Last updated on February 8th, 2024 at 03:45 am
It’s quite easy to delete an old YouTube account without a password and email.
However, you have to think carefully before doing it.
If you have a small channel with a few videos and views, you may go ahead and delete it without much thought.
However, if it’s a big channel with many videos and thousands of views and subscribers, you may want to hide your channel instead.
There may be a need to reenable your channel one day.
When You Should Delete Your YouTube Channel
There are many reasons why people want to delete their YouTube channels. Even channels that were doing well and earning good money were deleted.
So, in what instances would you want to delete your YouTube channel?
If someone else has opened a YouTube channel under your company account and the person is no longer around, you don’t want your company to have anything to do with the channel or its contents.
Especially if the content associated with the channel is not in your company’s interests.
Also, you may want to delete the channel because it may give rise to legal issues if it exists.
Whatever the case, usually, a channel is deleted because it may give rise to serious issues if it is around.
Before we look at how to delete an old YouTube account without a password or email, let’s examine the difference between deleting and hiding your YouTube channel.
What’s the Difference Between Deleting Your Channel and Hiding Your Channel?
Deleting your YouTube account means deleting your subscriber count, views, likes, and comments.
Hiding your channel means you’re taking it off the public view. You may bring the channel back again at a later time.
Hiding your channel will make it private. Your channel assets will remain. However, note that your viewer comments and replies to them will be removed permanently.
Summary Table
To help you understand the differences better, check out the summarized information in the table below.
| Feature | Deleting Your Channel | Hiding Your Channel |
|---|---|---|
| Permanence | Permanent. Channel and all content (videos, playlists, comments, etc.) are irrevocably removed. | Temporary. Channel and content are hidden from public view. You can unhide them later. |
| Discoverability | Channel and content cannot be found through search, recommendations, or direct links. | Channel and content cannot be found through search or recommendations, but are still accessible via direct links if someone has them. |
| Content access | All content is deleted. | Videos are still stored but hidden. Playlists, comments, and community posts are deleted. |
| Subscribers | All subscribers are lost. | Subscribers are retained, but will not see your content until you unhide it. |
| Channel name & URL | Channel name and URL are released and can be claimed by others. | Channel name and URL are reserved. |
| Reversal | Cannot be reversed. | Can be reversed at any time by unhiding the channel. |
| Comments & replies | Permanently deleted. | Permanently deleted. |
| Account data | Other Google account data remains unaffected. | Other Google account data remains unaffected. |
| Use case | For quitting YouTube permanently or starting fresh. | For taking a break from content creation or hiding old content. |
Before we look at how to delete a channel, let’s look at the steps to hide your channel.
How to Hide Your Channel
Step 1 – Go to your YouTube account and YouTube Studio.
Step 2 – From the left panel, choose Settings.
Under Settings, choose Channel and then select Advanced Settings.
Step 3 – Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Remove YouTube content.
Step 4 – Login to your Google account to proceed.
Step 5 – Select I want to hide my channel.
You must tick the two boxes below to proceed and click on Hide my content.
Anyone visiting the channel will be shown this message – This channel doesn’t have any content.
How to Unhide a Channel
You can unhide and reenable your channel through the following steps:
Step 1 – Log in to your YouTube account and select YouTube Studio
Step 2 – Choose Content on the left Panel
Step 3 – Select the videos you want to make public
In our case, we want to make only one video public and hit Publish.
Next, log out of your YouTube account to check if you’ve successfully unhidden your channel.
If you feel hiding your channel is not your best option, you may delete your YouTube channel.
Watch the video below to refresh your understanding of hiding and unhiding a YouTube channel.
Steps to Delete a Channel
You would later want to use these steps to delete an old YouTube account without a password or email.
Downloading Your Videos
Before deleting your channel, you may want to download your videos if you don’t have backups.
To do that log in to YouTube Studio and go to Content.
From Content, select the video you want to download by clicking on the three vertical dots.
You would have to download the videos individually. There’s no bulk download feature available yet on YouTube Studio.
Deleting Your Channel
Follow Steps 1 to Step 4 for Hiding Your Channel.
Step 5 – Choose I want to permanently delete my content.
Tick the boxes to confirm channel deletion.
Step 6 – Type in Channel Name
This is to confirm that you’re deleting the right channel.
Then hit Delete my content.
YouTube proceeds to delete your channel.
YouTube proceeds to delete your channel.
Visit your channel URL after a while to confirm channel deletion.
Watch the video below to refresh your understanding of how to delete a YouTube channel.
How to Delete an Old YouTube Account without Password and Email
From the above, you’ve seen how easy it is to delete a YouTube account with your email and password.
If you have an old YouTube account, you may have a legacy account.
A legacy account is one created before May 2009.
If you have such an account, you must connect it to a Google account first before you can delete your old YouTube account.
How to know whether you have a legacy YouTube account?
Go to your channel home page (you don’t have to log in to see it) and click on the About tab.
If you have a legacy account, you must first convert it to a Google account.
There’s also another requirement for a legacy YouTube account. The account must not have been used since January 10, 2011.
So, if you uploaded a video to the account after the above date in 2011, your account will not be considered a legacy account.
Anyway, if you have a legacy account, you can convert it to a Google account.
Once you’ve successfully done that, you can use the steps in the section above to delete your YouTube.
Steps to Convert a YouTube Legacy Account to a Google account.
Step 1 – Log in to your Google Account
On YouTube, log in to the Google account you wish to link your legacy account to.
Step 2 – Visit the Gaia Link.
This is where you go to claim a pre-Google YouTube channel as a brand account.
Step 3 – Input your username and password.
If you know your username and password, you can easily turn the legacy account into a brand account associated with your Google account.
Watch the video below for guidance on how to claim your legacy channel as a brand account.
Once you can do that, you can go ahead and delete or hide the channel by following the steps above.
How to Recover an Old YouTube Account without Knowing Email or Password.
If you created after May 2009, Youtube channels were required to be associated with a Google account.
What to do if you have forgotten your login email of the YouTube account?
Here’s a way you can find it out.
How to Find Out The Login Email for Your Old YouTube Account
Take the name of your YouTube channel and search for it in your primary email address.
This would be the email you use as a recovery email associated with the main Google account linked to YouTube
From then on proceed with the steps as shown in the video below.
Once you can find your login email and access YouTube Studio, you can easily hide or delete your YouTube channel.
You’ve learned how to delete an old YouTube account without a password or email. Now go ahead and give any of the above steps a try.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does YouTube Delete Inactive Accounts?
Yes, YouTube has the right to delete an inactive account. You have an inactive account if you’ve not logged into your YouTube channel for more than 6 months.
Also, if you have opened a YouTube channel and have not uploaded any videos, YouTube has the right to delete your YouTube account.
Your YouTube channel can also be deleted if you’re not an active participant in the YouTube community.
What this means is you’re not actively watching videos or commenting on them or subscribing to other channels on YouTube.
YouTube may not necessarily enforce the deletion of an inactive account. But to be on the safe side, upload at least one video every six months.
If you can’t do that, have at least a few videos on your channel.
When Does YouTube Have the Power to Delete Videos or Channels?
Although you own a YouTube account, YouTube has the power to delete your videos without your permission.
Any video uploaded to YouTube or any channel on the platform has to adhere to the Community guidelines.
For example, if you receive three community guidelines strikes within a period of 90 days, your channel will be deleted.
Among the common violation of community, guidelines include posting spam and violent and adult content.
Millions of channels and videos have been deleted for violating the community guidelines as shown in the screenshot below.
