You know the feeling. You clicked on one weird video about a 19th-century woodworking technique or a "where are they now" documentary on a child star you don't even like, and now your entire homepage is ruined. It’s relentless. YouTube's algorithm is a hyper-aggressive puppy that thinks because you looked at a shoe once, you want to live in a house made of sneakers. If you're wondering how to delete YouTube suggestions before your feed becomes a total wasteland of irrelevant content, you aren't alone. Honestly, the algorithm is designed to be sticky, but that stickiness often turns into a digital prison of our own accidental making.
The "Up Next" and "Home" sections are driven by a massive neural network—actually several of them—that Google engineers have been refining for over a decade. According to Google’s own technical documentation on their recommendation engine, they prioritize "watch time" and "expectedness." This means if you finish a video, the system thinks it won't just be a one-off. It assumes it’s your new personality. Fixing it requires more than just hitting a refresh button. You have to go into the "brain" of your account and perform some selective lobotomy on your data.
The nuclear option: Clearing your entire history
Sometimes, a surgical strike isn't enough. You might just want a blank slate. To do this, you have to dive into your Google Account settings, specifically the "Data & Privacy" section. This is where the magic (or the nightmare) lives.
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Most people think deleting the app and reinstalling it works. It doesn't. Your preferences are tied to your Google Identity, not the local cache on your iPhone or Android. When you choose to "Clear search history" and "Clear watch history," you are effectively telling the algorithm that you have amnesia. It’s a bold move. Your homepage will suddenly look like a generic storefront—full of "Trending" music videos and late-night talk show clips—until you start building a new profile by watching things you actually enjoy.
If you're on a desktop, you can find this under the "History" tab on the left sidebar. There’s a giant button that says "Clear all watch history." Click it, and the ghosts of your past 3:00 AM rabbit holes vanish. But be warned: this also deletes your progress on long videos you were halfway through. It’s annoying, but it's the only way to get a true 100% reset.
Selective editing: How to delete YouTube suggestions one by one
Maybe you don't want to burn the whole house down. Maybe you just want to get rid of the suggestions for that one Minecraft streamer your nephew watched on your phone. This is where the "Not interested" and "Don't recommend channel" buttons come in.
They are subtle. You have to hover over a video (on desktop) or tap the three vertical dots (on mobile).
- Not interested: This tells YouTube that this specific video wasn't your vibe.
- Don't recommend channel: This is the "block" button for content creators. Use it. If a specific creator's face makes you want to throw your device across the room, tell the algorithm to stop serving them to you.
Google’s engineers, like Cristos Goodrow (VP of Engineering at YouTube), have often mentioned in blog posts that these "dislike" signals are weighted heavily, but they aren't instant. You might have to do it three or four times before the system finally takes the hint. It's like training a dog that really wants to play fetch with a stick you hate.
Pausing the tracking: The Incognito trick
If you know you’re about to go down a weird rabbit hole—maybe researching a political topic you disagree with or looking up how to fix a very specific plumbing issue—turn on "Incognito Mode" or "Pause History."
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I use this constantly. When you "Pause watch history," nothing you view during that session gets added to the data pile that builds your suggestions. It’s a temporary bypass. You find it in the same History management menu. It’s a toggle. Flip it on, do your weird research, flip it off. Your homepage stays pristine. This is the single best way to prevent yourself from needing to figure out how to delete YouTube suggestions later on. It’s preventative medicine for your digital life.
Managing the "Search" side of the equation
We often forget that what we search for is just as important as what we watch. If you search for "how to keto diet" but never actually click a video, YouTube still knows you’re thinking about it. Suddenly, your feed is all bacon and avocados.
Go to your "My Google Activity" page. You can filter by "YouTube" specifically. Here, you will see a chronological list of every single term you’ve typed into that search bar. It’s usually a cringeworthy trip down memory lane. You can delete these individual search terms by hitting the "X" next to them. This is often more effective for cleaning up the "Recommended for you" bar than just deleting watched videos because search terms represent intent. Intent is a high-value signal for the AI.
The "New" algorithm vs. the "Old" one
YouTube changed how this works significantly around 2023 and 2024. They started leaning harder into "Shorts." If you watch three seconds of a Short, the algorithm counts it. This is dangerous because you scroll through Shorts so fast that you can accidentally "train" your feed to show you stuff you hate just by being too slow to swipe.
If your Shorts feed is a mess, the "Not interested" trick works there too, but you have to be fast. The feedback loop for Shorts is much tighter than for long-form content. If you're spending 20 minutes a day on Shorts, that is likely the primary driver of your homepage suggestions now. To fix the homepage, you have to fix the Shorts habit first.
Why do the suggestions keep coming back?
It's frustrating when you delete something and it reappears two days later. This usually happens because of "collaborative filtering." This is a fancy tech term that basically means "people who liked X also liked Y."
Even if you delete your history of watching Video X, if you still watch Video Z, and the rest of the world thinks X and Z are related, YouTube will try to sneak X back onto your screen. It thinks it knows you better than you know yourself. To break this, you have to consciously engage with "opposite" content. Watch something completely outside your normal wheelhouse and give it a "Like." This forces the neural network to recalculate your cluster.
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Actionable steps to reclaim your feed
Don't just read this and let your feed stay messy. Take five minutes right now to do a digital deep clean. It makes the platform actually usable again.
- Open your YouTube app and tap your profile picture.
- Navigate to "Settings" and then find "Manage all history."
- Use the "Delete" dropdown to remove activity from "Today" or "All time" if you're feeling brave.
- Turn on "Auto-delete" if you want Google to automatically wipe your history every 3 months. This is a "set it and forget it" way to keep your suggestions from getting stale.
- Audit your "Subscriptions." If you are subscribed to 500 channels but only watch 5, the algorithm is getting mixed signals. Unsubscribe from the dead weight.
- Check your "Liked Videos" playlist. People forget this one. YouTube uses your "Likes" as a core pillar for recommendations. If you liked a bunch of videos five years ago that you no longer care about, go into that playlist and start removing them.
The goal isn't just to hide what you've seen. The goal is to curate a space that actually brings value to your day instead of just stealing your time with clickbait you regret clicking. It takes a little manual labor, but the result is a feed that actually reflects who you are today, not who you were three years ago during a 2:00 AM bout of insomnia.