YouTube questions

[fffred]

I have long found YouTube to be a great resource for digging up old music from long ago...both favorites and new-to-me. And for learning about new music and musicians. (I prefer it even to Google Music)

A technical question for any who may know:  "how long" does my YouTube history extend? I was just searching for something that I know should be in there but is not. The span of history shown seems to depend in part on system resources (memory) and I have around 24 GB RAM on my ThinkPad (I think that's a lot). I know that I can access much less history on my iPad.

Does the YouTube "Search Watch History" search my full actual history at Google? or only what's shown in my system? (I am thinking the former)

Is there any way feasible to download my history to a local file?

[nahchoo]

I don't know about downloading your history to a local file but here's a page that let's you view your past history. (But then again, I guess that there isn't any future history, now is there?)

View YouTube History

Sadly, I can't find anything that will let you download your entire viewing history from YouTube. And as for how far back it will go, I don't want to take the time to go back in mine because I've watched thousands of videos over the years. I'd rather play on these forums. But good luck to you!

[fffred]

@nahchoo 

Thank you!  That page now has a search by date range function, that didn't used to be there. That does provide some interesting utility for me, to see what I was listening to "way back when"

[nahchoo]

Then I'm happy if it helped you some. Have fun!  😊

[MaVolta]

It only shows the searches on YT. I don't know if there is any cutoff point where the oldest history will drop. I clear my seach history from time to time because it gets too long, and it's easier to just search for what I want. Entering a search will also bring up a lot of suggestions which may also be helpful.

If you do a search on Google, the history will remain on Google until you clear it (I think). I always clear my Google history and empty the caches for security each time I use it. If there is a link that I want to refer back to, I just bookmark it.

Maybe someone else has better answers for you.

I really have learned to enjoy YT for music since I retired. There was so much old video of my favorite bands that I didn't know existed, even full concerts. Of course, a search for one thing would lead me to more discoveries, as have many recommendations and links provided by users on this forum.