Your old YouTube channel will just stay there forever to haunt you and may even affect your attempt to startup a great new channel. Today, we will show you how you can hide or delete a YouTube channel without affecting any of your other YouTube account data.
Hide or Delete YouTube Channel
Before we get started, make sure you are on the channel that you would like to remove or hide (if there are more than one channel). After that, click on the Google account menu at the top right corner and select “YouTube settings” from it.
Here in the “Overview” tab, click on the “Advanced” button under your channel’s name. Now scroll down and click on the “Delete channel” button at the bottom.
You will get two options, either you can hide your channel or delete it completely. Hiding the channel is a better option if you have a feeling that you may need the channel data sometime in the future. However, you can always nuke it if you are really tired of it.
What Happens When You Hide Your YouTube Channel?
To hide, click on “I want to hide my channel” and then check all the checkboxes to confirm you want to hide the channel data. The data that will become hidden includes name, videos, playlists, subscriptions, subscribers, likes and pretty much every viewable activity. On top of that, all the comments you have made through that channel will also be deleted. Now, click on the “Hide my channel” button at the end and confirm the prompt to hide your YouTube channel.
When you would like to restore the channel again, go to the same “Overview” section of “YouTube settings”. Click on “See all my channels or create a new channel” link at the bottom and then select the hidden channel to restore it.
What Happens When You Permanently Delete YouTube Channel?
If you would like to delete your data instead, then click on “I want to permanently delete my content” and check all the checkboxes here. It will show you all the data you have on that channel which will be deleted. This will include videos, playlists, comments, subscriptions, likes and complete search and watch history.
When you are ready, click on “Delete my content” button below to remove the YouTube channel. You will be asked to re-enter your email address; provide the email address and confirm the prompt to delete all the data. The data will take some time to be deleted, but it will be gone soon.
Google confirms in the same prompt that this data cannot be recovered. If you deleted the channel by mistake, then quickly contacting Google might be the only solution to recover it. As the data isn’t deleted instantly, you may have some hope (haven’t tried it myself though).
Conclusion
I believe hiding a channel is a much better option than deleting it as you never know when you may need to access its data again. Also keep in mind that hide or deleting a channel will not affect the Google+ page associated with the channel. Any comments or +1s made by that page will still remain there to be seen by anyone. Why are you deleting or hiding your YouTube channel? Do share your story in the comments below.
