Introduction to YouTube Incognito Mode

What is YouTube incognito mode?

YouTube incognito mode is a setting that allows users to watch YouTube content without having their viewing history recorded to their YouTube account. This means you won't receive any viewing recommendations or notifications based on any watch or search activity conducted while incognito.

YouTube incognito mode provides a certain degree of privacy, but it has limitations. Searching or watching YouTube content incognito only means that YouTube won't record the information on your account. YouTube will still see your activity, it just won't use it for personalized recommendations. Additionally, your Internet Service Provider, workplace, school, or whoever runs the network connection you use will also be able to see your online activity.

(FYI, we've written an article about how to become your own ISP which you might find useful.)

Bear in mind that when in incognito mode on YouTube, you can't comment, like, or interact with the content as you normally would if you were signed in. All you can do is search and watch.

So, why use YouTube incognito mode?

YouTube's recommendation feature can be useful but it can also be a bit of a pain. Not everything you watch on YouTube is going to be to your taste or on a topic you're overly interested in. But once you've clicked, that irrelevant video becomes a part of your YouTube watch history. YouTube's complex algorithms immediately get to work in the background to show you more of the same type of content.

To purge such personalized recommendations from your YouTube experience, you'll have to take the time to click “Not interested” or “Don't recommend channel” on every single recommended video.

(Image source: screenshot)

Alternatively, you could go through your entire search and watch history and clear them of the content you don't want to be used for recommendations. But let's face it, no one has time for that.

Using YouTube incognito mode allows you to search for and watch videos without adding them to your personalized YouTube experience.

How to enable YouTube incognito mode

Opening a window in YouTube incognito mode is straightforward. You can easily enable it while browsing YouTube on the desktop or on the YouTube app on Android or iOS (via Google). We'll talk you through how to enable YouTube incognito mode on a PC and on a mobile device.

Enabling YouTube incognito on Android or iOS

When you open the YouTube app on your mobile device, click on your profile picture in the top right-hand corner. It will open the settings and the second option, you'll see “ Turn on incognito”. You'll only see this option if you are already signed in to your YouTube account. (If you're not, then anything you search for won't be added to your account viewing anyways.)

When you click to turn on YouTube incognito mode, you'll get a confirmation box. It also informs you that when you disable incognito mode or if you become inactive, your activity from the session will be cleared and you'll be returned to the account last used.

To continue in YouTube incognito mode, just click on the prompt “Got It”.

Now, as you browse YouTube, you'll see a little black banner across the bottom of the screen that says “You're incognito”. Your profile pic in the corner will also be changed to the incognito icon, an image with a hat and glasses.

Enabling YouTube incognito on a PC

Enabling YouTube incognito mode on a desktop is a little different. It's not actually labeled as “incognito” so if you're looking around in the YouTube settings for the term then you're going to have a bad time. That said, the process isn't hard at all once you know what to look for.

Instead of looking for YouTube incognito mode, you want to find “Pause watch history”.

To do that, go to the menu on the left-hand side of YouTube and click on History.

This opens another menu on the right.

Here you can choose to “Clear all search history” or “Pause watch history”. Clearing the search history will remove all your watched content details from all of your devices and your video recommendations will be entirely reset.

This means it will begin recording your watch history anew.

To stop it, you need to select “Pause watch history”.

After selecting this option any videos you watch or search for will not be saved in your YouTube history and will not be used by YouTube's algorithms for recommendations.

This will stay in place until you unpause it.

How to disable YouTube incognito mode

Personalization is a huge part of what makes YouTube an attractive app. YouTube's algorithms can recommend things that you end up loving but might never have thought of or stumbled upon on your own accord.

Watching YouTube in incognito mode does mean you miss out on that personalization. So, if discovering new content is important to you or makes your viewing life easier, then you'll want to also learn how to disable YouTube incognito mode.

How to disable incognito mode on YouTube on a PC

As we mentioned, desktop YouTube incognito is under the guise of pausing your watch history. All you have to do is follow the same directions detailed above and un-pause your watch history. From that moment on, anything you search for or watch will now be recorded to your watching experience and YouTube will begin its recommendations once again.

How to disable incognito mode on YouTube on Android and iOS

If you've turned on YouTube incognito mode but have been inactive for 90 minutes, then the app will automatically disable incognito mode. When you open up the app again, you will see a pop-up letting you know that you are logged into your Google account. This means incognito has been disabled and your search and watch history will be back to being tracked by YouTube.

Of course, you don't have to wait for 90 minutes, you can disable incognito mode manually on YouTube easily.

Your profile pic that changed to the incognito icon, click on it.

You'll be presented with the option to turn off incognito. Select that and you will automatically be signed back into the last account used. It's that simple.

Remember...

YouTube incognito mode only keeps the site from saving your YouTube activity and stops anyone who might use your device after you from seeing what you were doing. But that's it. Just like incognito browsers, YouTube's incognito mode gives a small degree of privacy, but it doesn't make you anonymous or keep you “safe” on the internet.

YouTube is owned by Google, one of the most data-hungry big tech companies out there. If you truly want to keep your data private then the only way to do that is to delete your YouTube account. Want to know how? Read: So You Want to Know How to Delete YouTube.