How to download your YouTube watch history with Google Takeout

YouTube doesn't have an "Export my watch history" button. To get your watch history as a downloadable file, you have to go through Google Takeout — the same export tool Google uses for GDPR data requests.

This guide walks through the whole flow, including the one setting that makes the difference between a 5-minute export and an hours-long one.

The 30-second version

1. Go to takeout.google.com
2. Click Deselect all at the top
3. Find YouTube and YouTube Music in the product list, check it
4. Click All YouTube data included → Deselect all → check only history → OK
5. Click Multiple formats → change history from HTML to JSON → close
6. Scroll down → Next step → defaults are fine → Create export
7. Wait 5–15 min, Google emails you a .zip
8. Inside: Takeout/YouTube and YouTube Music/history/watch-history.json

If you want the visual step-by-step with screenshots, we have one — including Italian.

The trick: deselect everything

The biggest mistake people make is leaving the default of "export everything." Google will dutifully package up your Gmail, Drive, Photos, Maps history, Calendar, and 40 other products into one giant archive. The download can be multiple gigabytes and take hours for Google to assemble.

For watch history alone, you want exactly one file with a few MB. That's why the Deselect all → check only YouTube → check only history → JSON format sequence matters.

JSON vs HTML

Google Takeout offers two formats for the YouTube history:

| | JSON | HTML | |---|---|---| | File size | ~250 bytes per entry | ~2 KB per entry (8× bigger) | | Parsing speed | fast | slow | | Readability in a browser | poor (it's a raw JSON array) | good (it's a styled page) | | WoYT support | ✓ | ✓ |

Pick JSON. It's smaller, faster, and easier for any tool to parse. The only reason to pick HTML is if you want to scroll the file in a browser like a webpage — which you probably don't.

How long does the export take?

Google quotes "minutes to hours" but in practice:

• Watch history only, JSON, .zip: usually arrives within 5–15 minutes for normal accounts. Sometimes instant.
• Everything Google has on you: can take hours, occasionally days.

We've never seen a "history-only" export take more than 30 minutes.

After you have the file

The takeout gives you raw timestamps — no durations, no totals. To turn that into a "You wasted X hours on YouTube" number you need a tool that looks up each video's real length via the YouTube API.

WoYT does exactly that, free, in 10 seconds. Drop the JSON file into the uploader, see your total, share the link if you want.

If you'd rather DIY, here's the rough algorithm:

1. Parse the JSON: each entry has a titleUrl (extract the v= videoId) and a time (ISO timestamp)
2. Deduplicate videoIds
3. Call YouTube Data API videos.list?part=contentDetails&id=A,B,C… in batches of 50
4. Sum the ISO 8601 PT… durations
5. Bucket the timestamps by day for a chart

Annoying, but maybe a fun afternoon project.

What about deleting the history?

Different question, but related. If you want to delete your watch history (not export it), see how to delete your YouTube watch history.

Privacy considerations

Your takeout file contains:

• Every video you've watched (title + link)
• Every search you've made (in a separate file we don't use)
• Timestamps for everything

This is sensitive. Don't share it casually. If you upload it to a third-party tool (including WoYT), pick one that:

• Stores it under a random URL only you know
• Lets you delete it
• Has a privacy policy that says exactly what it does with the file

(WoYT's is here. Yes, we store it; yes, you can delete it.)