HACKER Q&A
📣 sgt

YouTube keeps switching watch history back on


I have had my watch history off for months, and one day recently it was automatically turned on again.

Then I went into "YouTube History" and changed the control again, about 2 weeks ago. For about two weeks it was set to off, but then yesterday evening I noticed that history was switched on again.

Has anyone else noticed this? I do not think it's done by accident from my side, as the history control is not possible to do via apps, etc. One has to go into a separate Google webpage in order to explicitly turn history off.

  👤 izzydata Accepted Answer ✓
I have noticed the same problem. Every week they will re-enable the watch history automatically. They also changed the option from turn off watch history to pause watch history. I'm pretty sure this is an intentional change to make sure you can't have it off forever.
👤 theGeatZhopa
Check permissions for access your Google account whether there is an app that needs YouTube history. And.. I have to check, but no, I have my YT history not switched off and still on hahaha

But i saw there is an option for me to automatically delete history and two separate settings store search history and store view history.

👤 st0le
Did you happen to enable "recommendations" in Youtube Mobile App? That would implicitly enable it. I don't have Trending/Shorts because its disabled.
👤 Kelteseth
The same dark pattern often happens in other big apps like Twitch. Every week I have to decline their cookie popup in their iOS app.