Your YouTube Watch Later hit 5,000 videos?

TidyWL is a free Chrome extension that bulk-deletes, filters, and organizes your Watch Later — entirely in your browser. No account. No uploads.

Add to Chrome — Free.Always free.

Featured by Google Verified publisher

Watch the demo

Why I built this

I hit the 5,000 limit. Then I lost too many evenings to YouTube.

For years I dumped everything into Watch Later like it was a bottomless pit. Turns out it isn't. YouTube has a hidden 5,000-video limit, and once you hit it, new videos silently fail to save: no error, no warning. The only way I noticed was when videos I thought I'd saved weren't there anymore.

The "fix" was even worse: no bulk delete, no filtering, no search. Just me, scrolling through an endless list, removing videos one by one. Every 1-2 months I'd lose an evening to it.

I finally snapped and built TidyWL, a free Chrome extension that gives you an actual dashboard for your Watch Later. See a breakdown by channel, filter and sort by date or duration, search by title, and bulk-delete hundreds of videos in seconds.

Dominic, indie developer

Features

Everything you wish YouTube had

By Topic tab

Automatically groups your Watch Later by recurring keywords in titles (e.g. "recipe", "react", "interview"). Click a topic row to filter the video list, the same way the By Channel view works. Runs 100% client-side, no API calls, no data sent anywhere.

Channel Breakdown

See your Watch Later organized by channel. Find all the videos from that one YouTuber you binged three months ago in one click.

Delete Hundreds at Once

YouTube forces you to delete videos one by one. TidyWL lets you select hundreds with checkboxes and bulk-delete in seconds.

Bulk Move to Playlist

Move selected videos to any playlist, or create a new one right from the dashboard. YouTube has no bulk-move at all.

Reorder Your Way

Send selected videos to the top or bottom with one click, or drag and drop (single or multi-select) to place them exactly where you want.

Beat the 5,000 Limit

YouTube silently stops saving videos past 5,000. TidyWL helps you clean out old videos so you can keep adding new ones.

Unique to TidyWL

And everything else you'd expect

Watch Progress & Filters

Filter watched, unwatched, or unavailable videos. Progress bars on every card.

Richer Video Cards

Progress bar, duration badge, view count, and upload date on every card.

Open in Tabs

Open all selected videos at once as background tabs. No one-by-one clicking.

Hidden-Video Explainer

See exactly why YouTube's count differs from yours, with a reason shown per hidden video.

Search, Filter, Sort

Find videos by title, channel, watched status, availability, or duration (incl. a Shorts bucket). Sort by playlist order, duration, published date, channel, or title.

Brand-Channel Support

Works on Page (brand-channel) Watch Later playlists too. New in v1.2.0.

Multi-Account

Isolated storage per YouTube account. No cross-contamination.

Create Playlists Inline

Make a new playlist without leaving the dashboard.

Export Your Data

Export to JSON or CSV anytime.

Plus keyboard shortcuts, shift-click selection, filter chips, and dismissible in-app announcements.

How it works

Up and running in 30 seconds

Step 1

Install the extension and go to your Watch Later page (youtube.com/playlist?list=WL).

Step 2

Click "Open Dashboard" and hit Sync to load your playlist.

Step 3

Browse, filter, and bulk-delete. Or reorder and export if you'd rather tidy than purge.

Reviews

What users are saying

★★★★★

"The dev spent DAYS solving why I couldn't get this to work and built a new version that fixed the issue. Beyond 5-star service. The plugin itself works PERFECTLY."

— Sia Chrome Web Store review

★★★★★

"The only one that actually worked and was useful."

— Santiago Chrome Web Store review

"Finally — I NEEDED something to categorize my Watch Later videos. So many damn tabs open for later, it was keeping me from using my browser."

— @DETahaX YouTube viewer

Frequently asked questions

YouTube caps every playlist, including Watch Later, at 5000 items. Once you hit the limit, adding more fails silently. The only fix is to delete older ones. This extension makes that possible without losing your afternoon.

Install the extension, go to your Watch Later page, click "Open Dashboard", hit Sync, then select videos (individually, by channel, by filter, or with Cmd/Ctrl+A) and press Delete. YouTube's API requires sequential deletion, so large batches take a few seconds.

It scans the titles of videos in your cached Watch Later and clusters them by recurring keywords (e.g. "recipe", "react", "interview"). Each video is assigned to its single strongest keyword, and topics with fewer than 3 videos are excluded to avoid noise. It runs entirely in your browser: no API calls, no external service, no data sent anywhere.

No. It uses the same internal endpoints your browser already calls when you use YouTube. No API key, no OAuth, no account setup.

YouTube hides videos from its own playlist API when they are deleted, set to private, region-locked, copyright-blocked, from an expired livestream, from a suspended channel, or age-restricted. The dashboard shows you the exact gap and explains each reason.

No. Everything runs locally in your browser. No login, no servers, no analytics, no telemetry. The extension calls YouTube's own endpoints (with your existing session) and a public config file on tidywl.com (no identifiers, no payload).

Yes, as of v1.2.0. Sync, delete, and reorder all work correctly on brand-channel Watch Later playlists.

No. Deletions are permanent on YouTube's side. Confirm before you delete. Use Export first if you want a snapshot.

No. The cached playlist lives in your browser's local storage. Open the extension on another device, hit Sync, and you get a fresh pull from YouTube.

Possibly. This extension piggybacks on YouTube's internal endpoints, which can change without notice. v1.2.0 added a remote config system that can patch parser paths without forcing an extension update, which adds some resilience. Larger breakages will still require an update.

Support

Need help?

Most issues have a quick fix. Start here before reaching out.

Common issues

Sync stuck or showing the wrong count? Check the hidden-video explainer in the FAQ above. YouTube hides deleted, private, region-locked, copyright-blocked, expired livestream, suspended-channel, and age-restricted videos from its own API.
Wrong account showing? Refresh the YouTube tab to pick up your current login, then reopen the dashboard.
Extension not loading? Make sure you are on youtube.com/playlist?list=WL and signed in.

Still stuck? Email us

For anything the common fixes above don't cover: bug reports, questions, feedback, Ko-fi issues.

Email support

Privacy

Your data stays yours

No servers. No tracking. No accounts. TidyWL works entirely in your browser — your YouTube data never leaves your machine.

No Servers No Tracking No Accounts Local Only