How to delete your YouTube channel

By Otabek Mamadaliev · Sources last reviewed 22 August 2026 · What this means

Do not delete the Google account when you only want YouTube gone. Your Google account carries Gmail, Drive, Photos, Play purchases and every "Sign in with Google" login you have ever used. Deleting it is one of the most destructive actions available to a normal internet user. YouTube can be removed on its own.

Delete only your YouTube channel

Google is explicit that this route leaves the rest of your account alone: these steps delete the YouTube channel, not the Google Account you sign in with.

1. Sign in to YouTube Studio.
2. Select Settings in the left sidebar.
3. Choose Channel, then Advanced settings.
4. At the bottom, select Remove YouTube content.
5. Choose I want to permanently delete my content.
6. Tick the confirmation boxes, then select Delete my content.

Gmail, Drive, Photos and everything else on the account keep working.

Alternative route: Google’s delete-a-service page removes YouTube from the account as a whole. Either works; the Studio path is the one Google documents.

Delete, cancel or deactivate — the words people use

YouTube offers two actions, and neither is called cancelling or deactivating. You can hide the channel, which is reversible, or permanently delete its content. Searches for how to cancel, close, deactivate or remove a YouTube account all land on one of those two.

If you are trying to stop a YouTube Premium subscription rather than remove the channel, that is a separate cancellation in your Google payments settings and does not touch the channel at all.

Hide the channel instead

Hiding makes your channel name, videos, likes, subscriptions and subscribers private while keeping the channel recoverable. Deletion of a channel with years of uploads is not reversible, so hide first if there is any doubt.

It sits on the same Remove YouTube content screen. One caveat Google notes: if you hide the channel and later bring it back, view counts can be inaccurate and may take up to a week to settle.

Step 0: Request Your YouTube Data Archive

Use Google Takeout and select YouTube. Exports of large channels can take a long time and arrive as multi-part archives, so start it well before you plan to delete. Check the files actually open before you proceed.

What Happens to Videos, Paid Memberships, and Balances?

• All uploaded videos, including unlisted and private ones.
• Every comment you have left anywhere on YouTube, and your messages.
• Playlists, subscriptions and watch history.
• Channel memberships and monetisation: withdraw any pending AdSense balance first.

Videos other people have downloaded or re-uploaded stay online. Deletion removes your copy, not every copy.

Multiple channels on one account complicate this

A Google account can carry a personal channel plus any number of Brand Account channels, and the deletion screen only ever acts on the channel you are currently signed in as. That is easy to get wrong in both directions.

• Check the account switcher before you start. The avatar in the top-right tells you which channel you are about to delete. People delete the wrong one.
• Deleting one channel leaves the others alone, which is usually what you want — a dormant channel from 2013 can go without touching the one you actually use.
• A Brand Account channel can be transferred instead of deleted. If someone else should inherit it, add them as an owner and step back, rather than destroying it.

This is also the answer for people whose real problem is an embarrassing old channel attached to their main Google account. Delete that channel specifically; nothing else on the account is affected.

If you have ever monetised, do this before anything

Monetisation is the one part of a YouTube deletion with money attached, and it does not wait for you.

1. Check your AdSense balance. Earnings below the payout threshold are the ones at risk — a channel that made a small amount over years may be sitting under the minimum, and deleting the channel severs the link that would ever have paid it out.
2. Download your revenue reports from YouTube Studio's Analytics. You will need them at tax time and they go with the channel.
3. Do not delete the AdSense account itself unless you mean to. It is separate from YouTube and may be attached to other things.
4. End channel memberships deliberately. People paying you monthly should be told before their perks vanish, not after.

Hide versus delete, decided properly

Hiding is genuinely reversible and delete genuinely is not, so the only question worth asking is whether you might ever want the channel back.

For most people the honest answer is that they want to stop being findable rather than to destroy an archive — and hiding does that completely. Your name, videos, likes, subscriptions and subscriber count all go private. Nobody can find you, comment at you, or see what you watched.

The case for deleting is narrow. It comes down to wanting the videos themselves off Google's servers, which hiding does not do. That is a legitimate reason. It is just a different one from wanting to disappear, and it is the only one worth the permanence.