It can be frustrating when you open your YouTube playlist, only to find one or more of your carefully saved videos have been removed from the platform. Now you have no idea which videos were deleted or if it’s even possible to recover them. Fortunately, there are multiple ways to figure out which videos were erased from your playlist and subsequently find them from other sources. In this article, you will learn how to identify and possibly recover videos deleted from your YouTube playlist. Here we go.
Why Was the Video Deleted from My YouTube Playlist?
There can be multiple reasons one or more videos are missing from your playlist on YouTube. Here is a list of the most common causes you’re no longer seeing videos on your playlist:
The Uploader Made the Video Private
Every uploader can make their videos private on YouTube so only they and the people they invite can see them. Some YouTube channels often make a portion of their old videos private to prevent others from watching them. This is a great way to hide the videos from the public without losing the related stats and data such as comments. Unfortunately, the viewers who saved the video on their playlists can no longer access it unless the uploader specifically invites them.
The Video, or the Channel That Uploaded It, is Removed
Sometimes, an uploader just deletes a video once it becomes obsolete, or it’s no longer important for their channel. In this case, the video will also disappear from your playlist. On the other hand, if a YouTube user deletes the channel containing the video or the channel gets terminated because of policy violation, the video will be gone from all YouTube playlists as well.
Copyright Claims and Inappropriate Content
If a video has content that violates the copyright policy of YouTube, the owner of the intellectual properties can file a complaint. If any YouTube video receives many copyright claims, the video-sharing service can and will remove the video from its platform. In this case, even if you saved the video in your playlist, you will still get the “[Deleted video]” notice, and can no longer access it on YouTube. Moreover, If a video contains illegal or improper content that violates the “Terms of Service” of the website, YouTube holds the right to remove the video upon discovery.
2 Options to Recover Videos Erased from a YouTube Playlist
Now you know about the grounds on which videos get erased from a playlist on YouTube. Whether it’s because of the deletion of a YouTube channel or a copyright claim, once the deed is done, you can no longer find the video on the platform. Does that mean there is no way to identify or retrieve the video anymore? Of course not. In the following section, we will show you two ways to identify and possibly recover the deleted videos from a YouTube playlist.
Restoring a Video Deleted from a Playlist on YouTube Using Archive.org
Archive.org is a website on a mission to preserve as much content on the internet as possible. It takes snapshots of different websites and subsequent pages as well as records their relevant data, so you can see how they have evolved. Even though it’s practically impossible for this website to make an archive of every YouTube page, the probability of its saving the deleted video page you’re looking for is still high.
Steps for Discovering a Lost YouTube Video through Wayback Machine
Follow the steps below to use Archive.org to discover, and perhaps recover videos deleted from a YouTube playlist:
- First, open the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine page in your browser.
- Next, type the URL of the YouTube video from the playlist you want to rescue. However, you need to make sure that you remove the extra strip of info starting from “&” out of the URL.
For example, let’s say the URL of the video in your YouTube playlist is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlDRNtlVKlQ&list=WL&index=102. However, the URL you need to type in the search bar of “Internet Archive Wayback Machine” should be this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlDRNtlVKlQ. Now, click on the “Browse History” button to start scouring the archive for the video in the URL.
If there are one or more archives saved for this YouTube page, it will show you the dates they were saved. Moreover, if there are two snapshots for the same day, you’ll see the exact time. You can click on the dates to see what the page looked like, including its relevant information. Since Archive.org won’t save the actual video file, you need to use the details you get from the Wayback Machine to look for the video elsewhere.
Note: This method works best if the video stayed on YouTube for a few days after its upload date. If the video was taken down or manually wiped a few hours after uploading, you may not find the video page details this way.
Find the Removed YouTube Videos via Google Search
You can also locate videos from the playlist on YouTube that were deleted using a simple Google search. All you have to do is take a particular portion of the deleted video’s URL and enter it into the search bar. Here’s how:
- Open your YouTube playlist and click on the deleted video to get the link. The link, for example, would look similar to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VrsIEYZHys&list=WL&index=41
- Next, copy the “unique video identifier ID” that is located between “v=” and “&list” of the deleted video’s URL. For our example above, the “unique video identifier ID” would be this: _VrsIEYZHys
- Now, paste the “unique video identifier ID” in the “Search Bar” of Google. After that, perform a search and wait for the results.
- In the search results, you will find the title and other details of the video. Also, if the owner of the video or someone else uploaded the video to some other website or social media, you can also figure that out from the search results and the video details.
Please remember that you might not be lucky enough to get the full video even after you use this method. Nonetheless, this procedure is highly likely to succeed.
