Video & streaming app
YouTube
Google’s video platform, for watching, uploading and live streaming.
YouTube is a video platform where anyone can watch, upload and live stream. It was founded in 2005 by three former PayPal employees and bought by Google in 2006, so it now uses your Google Account and saves your watch and search history there.
Watching is free with ads. YouTube Premium removes the ads and adds background play and offline downloads. What appears on your home page is based on that history, which is why most of our YouTube guides are about the controls for it: history, recommendations and who can see your playlists.
01Is YouTube free?
Watching YouTube is free with ads. YouTube Premium removes the ads and adds background play and downloads, and YouTube Music Premium covers music only. In the United States, YouTube TV is a separate live TV subscription. Some channels also sell paid memberships.
02How to start using YouTube
- 1
Open youtube.com or the YouTube app. You can watch without an account.
- 2
Sign in with a Google Account to subscribe to channels, save videos and keep a watch history.
- 3
Subscribe to channels you like, so their new videos appear under Subscriptions.
- 4
Save videos for later in a playlist, and keep it to yourself with how to make a YouTube playlist private.
- 5
If the home page fills with things you do not want, see how to reset your YouTube recommendations.
03Is YouTube safe?
Children
YouTube is for ages 13 and over in most countries. Younger children can use YouTube Kids, or a supervised account a parent sets up through Google Family Link.
Scam links
Comments, messages and some ads carry scam links such as fake giveaways. YouTube does not ask for your password in a comment or a message.
Your history
Watch and search history are saved in your Google Account. Pause or delete them at myactivity.google.com.
