Known Limitations — YT Cleaner

YT Cleaner automates bulk cleanup of your YouTube account, but YouTube's architecture — and Google's underlying account infrastructure — impose certain boundaries on what can be automated. This page documents those edge cases so you know what to expect.

Subscriptions

Deleted or terminated channels

If a channel you subscribed to has since been deleted or terminated by YouTube, it may still appear in your subscriptions list. The unsubscribe action may not complete cleanly for these entries. YT Cleaner will attempt to process them and move on.

Very large subscription counts

YouTube loads subscriptions in batches as you scroll. If you follow hundreds of channels, run YT Cleaner in multiple sessions — it will continue from wherever the page has loaded to.

Playlists

Liked Videos playlist cannot be deleted

The "Liked Videos" playlist is auto-generated by YouTube and cannot be deleted. YT Cleaner skips it automatically. To clear your liked videos, use the Likes mode instead.

Watch Later and auto-generated Mixes

YouTube's "Watch Later" playlist and algorithmically generated Mix playlists are system playlists that cannot be permanently deleted. YT Cleaner skips these automatically.

Collaborative playlists

Playlists shared as collaborative may prompt additional confirmation steps when deleted. YT Cleaner will attempt to handle the confirmation but in some cases you may need to delete these manually.

Likes

Like count is not reversed

Removing a video from your Liked Videos list removes it from your personal account but does not retroactively reduce the video's public like count on YouTube. The like was already recorded at the time it was given.

Private or deleted videos

If a video was made private or deleted by its creator after you liked it, it may still appear in your Liked Videos playlist as "Private video." YT Cleaner will attempt to remove it, but the action may not always succeed silently.

Watch History

History watched in Incognito mode

Videos watched in Incognito or Private browsing mode are never saved to your history. They won't appear and there is nothing to clear.

History managed by your Google Account

YouTube watch history is stored at the Google Account level, not just YouTube. YT Cleaner removes entries from the YouTube history view, which is the same as using "Remove from watch history" manually.

If watch history is paused

If you have previously paused watch history in your Google Account settings, no new entries will have been recorded. You may see fewer items than expected.

Comments

Comments run on Google My Activity, not YouTube.com

The Comments mode navigates to myactivity.google.com/product/youtube — a separate Google domain. Your browser must allow the extension to run on that domain (this is included in the extension permissions). Keep the tab on that page while running.

Comments on deleted or private videos

Comments you left on videos that were later deleted or made private may still appear in Google My Activity, but the delete action may not always complete. These will be skipped.

Comment replies

Replies to other people's comments may appear separately from top-level comments in My Activity. YT Cleaner processes items as they appear in the list — some replies may not surface and would need to be removed manually.

Very old comments

Google My Activity does not always surface every historical YouTube comment, particularly very old ones. Items that don't appear in the activity feed cannot be processed by YT Cleaner.

General

Keep the tab open and active

YT Cleaner runs inside the active YouTube (or Google My Activity) tab. Switching tabs, minimising the browser, or letting your computer sleep can interrupt the process. Keep the tab visible until the run completes.

Run in batches

YT Cleaner processes up to the "Stop after" count per run. For large clean-ups, press Start again after each run completes — it will continue from the current state of the page.

The counter shows items attempted, not guaranteed deletions

YT Cleaner counts every item it interacted with. Some items are silently skipped (system playlists, inaccessible content, etc.). The final count reflects attempts, not confirmed removals.

Rate limiting

YouTube and Google may slow down or block actions if requests happen too quickly. If the process appears to stall, stop and try again after a few minutes. Using a smaller "Stop after" count (e.g. 20–30 at a time) can help.

YouTube UI changes

YT Cleaner works by interacting with YouTube's interface the same way you would. If YouTube updates their layout or renames menu items, the extension may stop finding the right buttons. Check verolab.io for an updated version when this happens.

All actions are permanent

Unsubscribing from channels, deleting playlists, removing likes, clearing watch history, and deleting comments are all immediate and cannot be undone. There is no recycle bin or recovery option.