YouTube Requires You to Enable Your Watch History to Receive Recommendations, but There Is a Workaround.
If you’ve disabled your YouTube watch history and are now being asked to enable it to receive recommendations, you’re not alone. YouTube’s watch history is used to generate personalized recommendations on the platform—when disabled, suggested videos and channels are based on your likes, saves, and subscriptions, rather than videos you’ve actually watched. While some YouTube users want to see a list of content they’ve watched, many disable their watch history for privacy reasons or to filter irrelevant content from the algorithm and provide higher-quality, personalized content.
Some Reddit users recently reported that their recommendations have disappeared from the YouTube homepage, replaced by a request to enable watch history. The issue apparently doesn’t affect everyone who has their watch history disabled—it’s more common among those who disabled it years ago. As Mashable notes , this could be an attempt to access search history for ad targeting.
Manage your YouTube viewing history.
You may not have to sacrifice any additional data to get recommendations back, and a workaround could be as simple as turning on your browsing history, refreshing the page, or searching, then turning it off. To try this, in the YouTube app, tap your profile photo and go to Settings > Manage All History > Manage and select “Include YouTube videos you’ve watched.” Refresh the homepage, then follow the same steps to uncheck this setting. (Note that turning it off will completely disable your history, including search.) On a TV or game console, you’ll find this under Settings > Pause Watching History ; on a browser, go toMy Activity > Manage .
Even with your viewing history disabled, you can train its algorithm to provide better recommendations than YouTube would otherwise offer. The most basic tools are likes (and dislikes), subscriptions, and the bell icon, although you can also dismiss recommendations, create playlists, and even switch accounts to control what you see.