Does YouTube Delete Old Videos? How to restore YouTube Videos?

Does YouTube delete old videos? If you have similar questions and want to restore YouTube videos, this post will be helpful and worth reading.

By @Lora Last Updated October 17, 2024

Why are my older videos not showing on YouTube?

Have you ever uploaded videos to YouTube? Today, more and more YouTube users are playing a more active role in their YouTube journey – many users become creators and ret to show the world what they care about and convey their ideas.

Some YouTubers may have created and uploaded dozens or hundreds of videos on YouTube and will regularly manage their videos.

However, some of the users have fallen into problems like video loss. A group of them has reported that “All their YouTube downloads are gone”, and some find that their old videos are lost.

They are wondering does YouTube delete old videos and are asking how to get back their work.

   
   
   
       

Old videos gone?

       

Hi guys, I opened my Youtube channel in 2011, but I noticed that only the videos of the last four years (from 2015) remain visible. Have the previous videos been deleted or only hidden? Is it possible to recover them? Is it a problem with my channel settings or a Youtube practice?

       

- Question from YouTube Help

   

Then, why did these videos get lost from their channel? Does YouTube genuinely remove users’ content?

Why did YouTube delete your videos?

Commonly, YouTube won’t remove any users’ videos unless the content has violated YouTube’s policies. Inappropriate content will be taken down.

  • ✍ Community Guidelines. Spam, deceptive practices, violent and sensitive content, etc., will violate the community guideline and are not allowed.
  • ✍ Copyright. Content owners can claim content in videos that includes copyrighted content; the videos can be muted, blocked, taken down, etc.
  • ✍ User Term. If you have received the “Video removed: Term of Use violation” message, your videos might have been removed due to a breach of the User Term.

If your uploaded or watched content hasn’t been removed by YouTube but is still lost, it might have disappeared for other reasons.

Why did YouTube videos disappear?

If you are pretty sure that the videos are not deleted by YouTube officially due to inappropriate content, then they are probably missing for other reasons. 

  • ✍ You have logged into the wrong account. You may have signed into an account with no target videos you saved/liked.
  • ✍ Premium membership has expired. If you have noticed your downloaded videos are lost, check if your Premium membership has expired.
  • ✍ Downloaded videos exceeded 29 days. Downloaded videos are only accessible offline for 29 days.
  • ✍The video owner has deleted them. Once the owner removes the video, it will be permanently deleted from YouTube.

Knowing these reasons for YouTube video loss, we can restore YouTube videos in a better way.

Does YouTube delete old videos? How to find lost YouTube videos?

This section will help you in YouTube video recovery with several feasible methods.

Method 1. Make sure you sign into the correct account with a Premium subscription

Viewers may download videos and get rid of ads through YouTube's premium services. Only Premium users can download and access the content they like.

>> Check to see whether your YouTube Premium subscription hasn't run out of time, then right-click on the Profile icon > Sign out > sign back to an account with Premium.

Method 2. Download them from archive.org

Can you recover deleted YouTube videos? Asking for assistance from Archive.org is another way to locate deleted YouTube videos. The WayBackMachine of Archive.org can help users search through the history of more than 790 billion online pages to find what they're looking for.

You may search them this way if, for example, YouTube has deleted the old videos on your channel or the owners removed their content.

>> Visit archive.org > input the URL of the deleted videos > search the videos.

Method 3. Contact YouTube Help

If there is still no way to recover deleted YouTube videos, you may also turn to YouTube Help Center.

Also, if you received a “Video removed” massage, then it is YouTube that removed the videos. Just check the troubleshooting video takedowns page to resolve this issue.

How to recover deleted YouTube videos?

The content above answers the question - “Does YouTube delete old videos” and offers practicable methods to help you regain what you have lost.

But, apart from this issue, users will face other problems, from mild to intense. One of the most frequent is downloaded video loss.

Some users will download videos to enjoy offline while away from the network. Yet, some users may have accidentally deleted files from Windows PC, including their YouTube videos.

Then, how to get deleted videos back to their hard drives? Professional data recovery software for Windows – MyRecover, will be helpful. It is specially designed for Windows users, which can help you with its various features.

Retrieve lost or deleted data from healthy/formatted HDD, SSD, USB flash drive, SD card, etc. 
There are 200+ recoverable file formats, including 19 various kinds of movies in mp4/mpg/mov/avi/asf, etc. 
Delete files can retain their original filenames, locations, and formats when recovered. 
When scanning and recovering data, you could directly choose files to restore instead of waiting for the complete scanning result. 
Support for Windows 11/10/8/7 SP 1 & Server and NTFS/FAT32/exFAT/ReFS.
Download SoftwareWin 11/10/8/7/Server
Secure Download

Step 1. Install and run the software > hover the mouse over the partition to start data recovery > click Scan.

Step 2. Sort the video files using filters like Type, Size, Date modified, etc.

Step 3. Go to Deleted files or Recycle Bin > go to the original location where the videos were stored > select videos you want > click Recover x files.

With the help of this app, you can achieve SD card video recovery as well.

Epilogue

The question “Does YouTube delete old videos” is answered with details in this post. In addition, users can follow the methods gathered in this article to re-access their videos lost on YouTube.

When they need to recover deleted videos from hard drives, MyRecover will be a good option.