YouTube has unveiled a modification to its homepage functionality for users who have disabled their watch history. The alteration, which comes into effect immediately, involves a revamp of the video-sharing platform’s home feed presentation for individuals without a significant history of prior views. This change will offer a more simplified browsing experience, showcasing only the search bar and guide menu.
In a recent blog post, YouTube elucidated the adjustments: “Starting today, if you have YouTube watch history off and have no significant prior watch history, features that require watch history to provide video recommendations will be disabled — like your YouTube home feed.” Consequently, users in this category will notice a transformation in their home feed interface. It will display solely the search bar and the left-hand guide menu, omitting the usual assortment of suggested videos. This alteration is designed to facilitate more convenient actions such as searching, perusing subscribed channels, and exploring Topic tabs.
This alteration will be rolled out progressively over the coming months, with YouTube aiming to elucidate which features of its platform rely on watch history for video recommendations. The company stated that this update aims to streamline the experience for those who prefer search functionality over browsing recommendations.
YouTube users should anticipate these changes to manifest gradually, and once they are introduced to their accounts, they will retain the ability to switch views by adjusting their watch history settings. This modification can be executed through a dedicated section located on the My Google Activity settings page.
