How to Clean Up Your YouTube History on Xiaomi Phone: From Search to Recommendations

Why does Xiaomi’s YouTube story behave differently than it does on other phones?

Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi, Poco and Black Shark smartphones often face a unique problem: the history in the YouTube application is not completely cleared or restored after a reboot. The reason for this is the deep integration of Google services with the proprietary shell MIUI. Unlike “pure” Android, there are three layers of data storage: the YouTube application itself, Google account and the cache of the MIUI system.

For example, if you delete your browsing history through the YouTube menu, your search queries may stay in Settings → Google → Account Management, and recommendations will continue to be formed based on data stored in MIUI Security. This fragmentation leads to the fact that standard instructions from the Internet work only partially on Xiaomi. In this article, we will discuss 5 proven ways that are guaranteed to clear the entire story — including hidden data that YouTube does not show to the user.

This is particularly true for devices with MIUI 13/14 on Android 12+, where Google has implemented a system-level “personalized recommendations” mechanism, and even after manual cleaning, history can recover in 24 to 48 hours if you don’t block sync with the cloud, but everything in order.

Method 1: Standard cleaning through the YouTube app

Start with the basic method, which works on all devices, but on Xiaomi requires additional steps. Open the YouTube app and do the following:

• 📱 Slip on the profile avatar in the upper right corner.
• ⚙️ Select Settings → History and confidentiality.
• 🗑️ Click Clear View History (for videos) or Delete Search History (for queries).
• 🔄 Confirm the action by selecting Clean.

On Xiaomi smartphones, you should definitely restart the device after this step, otherwise the data may remain in the cache of com.google.android.youtube. Also check if the Autoplay option is active in the settings - it can restore the history from the recommendations.

Reboot phone | Turn off autoplay in YouTube | Check sync of Google account | Clear app cache in MIUI Security-->

⚠️ Attention: If you are using MIUI 14 with Smart Cleanup, it can automatically delete YouTube cache once every 24 hours.This causes your browsing history to reset, but search queries remain.To avoid the problem, disable smart cleanup for Google apps in Settings → Battery and productivity → Cleanup.

Method 2: Deep Cleaning through Google Account Settings

YouTube stores your history not only in the app itself, but also in the Google cloud, to remove it completely:

1. Open your phone settings → Google → Manage your Google account.
2. Go to the Data and Personalization tab.
3. Scroll down to Activity and chronology and select My Activity.
4. In the filters, specify YouTube and set a date range (for example, For all time).
5. Click Delete and confirm the action.

This method removes history on all devices where you are logged in to this account. On Xiaomi, after this step, it is recommended that you also clear the data of the Google Play Services app (but not the cache!), as they can store local copies of metadata.

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If the story still appears after cleaning, check if the MIUI Data Backup feature is enabled. It can recover history from the Xiaomi cloud. Disables in Settings → Additional → Backup and Reset

Method 3: Resetting personalized recommendations

Even after clearing your history, YouTube can continue to show “relevant” videos, which is because Google’s algorithms analyze not only your history, but also:

• 📍 Geolocation (via Google Play Services)
• 📱 Data from other applications (such as Google Chrome or Gmail)
• 🔄 Activity in other services (e.g. Google Maps)

To reset the recommendations:

1. Open YouTube and go to Settings → History and Privacy.
2. Select Manage All History (Google page will open).
3. Scroll to the Personalization Settings block and turn off the option to Enable browsing and search history.
4. Return to YouTube and click Reset recommendations on the same menu.

On Xiaomi, this process can take up to 72 hours due to the peculiarities of MIUI Optimization. If the recommendations do not reset, try temporarily disabling the Adaptive Battery feature in the power settings - it sometimes blocks background activity of Google services.

Once a week.|Once a month|Only when memory is clogged.|Never clean.-->

Method 4: Cleaning up through MIUI Security (Hidden Data)

The proprietary MIUI Security app (or Security in Russian firmware) stores additional YouTube activity data that is not deleted by standard methods to clear it:

1. Open the Security app (the shield icon).
2. Go to Optimization. → Deep cleaning.
3. Select YouTube from the list of apps.
4. Click Clear and confirm that all data is deleted (not just cache!).
5. Go back to the main Security menu and select Privacy → Permissions Management.
6. Find YouTube and turn off storage, microphone, and location permissions (temporarily).

This method removes all local YouTube traces, including:

• 📁 Activity logs that MIUI collects for "improved productivity"
• 🔑 Authorization Keys That Can Restore History After Rebooting
• 📊 Analytics data that YouTube uses for targeted advertising

⚠️ Note: After a deep cleaning through MIUI Security, you will have to re-sign in to your YouTube account. If you are using Xiaomi Cloud, temporarily disable the synchronization of your application data in Settings. → Accounts. → Mi Cloud, otherwise history can be recovered from the cloud.

Method 5: Radical Method (for advanced users)

If none of these things worked, the radical way is to reset the ad ID and remove all Google data from the device, which completely eliminates personalization, but requires reconfiguring the account.

Instructions:

1. Open Settings → Google → Advertising.
2. Click Reset Advertising ID.
3. Go back to the main settings and select Applications → Application Management.
4. Find and clear the data for: Google Play YouTube Google Play Google Chrome Store (if you use to view YouTube)

Don't come in.

This method works 100%, but has side effects:

• ⚠️ Resets of all Google applications will be reset
• ⚠️ You'll have to reconfigure the synchronization of contacts, mail and calendar.
• ⚠️ YouTube recommendations will be “defaulted” for 2-3 days

How to Prevent the Re-Accumulation of History

To prevent YouTube history from filling in again, set the following settings:

1. Turn off history syncing: On YouTube: Settings → History and Privacy → Suspend browsing history on Google: Account Management → Data and Personalization → Activity in Web Apps → Disable
2. Use Incognito Mode: YouTube: tap on avatar → Enable Incognito Mode In this mode, the story is not saved, but recommendations are still personalized over IP

Limit background activity:

• In MIUI: Settings → Apps → Permissions → Autorun → Disable for YouTube
• This will prevent data collection in the background

On Xiaomi devices, it is also useful to disable MIUI Personalized Services in Settings → Privacy.It collects data about the use of apps, including YouTube, and may indirectly influence recommendations.

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On Xiaomi, YouTube history is stored in 3 places: the app itself, Google account and MIUI Security. To completely clean up, delete data from all three sources.

FAQ: Frequent questions about clearing up YouTube history on Xiaomi