How to Make Your YouTube Video Private

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Last Updated: September 16, 2024

YouTube is a great service for sharing your videos with the world. However, it is also a great way of sharing videos with friends and family, for their eyes only. Start with step one to find out how to make your video private.

Steps

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You will find yourself on the home page, with a list of recommendations.
You will see all the people you subscribe to, and your library of playlists. Go to the top of the list, and just under "Home" click "My Channel".

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You will see your uploaded video. Just above your channel art and your profile picture (if you have any of those), you will see your number of subscribers and your number of views overall, and then next to that, the third option will be "Video Manager". Click "Video Manager"
On the sidebar, where it is now your Creator Studio, click the "Video Manger" button there just under "Dashboard" and you will see two options under "Video Manager" which is "Videos" and "Playlists". Make sure you are on "Videos".
Then look along the tab of the video, and on the right side you will see a blue globe icon which stands for "public". Click on it.
Click on "Public" and you will get a drop-down list of options, and the three options are "Public", "Unlisted" and "Private". Click "Private"
Congratulations, your video is now private!

Community Q&A

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Question

How do you set up certain emails that can view the video?

Community Answer

You can do this in your channel's dashboard for an existing video or right when uploading a new video. When you click "Share Privately" you just type the email addresses of the people who you want to see the video.

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Question

How do I grant access to people to view my private YouTube video?

Community Answer

To allow others to view your private YouTube video, go to your channel's dashboard and select "Videos" from the sidebar. Change the video's visibility to "private" and enter their email addresses in the provided box. They will receive a notification with a link to the video.

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Question

Can I add comments to a private YouTube video?

Community Answer

No, private videos do not have a comment section, and there is no setting to enable it. If you want to allow comments on a video that is not publicly available, you should change the video settings to "unlisted."

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Warnings

This is how to change your video from public to private, so the video that you are going to make private must be already uploaded and public.

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