The deleted YouTube video finder checks a video link against YouTube and the Internet Archive. Paste a link or an 11-character video ID, and the page says whether YouTube still has the video, made it private, or no longer has it, then shows the title and channel the archive saved, with links to its copies.
How to find a deleted YouTube video
- Copy the video’s link. For a video in a playlist or your Watch later list, open it from the list and copy the address your browser shows.
- Paste the link into the box above and select Find video.
- Read the verdict. For a private or missing video, the page then asks the Internet Archive for a saved copy of the watch page and a saved item, which takes a few seconds.
- Open the capture or the item to see what the archive kept.
The page reads watch links, youtu.be share links, Shorts, live streams, embed links, playlist entries, and the 11-character video ID on its own.
What the result means
- Still on YouTube. YouTube has the video and shares its title and channel, so the page skips the archive. Open it on YouTube, or watch it without the sidebar in the cookie-free YouTube watcher.
- On YouTube, details hidden. YouTube has the video but doesn’t give this page its title. Open it on YouTube to see it.
- Private on YouTube. A private video plays only for its uploader and the people they choose, and watching one takes their invitation. It doesn’t show in search, on the channel, or in public playlists.
- No longer on YouTube. YouTube has no public video at the link. Its uploader may have deleted it, which YouTube says is permanent, or the link may have a typo.
- YouTube didn’t answer. The page couldn’t reach YouTube, so it checks the archive anyway.
Say a soup recipe saved in your Cooking playlist stopped playing. Its result might read No longer on YouTube, with a capture of the watch page from May 2022 and an Internet Archive item titled One-pan lentil soup, from a channel called Weeknight Kitchen.
Why a saved video turns private
A link that played for years can turn private without anyone deleting it. On 23 July 2021, YouTube made unlisted videos uploaded before 1 January 2017 private, unless their uploaders opted out. Uploaders can also change a video to private at any time, and only they can make it public again, so ask them if you know who they are.
Where the saved title comes from
The finder makes two requests to the Internet Archive, a nonprofit library of the web. Its Wayback Machine availability API returns the most recent saved copy of the video’s watch page. Its metadata API returns the item saved under the name youtube- followed by the video ID, with the title, channel, and upload date it holds.
A capture saves the watch page as it looked that day. Whether the video itself plays there depends on what was saved with it. The calendar link under each result lists every capture of the watch page, and new captures take 3 to 10 hours to appear. A video nobody saved before it went has no copy.
When the archives have nothing
Search for the video’s ID in quotes on Google or DuckDuckGo, from the links under the result. Pages that linked to or embedded the video keep its ID in their addresses, so a search for it can turn up the title, and from there a copy uploaded under the same name.
No link at all? Search YouTube for the title you remember with the YouTube advanced search builder, which can limit the results to a range of upload dates, to find a copy someone uploaded again. To find a video you watched that is still on YouTube, load your Google Takeout export in the YouTube watch history search.
Keeping track of channels
When the archive names the channel, the YouTube RSS feed generator gives its feed, so a feed reader can tell you when it posts again. For the channels you follow, Retube, our free browser extension, groups your subscriptions into topic feeds inside YouTube, such as Cooking, Science, or Learning. Read how to organize YouTube subscriptions to set that up.