how To Find a Deleted YouTube Video (2024)

You may be a fan of a certain band’s music and add many tracks into a YouTube playlist, as many people do for convenience. One day, you wake up and find that the video is deleted and no longer available. While this happens to many videos, there might still be a way to find them.

YouTube doesn’t support any official methods for finding deleted videos, but there are many other solutions on the internet. They’re not guaranteed to work, but you can always try them. Read to the end for all the details.

Find Deleted YouTube Videos

Deleted YouTube videos won’t appear if you search for them using the bar, go to the URL, or click on it inside a playlist. However, almost nothing on the internet is truly deleted. Website content is often archived or reposted, which makes completely wiping something out nearly impossible.

The former is achieved by internet bot crawlers that go around websites cataloging and archiving anything they see. Famous examples include the Wayback Machine, and we’ll go into more detail in later sections.

Fortunately, if the video was in your playlist, you can get the URL in seconds. If you’ve sent the link as a message, it remains there for eternity. Thus, you always have a way to get to the video, even if it’s not available anymore.

Using URLs is the best way to find a missing video on YouTube. Below are several methods of doing so.

Find Deleted YouTube Videos With URL

Once you have the URL, you should copy it and open your browser. Any browser will do, as you’ll be using the services of several websites. Keep some new tabs open as you’ll need them.

Using the Wayback Machine

The Wayback Machine is another name of Archive.org, an immense repository of archived internet data that is available for all users. Besides books, Archive.org may also contain the video you’re looking for.

If a crawler bot has archived the video, you can find it easily using the Wayback Machine. Videos with lots of views are often archived completely without being screenshots.

Here are the steps:

1. Obtain the lost video’s URL.
2. Go to Archive.org in a new tab.
   
3. Look for the search bar.
   
4. Paste the URL on the search bar.
   
5. Click on “GO” or press the Enter key.
   
6. See if the video appears.
   

Copying the video from a playlist will result in the playlist data being carried over. As this information can prevent the Wayback Machine from detecting the video, we suggest you delete it. It starts with “&list” and has “index=” at the end of the URL.

Removing this information will let you tell the Wayback Machine that you want to look for a publically available video. The chances of finding it will increase significantly.

The problem is that sometimes you will see the video, but it won’t play. The reason is that the bots have only captured a screenshot of the website without getting the video files. Thus, you can’t watch the video.

The Wayback Machine has done its job if the video does play. You may choose to download it to re-upload it or watch it online.

Using Google

Sometimes the Wayback Machine doesn’t work, making it more challenging to find. Google can still help you as the video may have been uploaded elsewhere. You’ll need the video URL but not the whole thing.

Instead, you’ll need the video’s unique identifier, a string of letters, numbers, and symbols at the end. The identifier comes after “v=” and may also be sandwiched between “v=” and the “&” symbol at the end. No matter what, copy the string and follow these steps:

1. Open a new tab.
   
2. Go to Google if it’s not your default browser.
   
3. Paste the unique string on the search bar.
   
4. Search for it.
   
5. Look for any results.
   

Sometimes the video could be uploaded to Facebook, DailyMotion, or other obscure websites. However, like the Wayback Machine, this method isn’t guaranteed to help you find the video you’re looking for.

Find Deleted YouTube Video’s Title

Occasionally, YouTube users just want to find the title of a deleted video for curiosity’s sake, as there’s the possibility of a re-upload or repost. However, YouTube also doesn’t like users doing so, as when you click on a deleted video, things you can typically see are deleted, such as:

• Video title
• Channel name
• Date of upload
• Channel description

On a playlist, YouTube will play the next video after several seconds.

Here are some ways to find the title of a video.

Using Google

Google Search drags up all related information to what you entered in the search bar, including deleted YouTube videos. You may find it on video repost sites, download sites, or other web pages. The video’s title is often what you see first, as that’s how Google finds results.

1. Open a new tab on Google Chrome or another browser with Google as the engine.
   
2. Paste the video URL onto the search bar.
   
3. Perform a search by pressing Enter.
   
4. Look for any helpful results.
   

While finding a functional link is difficult, a video title is much easier to find using this method.

Use the Wayback Machine

As mentioned above, the Wayback Machine crawls the internet looking for unique content and websites. Even though it’s more challenging to find a working video that plays, a screenshot of a video page is most likely the result you get.

1. Copy the deleted video’s URL.
2. Head to Archive.org in a new tab.
   
3. Look for the search bar.
   
4. Paste the URL without playlist information on the search bar.
   
5. Click on “GO” or press the Enter key.
   
6. Check if the video’s title appears.
   

The Wayback Machine lets you see all the information made unavailable, especially the title. If you find the title, you can go back to YouTube and look for any re-uploads.

Nothing Is Truly Gone

In the case of many YouTube videos, Archive.org can save the contents in time, but many other videos that get deleted too quickly are gone. There’s not much we can do because there might not be enough information available to find the video you’re looking for.

What deleted videos have you found with the Wayback Machine? Do you use Archive.org for any other purposes? Let us know in the comments section below.