Watch Later Tidy

Bulk delete, filter, sort, and reorder your YouTube Watch Later and playlists. Escape the 5000-video limit. Runs in your browser.

Watch Later Tidy is a Chrome extension for YouTube that searches and manages your Watch Later, your Liked videos, and the playlists you created. Search thousands of saved videos by title, channel or the uploader's own tags, bulk delete, remove likes in bulk, filter by channel or topic, group the grid by channel, sort by duration, views or upload date, reorder, sync every playlist at once, download transcripts in bulk, and escape the 5,000-video limit. Everything in the feature list below is free; an optional paid tier, TidyWL Pro, adds clean-up rules, undo and a watch-list builder on top of it. Your playlist is fetched with your own YouTube session and cached on your device — the extension reports back only a random install ID and usage counts, never which videos, plus your licence key if you buy Pro. No account, no sign-in. 📋 Your YouTube Watch Later playlist is a graveyard. Videos saved months or years ago. Channels you forgot you followed. A queue so long you stopped trusting it. 🔍 You know you saved that video. You just can't find it again. Scrolling is the only tool you have — thousands of thumbnails, loading a screen at a time, hunting for one title you half-remember. Give up often enough and the list stops being worth keeping. Then one day you hit the 5,000-video limit. YouTube freezes you out — nothing new until you dig through the pile and start deleting. One. Video. At. A. Time. Your Liked videos list is worse — years long, no limit, and no way through it at all. The playlists you made yourself get exactly the tools YouTube gives Watch Later: none. Watch Later Tidy fixes all of it. Open a dashboard over your YouTube page, type a few letters to find any video instantly, see your whole playlist broken down by channel or topic (like a storage manager for your queue), filter, sort, reorder and bulk-delete. Minutes instead of hours. 🚀 HOW IT WORKS 1. Install the extension. 2. Go to youtube.com/playlist?list=WL (your Watch Later page) — or your Liked videos, or any playlist you own. 3. Click the Watch Later Tidy icon in Chrome's toolbar (pin it from the puzzle-piece menu if you don't see it). 4. Click "Open Dashboard". 5. Hit Sync and wait for the progress counter to finish. 6. Search by title, channel or tag to find one video, or browse by channel or topic, filter, sort, select, bulk-delete, reorder, or export. 7. Switch between Watch Later, Liked videos and your own playlists from the header at any time — each keeps its own cache. Tick several and you see them merged. No account. No sign-in. No setup. No permissions beyond your current YouTube session. ✨ NEW IN v2.0.0 💎 TidyWL Pro: an optional paid tier alongside the free extension. Nothing that was free has moved behind it — Pro adds new things on top. The plan you're on is shown in the dashboard header; click it to see what Pro adds, enter a key, or manage your subscription. Details and pricing: https://tidywl.com/pro/ 🕒 Lineup (Pro): say how much time you have and it builds a ranked watch list from your own saved videos, with one line under each pick saying why. Four ways in: Based on recent watches, Resume, Subscribed channels and Backlog. Reorder it, swap picks, then play it on YouTube or save it as a private playlist. It reads your watch history and subscriptions on your own device and sends none of it anywhere. 🧹 Clean-up rules (Pro): remove dead (private or deleted) entries, archive videos you've watched past 95% into a private "TidyWL Archive" playlist, or move the oldest slice of your playlist (10% by default) into that archive every 30 days. Every rule shows the exact list and asks before it runs. 📌 Pin (Pro): mark a video "keep forever" and nothing removes it — not a rule, not a bulk or single delete, not an unlike. A Move becomes a Copy. 👁️ Operations preview (Pro): before a bulk delete or unlike, see the exact videos it will touch and untick any of them. ↩️ Undo (Pro): every video you delete is remembered on that device for 90 days, up to 10,000 records by default. You can raise that to 50,000, 250,000 or no limit, and each choice says what it costs in storage and speed. Restore one video or a whole batch from Delete history, with progress and a Stop button. 🔖 Saved views (Pro): name a filter combination — "unwatched lectures over 20 minutes" — and get back to it in one click. 🔎 Sidebar search (Pro): a search box above the By Channel and By Topic lists narrows the rows as you type. 🗂️ Group by channel: three new sorts draw a heading before each channel — most videos first, fewest first, or channel name A–Z — and let you fold a channel shut. They replace the old Channel A–Z sort. 🗑️ Delete from a merged view: with several playlists ticked, Delete removes the video from all of them at once. ❓ Help: the question-mark button in the dashboard header opens the tutorials. 🐛 Fixed: clicking a channel in the sidebar could also show videos from channels with a similar name. 🗑️ Removed: the # Load tags button. Sync already fetches tags for every video that's missing them. 💎 WHAT TIDYWL PRO ADDS Pro is an optional subscription, available from https://tidywl.com/pro/. 🧹 Three clean-up rules — remove dead entries, archive finished videos, and a monthly rule that holds your list at a size. 📌 Pin a video and nothing removes it, rules included. 👁️ See and deselect the exact list before any bulk delete or unlike. ↩️ Undo deletions, with 90 days of history on the device that made them — 10,000 records by default, and you can raise the limit. 🔖 Saved views — name a filter set, reapply it in one click. 🔎 Search the sidebar's channel and topic lists as you type. 🕒 Lineup — a ranked watch list from your own saves, fitted to the time you have. 💬 Feature requests and support answered first. One key works on up to three devices — the About panel shows which devices are using it and lets you free one up. There is no free trial: the free tier is how you try Watch Later Tidy, and any Pro charge can be refunded in full within 14 days. Cancel any time from the same panel; it opens your own billing portal. Current pricing, the refund policy and the terms: https://tidywl.com/pro/ 🛠️ FULL FEATURE LIST (free) 🔍 Search your whole playlist by title, channel or tag, as you type. Works across thousands of videos without scrolling. 🏷️ The uploader's own tags on every card, clickable as filters — stack several to narrow, hover +N for the rest. 🗑️ Bulk delete selected videos with live progress and a stop button. ❤️ Watch Later, Liked videos and every playlist you own in one dashboard — pick one, or tick several and see them merged: one card per video, a chip for each playlist it's in, and Copy, Move and Delete across them. 🔄 Sync every ticked playlist in one run, or one at a time. 🗑️ Delete a playlist you own, by name, from the menu. 💔 Remove likes in bulk, through the same flow as deletion. 📊 A sidebar with channel breakdown bars, sorted by count, that collapses out of the way. 🏷️ By Topic view: local keyword clustering, no API calls. Filter to a topic, or hide ones you don't want to see. 🎚️ Filter by watched status (with an adjustable progress threshold), availability, or duration (presets or a custom min/max). 🔃 Sort by playlist order, duration, published date, views or title A–Z, or group the grid by channel with a heading you can fold for each one. 📝 Download transcripts for one video or hundreds, as timestamped text files named after the video. 📓 Send selected videos to Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) as sources. 📁 Move or copy videos to another playlist. Create new playlists inline (Private / Unlisted / Public). ↕️ Reorder via Move to Top, Move to Bottom, or drag-and-drop (single or multi-select). 🔖 Per-video 3-dot menu: Move to Top, Move to Bottom, Open in new tab, Copy URL, Download transcript, Remove. 💾 Export to JSON or CSV (UTF-8 BOM, handles non-Latin titles correctly). 👤 Multi-account aware: auto-detects your logged-in Google account. Brand channels supported. ⌨️ Keyboard shortcuts: Cmd/Ctrl+A (select all), Delete/Backspace (delete selected), Esc (close or deselect). 🌗 Light and dark theme following your browser's setting. WCAG-AA contrast in dark mode. ♿ Accessibility: keyboard navigation on dropdowns and menus, ARIA labels, prefers-reduced-motion respected. ❓ FAQ Does it need a YouTube API key or OAuth login? No. It uses the same internal endpoints your browser already calls. No API key, no OAuth, no account setup. Pro is unlocked by a licence key you paste in, not by signing in. Do I have to pay for anything? No. Every feature in the list above is free. Pro is an optional subscription that adds clean-up rules, Pin, operations preview, undo, saved views, sidebar search and the Lineup on top of it. Nothing that was free before v2.0.0 has moved behind the paywall. What happens if my Pro subscription ends? The paid features stop and the free extension carries on exactly as before. Your playlists, caches, saved views and delete history stay on your device and are not deleted, but saved views and the delete history can't be opened again until you resubscribe. Pinned videos stay protected, and you can still unpin them. If your browser can't reach our server for a while, Pro keeps working for 14 days before it drops back to free. Is my data sent anywhere? Your playlist is fetched from YouTube with your own session and cached on your device. It is not uploaded to us and we do not hold a copy of it. Everything that does leave your browser is listed under Privacy below. Does it work on my own playlists? Yes, as of v1.6.0. Open the Playlists menu in the dashboard header and click any playlist you created, or tick several to see them merged. Favorites and playlists you saved but don't own can be searched and cleaned up, but not reordered. How do I find a specific video in my Watch Later? Open the dashboard, hit Sync once, then click the magnifier in the toolbar and type. It matches the title, the channel name and the uploader's tags as you type, across your entire playlist, so you can find a video by what it's about, not just what it's called. If you don't remember which playlist it's in, tick every playlist and search them all at once. Why can I only add 5,000 videos to Watch Later? YouTube caps every playlist, including Watch Later, at 5,000 items. Past that, adding more fails silently and the only fix is deleting older ones — which this extension makes possible without losing your afternoon. How do I bulk-delete videos from YouTube Watch Later? Install the extension, go to your Watch Later page, click "Open Dashboard", hit Sync, then select videos — individually, by channel, by topic, by tag, by filter, or with Cmd/Ctrl+A — and press Delete. YouTube's API deletes sequentially, so large batches take a few seconds. Can I undo a deletion? On the free tier, no — deletions are permanent on YouTube's side, so export first if you want a snapshot. Pro remembers what you deleted for 90 days on the device that deleted it, up to 10,000 records by default, and can put it back, at the top of the playlist. It cannot undo a removed like: YouTube treats that as un-liking, not as a playlist edit. Does it sync across devices? No. The cached playlist lives in your browser's local storage. A Pro licence does roam — it is stored in Chrome's synced settings — but your playlists, saved views and delete history do not. 🔒 PRIVACY Your playlist stays on your device. No login, no account, no servers holding your videos. There is no analytics SDK, no advertising, and nothing is sold or shared. What does go to tidywl.com: - A request for a public config file, with no identifiers and no payload, so the extension survives YouTube changing its page layout. - Since v1.6.0, a random install identifier (not linked to you or your Google account) and your lifetime counts — videos deleted, likes removed, videos moved, bulk operations run, Lineups built and saved, days you opened the dashboard, the size of your Watch Later, and your browser — sent whenever one of them changes. Never a title, a video ID, a channel or a timestamp. There is no setting to turn this off on Chrome; uninstalling stops it. Records not updated for 12 months are deleted. Counts include deletions made before v1.6.0. Policy: https://tidywl.com/privacy/ - Since v2.0.0, and only if you buy Pro: your licence key (or the Transaction ID from your receipt, to recover a lost key) and the device name you type when you activate it, so we can check the key is valid and show you which devices are using it. Nothing about your playlists or your Google account goes with it. Payment is handled by Paddle, our merchant of record, in their checkout on the tidywl.com pricing page — the extension never sees your card details, and we never receive them. The Lineup reads your YouTube watch history and your subscriptions to rank your saved videos. That reading happens on your device with your own YouTube session, and none of it is sent to us or to anyone else. "Send to Gemini Notebook" is the one flow that sends video links somewhere else: to Google's Gemini Notebook, using your own Google session, when you press it. Two optional permissions are requested only at the moment you first use the feature that needs them, never at install: - Gemini Notebook access, so the videos you pick can be added as sources. - Saving downloads, so transcripts can be written to your Downloads folder. Decline either one and the rest of the extension carries on working normally. ⚠️ HONEST LIMITATIONS - Requires being signed in to YouTube in this browser. - The free tier has no undo: deletions and removed likes are permanent. Pro's undo covers deletions only, for 90 days, and only on the device that made them — it is not a cloud backup and it cannot restore a removed like. It keeps 10,000 records unless you raise the limit; past the limit, the oldest drop off. - Removing a like is not a playlist edit — YouTube treats it as un-liking, which can affect your recommendations. - Reorder is hidden on Liked videos — YouTube orders that list by when you liked things. Move works there: it adds the video to your chosen playlist and removes your like. - Favorites and playlists you don't own can be cleaned up but not reordered — YouTube serves them without the per-item handle reordering needs. - A merged view of several playlists can't be reordered, and deleting there removes the video from every ticked playlist — untick to one playlist to delete from just that one. - Deleting a playlist is permanent. The videos stay on YouTube; the playlist does not. - Usage counts go to tidywl.com, with no switch in the extension to stop it on Chrome (see Privacy). - Pro's monthly clean-up rule only runs when your YouTube playlist is sorted by date added. If it isn't, the rule says so and does nothing rather than guessing. - The Lineup needs YouTube to be recording your watch history to rank by taste. With history paused it picks by length and age only. - Restoring a deleted video, or one from the archive, puts it at the top of the playlist. YouTube offers no way to put it back where it was. - Transcript download opens a small visible window and works through videos one at a time, around three seconds each, in whichever language YouTube shows by default. - "Playlist order" sort reflects current position, not the date you added the video. YouTube doesn't expose added-date on web. - Uses YouTube's internal, undocumented API. It could break if YouTube changes their internals; a remote config lets many breakages be patched without an extension update. 💬 COMMUNITY Join the Discord to report bugs, request features, or just say hi: https://discord.gg/natc623GhX Built by an indie developer who hit the 5,000-video limit and had enough. Independent and not affiliated with YouTube or Google. YouTube is a trademark of Google LLC. 🚀