Are my "unlisted" youtube videos irretrievably gone ?
December 24, 2013 12:18 PM Subscribe
In the transfer of Youtube to Google, my unlisted videos have vanished. Is there a way to get them back?
Not all of the youtube-Google account transfers went well, and mine was one of the unlucky ones. All my "unlisted" videos have vanished. I took it up with their tech support (after a major search to FIND google tech support, but they do have it for the youtube transfer, which tells me there were many problems with it.) After a lengthy interchange with them they finally concluded the videos are irretrievably gone. Luckily, most of the videos I had stored on the hard drive, or dvds, but not all.
Has anyone else encountered this problem. and do you have any suggestions? I have my old youtube information, user name, channel name, password, and the URLs of the missing videos, since they were family events and special occasions, and I had links to them on our Family Google Sites (also private).
Thanks so much to anyone who can offer help!
Not all of the youtube-Google account transfers went well, and mine was one of the unlucky ones. All my "unlisted" videos have vanished. I took it up with their tech support (after a major search to FIND google tech support, but they do have it for the youtube transfer, which tells me there were many problems with it.) After a lengthy interchange with them they finally concluded the videos are irretrievably gone. Luckily, most of the videos I had stored on the hard drive, or dvds, but not all.
Has anyone else encountered this problem. and do you have any suggestions? I have my old youtube information, user name, channel name, password, and the URLs of the missing videos, since they were family events and special occasions, and I had links to them on our Family Google Sites (also private).
Thanks so much to anyone who can offer help!
Best answer: More info needed, did they give you a reason for losing your videos? I'd be surprised about Google deleting anything irretrievably without an explicit request from you.
posted by themel at 1:41 PM on December 24, 2013
posted by themel at 1:41 PM on December 24, 2013
Response by poster: No, they just gave me an apology. Apparently there are a lot of problems with the youtube-google takeover. I was hoping we could find the vidoes "orphaned" somewhere in cyberspace.
posted by ragtimepiano at 1:42 PM on December 24, 2013
posted by ragtimepiano at 1:42 PM on December 24, 2013
Do you have the urls for any of your unlisted videos? What happens when you paste 'em in to your address bar? I'd be surprised if Youtube just scrubbed all those unlisted videos from the web. Private videos, maybe. But a lot of people post unlisted videos on their websites and so on, so they can share them with a selected audience.
Does your old Youtube account still exist? I'm still signing in with my old Youtube ID, and mostly ignoring Youtube's constant badgering for me to switch over to their new crap. When I sign in as ursulahitler (my new account) I lose all my favorites and playlists and everything, but when I sign in as msursulahitler (my old account) that stuff is still there. Maybe the switch you're talking about took out all of your old videos, but maybe if you can sign in with your old account, that stuff still exists.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:01 PM on December 24, 2013
Does your old Youtube account still exist? I'm still signing in with my old Youtube ID, and mostly ignoring Youtube's constant badgering for me to switch over to their new crap. When I sign in as ursulahitler (my new account) I lose all my favorites and playlists and everything, but when I sign in as msursulahitler (my old account) that stuff is still there. Maybe the switch you're talking about took out all of your old videos, but maybe if you can sign in with your old account, that stuff still exists.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:01 PM on December 24, 2013
Response by poster: Yes, I have a list of the video urls. I get the notice, "this video is not available." I gave the list to the google tech also. I no longer have the option to sign into my old account. Thanks anyhow, Ursula.
posted by ragtimepiano at 4:46 PM on December 26, 2013
posted by ragtimepiano at 4:46 PM on December 26, 2013
I found this tip from 2011:
It is possible to view deleted YouTube videos. When a video has been removed from YouTube, it is not immediately deleted from their servers. Just like our hard drive. It is only marked as deleted and is ready to be overwritten. So if it is not being overwritten, we can still view the videos but of course not from youtube.com. Viewing removed YouTube videos is too easy. Try loading a few random deleted videos and check them yourself. First of all, you need to know the Video ID which is at the end of the YouTube link. An example of a YouTube video link is http://www.youtube.com/wat ch?v=UzeV1 Ux5YlI The video ID for the link above is UzeV1 Ux5YlI Just copy and paste it in the ID text box and click view videos.
Here are a few sites that is able to play deleted YouTube videos.
http://www.tubemall.net/unde letube.php
http://youtube.infamousx.com
http://www.deletedyoutube.ftvteen.com !Enjoy!!!!!
posted by Ursula Hitler at 7:55 PM on December 26, 2013
It is possible to view deleted YouTube videos. When a video has been removed from YouTube, it is not immediately deleted from their servers. Just like our hard drive. It is only marked as deleted and is ready to be overwritten. So if it is not being overwritten, we can still view the videos but of course not from youtube.com. Viewing removed YouTube videos is too easy. Try loading a few random deleted videos and check them yourself. First of all, you need to know the Video ID which is at the end of the YouTube link. An example of a YouTube video link is http://www.youtube.com/wat ch?v=UzeV1 Ux5YlI The video ID for the link above is UzeV1 Ux5YlI Just copy and paste it in the ID text box and click view videos.
Here are a few sites that is able to play deleted YouTube videos.
http://www.tubemall.net/unde letube.php
http://youtube.infamousx.com
http://www.deletedyoutube.ftvteen.com !Enjoy!!!!!
posted by Ursula Hitler at 7:55 PM on December 26, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
That's a genuine bummer, and I'm sorry you're in this situation, but it sounds like you already have the answer to this question from the mouth of the proverbial horse.
posted by ook at 12:35 PM on December 24, 2013 [1 favorite]