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You’re jamming out to YouTube Music, whether a curated playlist or one of your own, and suddenly, an artist or track pops up that you’re not fond of. Maybe it’s a different genre or maybe the theme kills your mood, but whatever the case, it’s a pretty common occurrence. It actually happens most often if you’ve left the autoplay feature enabled. When a playlist or album finishes, that allows YouTube’s algorithm to play something it recommends, which may or may not jive with your tastes. It’s the one setting that could be single-handedly ruining your playlists. Other times, the background algorithm gets messed up after referencing your general history, including across standard YouTube and possibly other, similar users’ tastes, or even others in your household using the same YouTube account or the same devices. There’s actually a pretty simple fix for all of this, though it comes with a caveat.
The solution is to create a separate profile for use with YouTube Music specifically, and only use that profile to listen to music. More specifically, listen to artists, tracks, and content you love, and try to avoid branching out or exploring unless it’s something you know for sure you’ll like. Use your regular YouTube account for everything else, from videos to looking up new music.
The drawback to this fix is that you need YouTube Premium or a Family Plan for this to work effectively. YouTube Premium allows you to configure separate profiles and switch between them, which makes it a perfect option for this kind of thing. However, that does mean you’ll need to budget more than the $12 per month for an individual account, instead spending $19 per month for a family account — with up to five other household users, or six total.
Why does a separate user profile work?
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A separate user profile via YouTube Premium offerings is basically like having another account, owned and managed by someone else. With an active Family Plan, you get up to five additional premium profiles, not including yours. That means you can make a separate profile, tied to your music history and your preferences, that’s not synced with your main account or synced with any others in your household, provided you’re switching profiles properly each time you use the service. The premium access and benefits are shared, but not the history.
That allows you to preserve your music preferences as-is, meaning every time you tune in to listen, you’re getting an unfettered and clean history tied to your specific interests. That should keep the algorithm from derailing and recommending completely unrelated content. And here’s the thing: When it’s not being influenced by incorrect trends and patterns, many users agree YouTube Music does one thing better than other streaming services, which is recommending accurate, relevant tunes through its algorithm. So, when it works, it works great. Besides, when you look at the benefits and cost, YouTube Music might have the best family plan overall, with a ton of features and the option to save more money if several people in your household are using the service, as well.
What if you don’t want to pay for Premium?
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If you don’t want to pay for Premium or a more expensive Family Plan, then you can’t use profile or channel switching to change accounts and separate your history. What you can do, however, is regularly clear your YouTube video and content history, as well as your YouTube Music history. Keep in mind, though, that every time you do this, it’s resetting your algorithm, meaning it will no longer be tied to previous sessions and will basically be like starting with a brand new account. That should, however, allow you to listen to precisely the playlists, tracks, and artists you want with minimal unrelated recommendations.
To do this from within the YouTube Music app for individual tracks, tap your profile in the top right and select History. Next, tap the menu button, select the three vertical dots next to the track, then choose Remove from history to remove single tracks.
If you want to clear your entire history, head to Settings, select Privacy & Location, then choose Manage watch history. From the dropdown menu next to Delete. select the desired time range, choose either Delete all time for everything, or Delete today for most recent, and then confirm. You can also delete your standard YouTube video watch history using a similar method through the mobile app or web interface.
