Alphabet Inc.'s GOOG GOOGL YouTube will start showing a blank page to users who have disabled their watch history. The change has not gone down well with some users, who are aghast at seeing an empty homepage on the YouTube app and website.
What Happened: YouTube has changed the way it surfaces recommended videos and to make it more clear to users who have disabled their watch history. In such cases, YouTube will now show a blank homepage with just the search bar on the top and a menu on the left showing the subscribed channels, if any.
"We are launching this new experience to make it clearer which YouTube features rely on watch history to provide video recommendations," YouTube said, adding that these changes are rolling out slowly over the next few months.
If you have disabled watch history on YouTube and don't have an empty homepage yet, it just means you will have to wait for the company to enable the changes for your account.
In a way, having a cleaner homepage would be a welcome change, but it being empty could push some users to enable watch history.
Not everyone is happy about the change, though, with some users asking how YouTube can show recommendations to logged-out users but not to those logged-in.
How To Enable Or Disable YouTube Watch History
Either way, you can enable or disable your YouTube watch history right now. Enabling history will allow YouTube to show you recommendations, and if you don't like them, you can easily disable them by going into YouTube settings.
Here's how you can enable or disable YouTube watch history:
- Tap on your profile picture on the top right on the YouTube website.
- Tap on the "Your data in YouTube" option.
- Now, scroll down and look for the "YouTube Watch History" option. Tap on it and toggle it on or off according to your needs.
- Repeat the same steps for the "YouTube Search History" option.
If you had history enabled and want to disable it now, you might also want to delete it – just tap on the "Manage" option in the Watch and Search history boxes.
Image credits – Shutterstock
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