Script to remove all videos from Youtube Watch Later playlist

Remove videos from Youtube Watch Later playlist.md

UPDATED 22.11.2022

It's been two years since the last update, so here's the updated working script as per the comments below.

Thanks to BryanHaley for this.

setInterval(function () {
    video = document.getElementsByTagName('ytd-playlist-video-renderer')[0];

    video.querySelector('#primary button[aria-label="Action menu"]').click();

    var things = document.evaluate(
        '//span[contains(text(),"Remove from")]',
        document,
        null,
        XPathResult.ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE,
        null
    );

    for (var i = 0; i < things.snapshotLength; i++) 
    {
        things.snapshotItem(i).click();
    }
}, 500);

Non-english users will need to change "Action menu" and "Remove from" to what YouTube uses for their localization.

Just discovered a native way to remove ALL watched videos!

I had 5,000 videos in my watch later playlist and it took about 10 seconds before it was down to 1,675 videos; I refreshed the page after 10 seconds in excitement. When I tested it again with only a handful of watched videos it did it within a few seconds and no manual refresh was necessary.

• Go here on desktop: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=WL
• Click the three horizontal dots under "Watch later" and next to the "Shuffle Play" icon
• Click "Remove watched videos"
• Click "Remove" on the popup to confirm their removal

Hi Bryan,

Thanks for your response, however two problems with this approach:

1. Its availability is inconsistent. It's available in the browser on desktop, and sometimes on mobile, but not always - either that or they took the feature down there.
2. It only removes videos you've already watched. This thread is about removing all videos from the WL playlist.

@blackmailer75 This worked on 2021.10.16 for deleting all of my remaining 400 "Unavailable" or "Deleted" videos from my Watch Later playlist. Thank you!

Unfortunately, this way don't work in my case. After clearing all "normal" videos from WH list I use following script to delete Deleted and Private videos: setInterval(function() { document.querySelector('#primary button[class="style-scope yt-icon-button"]').click(); var things = document.evaluate('//span[contains(text(),"Remove from")]',document,null,XPathResult.ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE,null); for (var i = 0; i < things.snapshotLength; i++) { things.snapshotItem(i).click(); } }, 1000);

@jzisser9 I only have one phone to test, but it has shown up 100% of the time on the mobile Youtube app, not sure about the Youtube web app. And yes, you're right it only removes watched videos but still, could be a HUGE time saver before running any of these scripts.

Works well! :)

me too it works

Yeah, the script above works but there's also a better idea which is https://myaccount.google.com/u/2/youtubeoptions?rapt=AEjHL4O3TGX89Dxo2QJFPCy3eel_5Ocuh2jpX-mltnYqkpd3HWW4ugu4KWoVdr8ji5JMNJLQF5J3f5-Gh410ePHn9xvxtjL3FQ and all of your youtube playlists, history & liked videos ever will be deleted.

Thanks! Worked for me, but for ~200 videos, now yt says "this function is temporary unavailable".

Thank you, it works great, Good job, Andrei !

Is there a version of the script that only removes unavailable and deleted videos?

This worked for me. Make sure to leave that Chrome tab open on the foreground, even if not active Chrome window. When the list is massive, sometimes close & open of a new tab is needed.

setInterval(() => {
  document.querySelector('#primary button[aria-label="Action menu"]').click();
  document.evaluate('//span[contains(text(),"Remove from")]', document, null, 
   XPathResult.ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE, null).snapshotItem(0).click();
}, 500);

Thanks for this script man. Saved me a lot of time. :)

Does anyone have any guesses for what youtube's rate limit is? I have to wait for a few minutes after every ~300 videos that I delete.

This will only work while you are watching the playlist:
you need to change the value of howManyToDelete to decide how many of the videos you want to delete

howManyToDelete = 5;
loopValue = 0;
new Promise((resolve1, reject) => {
  const loop = function () {
    if (++loopValue > howManyToDelete) {
      resolve1();
    } else {
      document.querySelector('#secondary button[aria-label="Action menu"]').click();
      new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(() => resolve(), 200))
        .then(() => {
          document.querySelector('ytd-menu-service-item-renderer[aria-selected="false"]').click();
        })
        .then(new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(() => resolve(), 200)))
        .then(loop)
        .catch((err) => console.log(err));
    }
  };
  loop();
});

Thank you, this is working for me at the moment! —SLG

Works perfect for me
Just suited to german

setInterval(function () {
// Changed "Action menu" to "Aktionsmenü" (DE)
  	document.querySelector('#primary button[aria-label="Aktionsmenü"]').click();
  	var things = document.evaluate(
// ... as well as "Remove from" to "Aus"
    '//span[contains(text(),"Aus")]',
    document,
    null,
    XPathResult.ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE,
    null
  );
  for (var i = 0; i < things.snapshotLength; i++) {
    things.snapshotItem(i).click();
  }
},` 1000);

For all the french here, use this :
setInterval(function () { document.querySelector('#primary button[aria-label="Menu d\'actions"]').click(); var things = document.evaluate( '//span[contains(text(),"Supprimer de")]', document, null, XPathResult.ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE, null ); for (var i = 0; i < things.snapshotLength; i++) { things.snapshotItem(i).click(); } }, 1000);

It's insane to me that in 2022 this is still the only way to clear YouTube's Watch Later, and with much pain involved because you hit their stupid rate limit after 200 requests.

I have a Pi Hole and other blockers so YouTube can't tell when a video is 'watched'.

I have around 3,000 videos to clear. It always takes hours as it gets this way every few months.

It's insane to me that in 2022 this is still the only way to clear YouTube's Watch Later, and with much pain involved because you hit their stupid rate limit after 200 requests.

I have a Pi Hole and other blockers so YouTube can't tell when a video is 'watched'.

I have around 3,000 videos to clear. It always takes hours as it gets this way every few months.

Me too. I'm starting to wonder if this can be done through API calls too.

Checking the official YouTube API docs, it does seem possible. I'm yet to go through their official examples repo, but by the looks of it you could use the playlistitems list endpoint to grab all the video ID's in the playlist, then loop through them and send a delete request using the playlistitems delete endpoint.

The only limitation, and its a massive one, is that you are limited to 10,000 'units' per day, with playlist deletions costing 50 per request meaning you'd blow through the quota in just 200 video deletions, which is insane and according to YouTube is 'an amount sufficient for the majority of our API users'. In order to get more, they have to audit your project:

The YouTube Data API uses a quota system to ensure that developers use the service as intended and do not create API clients that unfairly reduce service quality or limit access for others.

Projects that enable the YouTube Data API have a default quota allocation of 10,000 units per day, an amount sufficient for the majority of our API users. You can see your quota usage on the Quotas page in the API Console.

If you would like to request additional quota beyond the default allocation, you must first complete an audit to show that your project is in compliance with the YouTube API Services Terms of Service. This gives YouTube visibility into the intended use cases of large projects and ensures that YouTube's API services are being used in a manner that is free from abuse. Visit this link for additional details on complying with YouTube’s Developer Policies.

I remember all this going down with 3rd party YouTube apps on the various mobile app stores, one by one slowly getting shutdown to force everyone to use the native apps and clients, with much more reduced functionality and rife with petty design (UX and software) decisions.

YouTube really, really needs a competitor.

@othyn seriously, it beggars belief that such a simple function takes this much work to accomplish, with strings attached. For each video on this specific playlist, remove it.

👍

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For anyone from Czech Republic, you can use this modified function from a few comments above.

setInterval(() => {
  document.querySelector('#primary button[aria-label="Nabídka akcí"]').click();
  document.evaluate('//span[contains(text(),"Odstranit ze seznamu")]', document, null, 
   XPathResult.ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE, null).snapshotItem(0).click();
}, 500);

@AwareWulf Thanks for sharing 👍

For all the french here, use this :
setInterval(function () { document.querySelector('#primary button[aria-label="Menu d\'actions"]').click(); var things = document.evaluate( '//span[contains(text(),"Supprimer de")]', document, null, XPathResult.ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE, null ); for (var i = 0; i < things.snapshotLength; i++) { things.snapshotItem(i).click(); } }, 1000);

Merci beaucoup @DewasSquid ! Fonctionne au 02 juin 2022

This works great, thank you.

For everyone using a different language you have to update:

1: aria-label="HERE"

and

2: '//span[contains(text(),"HERE")]',

---

The second one is just the content of the "Remove from playlist button", press on the 3 dots and copy the text. Just some words is okay, e.g "Remove from" is totally fine.

---

Number 1 is a bit more tricky, to find it you have to inspect the 3 dots button (right click => inspect or something simillar)
It looks like this:
(Make sure to inspect the button not the icon, just inspect a bit on the side from the three dots.)

<button id="button" class="style-scope yt-icon-button" aria-label="Aktionsmenü"><yt-icon class="style-scope ytd-menu-renderer"</button>

From there you have to use the content of the aria-label

It worked just fine!!
I don't know why youtube does not include this feature, I had thousends of videos on the watch later section and I'm 100% that i'm actually not going to watch none of them :) but I want to use this feature of watch later but know in the proper way.
Anyways thank you very much and greetings from colombia 👍

Works perfect for me Just suited to german

setInterval(function () {
// Changed "Action menu" to "Aktionsmenü" (DE)
  	document.querySelector('#primary button[aria-label="Aktionsmenü"]').click();
  	var things = document.evaluate(
// ... as well as "Remove from" to "Aus"
    '//span[contains(text(),"Aus")]',
    document,
    null,
    XPathResult.ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE,
    null
  );
  for (var i = 0; i < things.snapshotLength; i++) {
    things.snapshotItem(i).click();
  }
},` 1000);

Works perfect! Just suited to pt-br

setInterval(function () {
  	document.querySelector('#primary button[aria-label="Menu de ações"]').click();
  	var things = document.evaluate(
    '//span[contains(text(),"Remover")]',
    document,
    null,
    XPathResult.ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE,
    null
  );
  for (var i = 0; i < things.snapshotLength; i++) {
    things.snapshotItem(i).click();
  }
}, 1000);

@othyn, unfortunately you can't do this at all with the YouTube API, because it will not return the contents of the Watch Later playlist: https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/revision_history#september-15,-2016