August 8, 2026

Tips for dealing with Youtube

This is sort of my own FAQ. As you might expect, there is abundant information online about how to do things on YouTube. My goal is to avoid making serious mistakes up front.

Can I replace a video

The short answer is no, but it is not that simple. When you upload a video it gets assigned a unique "tag" and Youtube will not let that tag get placed on a different video. Apparently you can edit a video, but you need to use Youtube studio. This avoids losing view counts and comments. As the second guy says, this is for "emergency surgery", subtraction and concealment

Can I delete a video

The answer is yes. I keep hearing about Youtube Studio to do this and other administrative tasks. Use Youtube video, find your video, click the 3 dots to get a menu and select delete forever. This cannot be undone. This of course loses all comments and view counts.

Can I change my channel name?

The answer is yes, but there are lots of tangles. You can only do this twice every 14 days and it will take days to propogate the change everywhere. I tried this once before and it was a trip into hell. Try to avoid this.
Feedback? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's Digital Photography Info / tom@mmto.org