Sometimes, you’re scrolling through YouTube, and you stumble across an awesome video you wish to watch, so you save it in your playlist. Or maybe you saved your favorite YouTube video tutorial, and all of a sudden, you log into YouTube, and the video is no longer on the YouTube channel. Or even deleting some YouTube comments you don’t want can be a trouble since you can’t take them back.
As painful as video deletion can be, all hope is not yet lost. There are numerous ways to recover deleted YouTube videos and watch them at your convenience. In this guide, you’ll learn where to locate deleted YouTube videos, how to recover them, and how to access deleted YouTube videos using your preferred technique.
Let’s get right on it.
How to Watch Deleted YouTube Videos in 6 Different Ways
The following listed steps will help you find and view deleted YouTube videos easily, but the steps are different for each method. You may need to try all or most different methods before finding the solution that fits your specific case.
How to view a Deleted YouTube Video When You Have the Video’s URL
Recovering deleted YouTube videos is a breeze when you find the video URL. Just take these steps to watch deleted YouTube videos:
1. Try the Wayback Machine Website
The Wayback Machine is a digital archive or internet archive where all the data on the internet is stored. With its unique processes, it searches information on the internet, containing about 700+ billion web pages across the world wide web. If the deleted video is stored on the Wayback Machine site, then you just might be able to retrieve deleted YouTube videos hassle-free like this:
Step 1: Visit archive.org and paste the YouTube video URL in the search bar.
Step 2: Click “Browse history” and let it do its magic, scanning the entire internet for your video.
Step 3: Once you get the search results, you’ll find the year and date on which the original video was crawled.
Step 4: Click to watch the deleted video.
Note that deleted videos that were not crawled will not appear on this website.
2. Using YouTube Video Finder to Access Deleted YouTube Videos
Watch deleted YouTube videos by installing the Chrome Extension called “YouTube Video Finder.” It’s a shortcut that helps you search the Wayback Machine for deleted videos. Paste your link in the search bar, and if you’re lucky, it’ll restore deleted YouTube videos in a quick minute.
Note that the YouTube Video Finder tool auto-redirects to the Wayback Machine. It serves as an intermediary between you and the Wayback Machine site.
3. Watching Deleted YouTube Videos with the Embed Method
This is a tough procedure, and it might not always work, to watch deleted YouTube videos. It involves removing the watch ID/video ID from the deleted videos’ YouTube links and replacing it with “embed.” This is because the video content may have been saved on other video platforms or social media sites, so you may be able to watch the deleted video after all.
- In a YouTube link that looks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktyJIj6i4Qw, remove the “watch?v=” part of the video, and replace it with “embed.”
- The resultant link should look like this: https://www.youtube.com/embed/ktyJIj6i4Qw
Click it and enjoy!
4. Watch Deleted YouTube Videos via Google Search Operators
Watch YouTube videos that have been deleted with the Google Search Operators method. But you must have video’s your Watch ID handy. The watch ID is the part of the link that comes after “watch?” in the link example above. It begins with “v=.” Copy that part and paste it into the Google search bar.
With any luck, the video’s title will pop up in the search results.
Tips to Help You Get the Deleted Video Link If You Don’t Have It
If you don’t have the deleted video’s URL, there are some easy ways to access it if you have once watched the video on YouTube.
Here’s what you should do:
Check Your YouTube History
Your YouTube history is a great place to discover videos that have been deleted, especially if you haven’t cleared your history recently.
- Log into your YouTube account.
- Click on the hamburger menu (three lines) in the left corner of the page.
- Tap “History” that appears on the list, then “Watch History” in the next page
- Click on the video, and you’ll get the video URL that you’ll use to restore the deleted YouTube video.
Check Your Playlist
If the YouTube videos were on your playlist, you can get the links from there. Do this:
- On your YouTube page, go to the hamburger menu and click on “Library”
- Scroll to find “Playlist,” then click on it to open it.
- Find your favorite videos that have been deleted, then right-click on the video title
- Select “copy link address” in the menu that pops us.
Check Your Liked YouTube Videos
YouTube curates a list of all the videos you have liked on the platform. So if you think you clicked the Like button on the video earlier, before it became a deleted video, take these steps:
- Once again, click on the hamburger menu
- Select “Liked videos”
- Scroll through the list to see the deleted video you’re looking for
- Click on the video to access the video URL from the address bar.
Check Your Browser History
If you can retrace your steps back to the date you recently watched the deleted YouTube video, then it’s possible to get the URL from your browser history.
- Navigate to your browser’s history web pages
- Search for the link on the day you last watched the deleted YouTube video.
- If you accessed multiple links on that date, search to find the specific deleted YouTube video you need.
How to view Deleted YouTube Videos Without the Video URL
If after you have tried all the above, and you still can’t recover deleted videos’ URLs, then try these steps:
Contact YouTube Support
To watch deleted videos that you can’t find on the internet archive, you can get in contact with YouTube Support to help you restore the video if you are the creator. You must be a YouTube Partner and have over 10k views on your channel though.
Log in to your account > Click “Help” at the bottom of the page > Select “Need More Help” then “Get Creators Support” > Choose the issue you need help with, and then tap “Email Support.” Share your challenge with them, and perhaps, you’ll have your video uploaded back to your channel.
Search Social Media Platforms
Many times, content creators on social media platforms like Instagram, Reddit, and Facebook usually upload their YouTube videos on their other social pages. You can search to see if what you seek is on any of these other pages.
Search Similar YouTube Channels
Fans of popular YouTube Channels sometimes reshare content from the main YouTube channel to their own channels. You can search any of such pages to watch the deleted YouTube clips that you need.
Use Relevant Keywords on Google Search
The internet is a vast database, and your deleted clip can be hidden anywhere on the web, you just need to know how to search. To do a thorough Google search, type “site:www.youtube.com VIDEO TITLE” on Google. If your deleted video is titled “Loyal Dog Rescues Navy Seal” for instance, type this into Google:
“site:www.youtube.com Loyal dog rescues Navy Seal,” and all related YouTube videos will appear in the result.
For Video Creators: Tools to Help You Recover Deleted YouTube Videos
Video recovery software, also known as Data Recovery software, are third-party recovery apps that can help you recover YouTube video files that you backed up to your computer but got deleted. Some of the popular data recovery software to try include:
- Recoverit
- Disk Drill
- Wise Data Recovery
- Recuva
- EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard
- Puran File Recovery
Why Are There Deleted YouTube Videos?
There are many reasons why a video gets deleted on YouTube. One could be because the owner of the YouTube video no longer wants the video to be publicly available. Perhaps it’s no longer up to their channel’s standard, or the YouTube video supports certain ideologies that they no longer believe in. There are many plausible reasons why a YouTube creator can decide to take down their creation, and YouTube has no say in what a channel owner decides to do with their content’s public availability.
On the other hand, YouTube itself may decide that a video does not measure up to its policies, or that the post violates YouTube’s community guidelines. Maybe other users found inappropriate content on the YouTube video and reported the channel. In such cases, YouTube will delete the video if the review team has found the video in violation of their terms. Be careful to abide by the laid down rules to protect YouTube videos uploaded from becoming deleted.
It’s not the end of the world though, with the tools, tips, and tricks you’ve just read, you can find deleted videos or even download deleted YouTube videos with just a few clicks on your screen.
