How I Got My Deleted YouTube Videos Back (When I Thought They Were Gone Forever)

Yesterday (11 October 2025) I accidentally deleted 28 videos from my YouTube channel - 'forever.' Once you press that button they are gone forever no turning back or so I thought.

My stomach was churning I kept checking to see if this had really happened. And yes my best performing videos had all been deleted and that was the end of that......

But then I decided to try reaching out to Youtube, it was a long shot but I thought it was worth a try. The way I am wired, when something awful happens, I have to do something even if the odds are slim, it just gets me out of panic mode and at least I am doing something to help myself until the initial shock has passed.

So I spend about 30 minutes going round and round on the YouTube helpdesk. Eventually I get through to a live chat with a lovely agent. I explained what had happened, (I still had no idea if they were able to help me), but I am asked several questions about the situation and then they send me a form through the text chat and I have to answer 'Yes' and then sign my name.

I then return the 'form' through the text chat and a few minutes later this wonderful YT agent says all has been restored. I had to check for myself and saw that all the videos had been restored. I was so happy jumping up and down and sent lots of thank you and emojis to the kind YT agent. All I could think about was all the hard work I had put in to creating those videos and how they had grown my channel. To think that they had all been deleted and I had to start over was painful, but luckily that was not the case.

What if I had not reached out to the Youtube team? Today I would have been starting the whole process again, to recreate my videos and I did not have back up. Somethink I've learned out of this ordeal. !!!

This is the process and what comes up as you go to delete your video:

The moral of this story is in the midst, of a stressful situation seek help, even if it seems impossible, you never know, and at least you will feel better that at least you tried. I had nothing more to lose the videos were already gone, just having the help from the Youtube agent was already calming me down and I was beginning to accept the losses and so it was a pleasant surprise when the outcome turned out to be a positive one.