How to Make YouTube Playlist Private – A Simple Guide

Are you looking for a guide on how to make YouTube playlist private? Then this blog post is for you! In today’s world of social media, privacy is often difficult to maintain. Everything is online – from personal data like credit card information and addresses to information like work history and social media usage. This is problematic for some people, understandably so. There has been an increase in awareness regarding privacy, especially given the digital nature of daily lives.

One example of how privacy is impacted with social media is with YouTube, where one can like and add videos to playlists. Some of these playlists are public, and many people are not aware of this. Essentially, this means that anyone can find them, share them and watch them, while also liking or disliking them.

Privacy settings are important, so below is a guide on how to make YouTube playlist private.

How to Make a YouTube Playlist Private – Why Does it Matter?

Privacy matters, especially if you care about the public not having access to what you watch on YouTube. If your playlists are public, anyone will be able to stumble upon your playlist and follow up by commenting or disliking it. People tend to vent on the internet, which gives them a relatively anonymous opportunity to do so.

Hiding your playlist is simple and it will save you many headaches. Your ‘liked’ videos will be safe and hidden from everyone unless you want to share them. Not even you can share the playlist if it is set to private, except under special circumstances. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to make YouTube playlist private.

Creating a Playlist – The First Steps

There are a couple of ways to create a playlist depending on where you are on YouTube. Most of the time, people browse YouTube to watch videos, and the most obvious way of creating a playlist is by clicking on the button SAVE, below the video, next to SHARE on the left and three dots on the right. 

Picture tutorial on how to create a playlist.

Once you click SAVE, you will be greeted by a drop-down menu with your current playlists or a Create new playlist button. Clicking on the latter will extend the menu and give you the option to name your new playlist and to select its Privacy settings. These playlists are private by default. Two other possible options include unlisted and public playlists. This is a simple way of creating one and next up is how to make YouTube playlist private.

Picture tutorial on how to create a playlist on YouTube.
Picture tutorial on how to create a playlist.

YouTube Studio – Creating a Private Playlist

Making a playlist is possible through YouTube Studio, and it is a bit more of a nuanced process which takes you away from your browsing. The first step is to open YouTube Studio by clicking on your profile icon in the upper right corner and selecting YouTube Studio from the drop-down menu.

The second step is to select the button Playlists from the selection of buttons on the left. All of your playlists, along their video count and Privacy settings will be displayed. Under the profile icon in the top right corner one can find the New Playlist button. By clicking on it, a small window will appear, prompting you to enter the name of the Playlist, as well as to select its Visibility, which is the same as Privacy settings. A few options include Public, Private and Unlisted.

Picture tutorial on how to create a playlist on YouTube.
Picture tutorial on how to create a playlist on YouTube.
Picture tutorial on how to create a playlist.

How to Make YouTube Playlist Private – Multiple Options to Change Privacy Settings

Making a YouTube playlist is simple enough, but once you make it, settings can of course be changed. This is important because one might want to share their playlists with others or hide them and make them private.

There are multiple answers to the question on how to make YouTube playlist private. Keep reading for some additional use cases on how to make YouTube playlist private,

How to Make YouTube Playlist Private – From the Home Page

The YouTube home page displays your recommendations all across the page. The home page contains a very useful menu on the left as well. This menu includes anything from your Subscriptions, Trending, Liked videos, History, Your videos, to the playlists. You might need to extend the menu by pressing on the downward-facing arrow, to bring up all the playlists.

Picture tutorial on how to create a playlist.

From there, selecting a playlist will transfer you to its own page. You can then see the videos, as well as the name and description of the playlist, as well as its Privacy/Visibility settings. In addition, by clicking on the current setting, you can change it to any of the available three.

Picture tutorial on how to create a playlist.

How to Make YouTube Playlist Private – From YouTube Studio

YouTube Studio provides an editor-like approach to your content. You can access YouTube Studio by By opening it, again, by pressing on the eponymous button after opening the drop-down menu by clicking on your profile picture, you can select Playlists once the page loads.

Picture tutorial on how to create a playlist.

From there, you can see your existing playlists and their Privacy/Visibility. Additionally, hovering over their thumbnail will give you the option to Edit on YouTube. This will get you back to the same windows as if you opened the playlist from the home page. From there, repeat the process of clicking its current settings and changing them to (Private, presumably).

Picture tutorial on how to create a playlist.

Can You Hide Likes on a Playlist?

You can’t actually like a playlist, but you can share or save it if you end up finding one you enjoy. 

You can, however, disable likes and dislikes on specific videos, by going to YouTube Studio and editing the details of the video. There is also a button labeled Show how many viewers like or dislike this video. This, however, works with videos you share that are not private. Private videos will not display unless you share them.

Picture tutorial on how to create a playlist.
Picture tutorial on how to create a playlist.

How to Make YouTube Playlist Private – Summary and Conclusion

A YouTube playlist can be created in various ways, including immediately with the video you want to add, as well as by making a playlist through YouTube Studio. Additionally, you can edit existing playlists through the drop-down menu on the home page, located on the left, or through the Playlist option in YouTube Studio.

I hope that this guide on how to make YouTube playlist private helps you understand privacy settings a bit more to change them at your discretion. Click here to learn more about how to create a great YouTube live stream thumbnail. To learn more about YouTube options for beginners, click here.

Click here to learn more about how to create a great YouTube video intro. If you have additional questions on how to make a YouTube playlist private, check out this guide by Google.

The following two tabs change content below.

Morgan

Morgan is a recognized video marketing expert and content creator. She also runs a video production company and has a passion for teaching all things video.