouTube account in 2009, and has never deleted your watch history, then all of that data is still stored on YouTube servers.
3] Remove YouTube Recommendations completely
In the previous section, we explained how you could fine-tune YouTube recommendations to serve your purpose. I prefer dropping YouTube Recommendations in favor of more screen real estate.
To do so, you can download Google Chrome or any Chromium-based web browser like the new Edge. After doing so, download and install the extension called Remove YouTube Recommended Videos. It will remove the recommendation section from your homepage.
You can also use a Chrome browser extension called YouTube Options. This tool is super useful and helps you to hide anything from header, title, description, video suggestions, footer, and much other stuff.
Additionally, I would also suggest clearing the cache and temporary files every once in a while.
How to make YouTube experience clutter-free?
There are many ways in which you can improve the viewing experience on YouTube. You can always clear your history or watch stuff using incognito mode. As explained earlier, one of the best options would be to use extensions that help you hide the stuff that you don’t want to see. The YouTube Cinema mode is yet another way of enhancing your viewing experience.
TIP: These browser extensions will help improve YouTube Streaming & Experience.
