If you don’t want to use your YouTube channel anymore, you can choose to permanently delete it. Here are step-by-step instructions on how to permanently deactivate your channel.
How to delete your YouTube channel
If you chose to permanently delete your YouTube account, you will lose your subscribers and all your content (videos, comments, playlists, messages, history). Follow these steps to delete your channel (which won’t delete your YouTube account!):
- Deleting your channel is only possible on desktop, so open YouTube Studio on your computer and log in.
- If you don’t have the URL to YouTube Studio, you can also simply log in to YouTube and open your channel. In the upper right corner, click on your small profile picture. Then select “YouTube Studio” from the dropdown menu.
- On the new page, there is a menu on the left side of the screen. At the bottom of that list, click “Settings”.
- In the pop-up window, click “Channel” and then “Advanced settings”.
- Scroll down. At the bottom, click “Remove YouTube Content”. Enter your sign-in details, if needed.
- Click “I want to permanently delete my content”, then check the boxes to confirm that you want to delete the channel.
- Click “Delete my content”.
- Your channel’s URL and name will no longer be visible or searchable. But it may take some time until everything is deleted (so you might still see thumbnails of your videos online, for a short period of time).
