A Chrome extension that helps parents clean up a child's YouTube account in bulk and point it toward better content. Prune subscriptions, recommendations, and watch history, and subscribe to a shared list of good channels.
| Clean Up Recommendations | Clean Up Subscriptions |
|---|---|
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| Clean Up History | For Kids |
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The popup has four tabs:
- Scans the YouTube homepage (auto-scrolls to load more)
- Channels on your block lists are pre-selected; add others by keyword or by hand
- Applies YouTube's "Don't recommend channel" to the channels you pick
- Undo via myactivity.google.com → Other Google activity → YouTube "Not interested" feedback → Delete (note: this resets all such feedback, not individual ones)
- Loads the full subscription list (auto-scrolls to capture every channel, not just visible ones)
- Select channels by block-list match, by keyword (name, handle, or description), or with "Select Bottom N" to prune the least-watched (sort the page by "Most relevant" first)
- One-click bulk unsubscribe
- Scans watch history (auto-scroll, capped) for videos from channels on your block lists
- Removes selected videos from history, which helps retrain what YouTube recommends
- A shared list of good channels to consider for your kids
- "Check If Subscribed" marks which ones the account already follows
- Open any channel to preview, then subscribe to the ones you select
- Progress + per-item results - failed items are listed with a reason
- Survives popup close - the unsubscribe, block, and history batches run in the page; closing the popup doesn't stop them (subscribing must keep the popup open, since it navigates between channel pages)
- Stop button to halt mid-run
Detection is list-based and exact-match: a channel is flagged only when its name or @handle exactly equals an entry on a list (case-insensitive). No keyword or partial matching, to avoid false positives on destructive actions.
Three lists, all managed on GitHub under lists/:
gaming-channels.txt- gaming channels (Gaming tag)misc-channels.txt- other blocked channels (Misc tag)recommended-channels.txt- good channels for the For Kids tab
The extension pulls the latest lists from GitHub each time the popup opens, with a local cache fallback if GitHub is unreachable. The footer "View Lists" panel shows counts, sync status, and links to each list on GitHub.
You don't edit lists in the extension. Instead:
- Block lists: in Clean Up Subscriptions or Recommendations, select channels and click "Suggest Selected for Shared Block Lists"
- Good channels: in Clean Up Subscriptions, select channels and click "Suggest Selected as Good Channels for Kids"
Each opens a prefilled GitHub issue. The maintainer adds the approved label, and a GitHub Action appends the channels to the right list (deduped, sorted) and closes the issue. Every install picks up the change on its next refresh.
- Download or clone this repository
- Open Chrome and go to
chrome://extensions/ - Enable Developer mode (top right)
- Click Load unpacked and select the
youtube-manager-for-parentsfolder
The kid's profile is typically a Family Link supervised account, which blocks unpacked/off-store installs. For that, publish/install via the Chrome Web Store (unlisted) instead.
- Log into the child's YouTube account in the browser you run this from
- Each tab has a "Take me to..." link to the right YouTube page
- Run a small selection first to confirm everything works before a large batch
- No personal data is collected, and none is sent anywhere
- The only network request is fetching the public channel lists from GitHub
- All actions are performed by clicking YouTube's own controls in your tab, only when you click a button in the popup
- Uses your existing YouTube session; no separate login or API key
- Nothing found when scanning: make sure you're on the right page (the tab tells you which) and logged into the correct account; refresh and try again
- An action fails: YouTube changes its page structure periodically; the per-item result log shows the reason. Open an issue with the detail
- List changes not showing: click Refresh in the View Lists panel; GitHub's CDN can lag a few minutes
- Unsubscribe and history removal are real actions; double-check selections first
- YouTube's UI changes over time and may break selectors until updated
- Use at your own risk
MIT License.
Use the in-extension "Suggest" buttons to nominate channels, or open an issue / pull request. Suggestions for good kids channels and block-list additions are welcome.