How to Make Your YouTube Video Private

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Last Updated: September 16, 2024

YouTube is a great service for sharing your videos with the world. However, it is also a great way of sharing videos with friends and family, for their eyes only. Start with step one to find out how to make your video private.

Steps

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You will find yourself on the home page, with a list of recommendations.
You will see all the people you subscribe to, and your library of playlists. Go to the top of the list, and just under "Home" click "My Channel".

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You will see your uploaded video. Just above your channel art and your profile picture (if you have any of those), you will see your number of subscribers and your number of views overall, and then next to that, the third option will be "Video Manager". Click "Video Manager"
On the sidebar, where it is now your Creator Studio, click the "Video Manger" button there just under "Dashboard" and you will see two options under "Video Manager" which is "Videos" and "Playlists". Make sure you are on "Videos".
Then look along the tab of the video, and on the right side you will see a blue globe icon which stands for "public". Click on it.
Click on "Public" and you will get a drop-down list of options, and the three options are "Public", "Unlisted" and "Private". Click "Private"
Congratulations, your video is now private!

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Question

How do some private videos give away the location of the uploader?

Community Answer

This would be applicable if the video shows the real world such as the park, school, neighborhood, or any other landmark or identifying place. Some people upload personal videos of their family and those videos can reveal private details like where their house is or what school they go to. The reason why these videos are private is because they don't want people finding where they live and/or they're shy and don't want strangers seeing them and possibly doing something harmful.

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Question

Why would someone change a video to unlisted instead of private?

Community Answer

They might not want everyone in the world to see it, but at the same time they want to keep the comment section open. (Changing a video to private always disables the comments.)

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Question

Would someone change a video to private because they can't decide what the title or description should be?

Community Answer

Yes.

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Warnings

This is how to change your video from public to private, so the video that you are going to make private must be already uploaded and public.

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