YouTube recently announced any Unlisted videos that were uploaded before January 1st, 2017 will have their visibility status set to Private starting July 23, 2021. As a reminder, Private videos can only be viewed by someone you’ve specifically invited via their Google account. Most faculty share their videos with visibility set to Unlisted instead. In this video, the YouTube Creators Channel walks you through what actions you can take before this change from Unlisted to Private takes effect.
The key takeaway: If you would like your affected videos to remain Unlisted, you can opt out of this change by filling out this form before July 21, 2021.
If you’ve been using YouTube for hosting and captioning videos you share with students, we encourage you to check and see whether any of them will become unavailable prior to the start of the Fall 2021 semester. Here are the instructions on how to check which of your videos will be affected by this change.
Any Unlisted videos you uploaded to YouTube before January 1, 2017 and that you have embedded in a web page or the Canvas Learning Management System will become Private, and therefore unviewable, on July 23, 2021. If you need these videos to stay viewable, the easiest thing to do is opt your channel out of the change (do this before July 21) or make the videos public (do this anytime – the video on this page explains how to quickly make multiple YouTube videos public). The more tedious option is to re-upload your videos and set their visibility Unlisted; this last option will change the video URL, and you’ll need to re-embed the video wherever you have it displayed.
If you need help with checking the visibility status of your older videos, or deciding on the best course of action, please book a 30-minute consultation with Instructional Developer Cheryl Colan (link opens a new browser tab).
Good news for those folks who recorded a video introduction at the CTLE during a past Week of Accountability: these videos were recorded in 2017 or later, and are not impacted by this change. Your intro video will remain unlisted but will continue to play back anywhere you may have embedded it.
